Recent content by Petri

I'll pipe up again - I use the cheapie Canon 50mm 1.8 on my 500D all the time and it's a great combination! Perfect for portraits. If video's not an issue I'd have no hesitation in recommending the 500D - it's not quite as sturdy as a 40D being more entry level, but the technology inside is...

The D3100 is probably the earliest/cheapest Nikon with HD video - not sure how well it works though. I have the 500D and it's a great camera BUT the 1080p video is compromised by a slow frame rate (20fps max rather than the normal 24fps) and you have to drop down in quality to get higher...

Best advice is to try handling a few different cameras in the shop and see what feels right. I'd agree a DSLR is the better learning tool - there's nothing like an optical viewfinder to get you up close and personal with the act of actually taking a picture, I think - rather than holding a CSC...

I'd agree you'll likely see a bigger improvement with a nice lens than either of the bodies mentioned - they're good, but they're not massively different to what you've got. At least with the 1100D you know it's history and approximate shutter count etc - chances are it's got a good few years...

"Almost" every lens - meaning there are caveats of course. The fact is, regardless of release dates, Nikon are still producing and selling lenses today at various price points which aren't compatible with the D3100 and similar. For a newbie starting out it can be quite confusing, and it makes...

The 600D is an EF mount camera as much as it is an "EFS body" - it's designed to accept EF lenses and there's no reason why you shouldn't use them. Specific individual lenses may have strengths and weaknesses on a crop body, but there's no general rule either way as far as I know. EFS lenses...

I'll declare my bias up front, I am a canon user and my preference here would be.. The canon! But I will back that up slightly... As you're on a budget, I think the canon has a distinct advantage in terms of building up a lens collection going forward. The problem with the d3100 (and most...

Familiarity does breed sales; although I came from a Nikon film background, when I came to choose a DSLR the fact that the two other people I knew with DSLRs both had Canons (with lenses I could borrow) certainly had some bearing on my decision. Since then, another friend of mine bought a...

Definitely try a few other bodies of both makes, and maybe a Sony or Pentax too for good measure. Don't get hung up on the notion that one brand must be inherently "better" than the other - Canon and Nikon have been neck and neck for decades precisely because they both make great cameras that...

Funnily enough I shot film for years with the same Nikon E Series 50mm lens as disliked by the OP and always found it a good lens; it's a good general purpose focal length on a film or FF body and the wide aperture on even the cheapest versions can be a godsend (especially when shooting film...

Well the topic of the thread (which seems to be getting forgotten a lot) is whether Canon are losing their way in the DSLR market. Somehow the development and performance of their sensors has become interchangeable with that in this discussion, but I'd argue that Canon's approach to R&D when...

Well it's easy to state something like that as fact in a forum but, as others have pointed out, Canon still sell more DSLRs than anyone else and are presumably turning a profit. So to say their strategy "isn't working out so far" is a bit disingenuous. We don't know what new technology Sony or...

It's as near as damn it :)

Perhaps but then it's an investment in the company's own future - at least it's their own R&D they're paying for rather than a direct competitors. And of course they get to set their own roadmap and their own rate of development - hence the last few years of the same 18mp sensor (they've...

I'm sure Nikon have some input into Sony's sensor designs - for example with the D800, they wanted a 36mp sensor and that's what Sony delivered them, for that purpose alone - but the point is, the underlying technology is Sony's. if Pentax wanted a 36mp FF sensor for their next model then it's...