A new camera & lens... Help needed please!

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imisheikh

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Hi Guys,

I would like to thank you in advance for taking the time to read this thread and offer your good advice.

Having played around with a whole host of digital camera's, my wife and I have decided to enter the deep world of DSLR's! Now comes the hard part of deciding what to get....

Use

We are expecting twins in December so my wife will be keen to take lots of pictures of them and us as a family. We also love to travel and though won't be doing the kind of exploration we have in the past, would stlll like the camera to be able to take nice family holiday pictures. Finally, so I dont have to carry a separate camcorder, I'm keen for my machine to have HD video capability.

Body

From my reading, the Canon 550D seems to have fantastic reviews and also has the HD video I'm keen to have. Now obtainable at £600 (which would be my max budget), I feel like its the right option.

Please feel free to comment on whether I am making the right choice or whether there are better / more cost effective options.

Lens

Wow - this can be very confusing and I certainly don't feel it is prudent for me to spend more than £300 on a lens at this stage! We are not professional photographers but appreciate a great picture. I simply want something that is going to utilise the 550D's capabilities well (assuming I decide to buy it) and give us very great results for what we need it for. So far, I have considered the following;

18 - 55m Kit lens
Tamron 17-50mm F2.8 XR Di II LD Asp
Canon 28-135mm EF f3.5-5.6 IS USM
Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM


I would really appreciate all your help and advice! If you have any other tip son accessories or other things I need to consider, then please let me know :)
 
Best advice is to get down to your local camera shop and have a feel of the camera....you may decide its not quite comfortable enough and find something else that is. Personally speaking I'm a Nikon man but each has their favourite...the most important thing to remember is that at that particular budget, all cameras, regardless of brand are capable of taking great pictures.

Neil
 
I appreciate it being your first DSLR and your desire to buy new but photography is a progressive hobby with lots of upgrade paths, that said you can do whole lot better with your budget buying s/h, there are fewer moving parts in today's digital format and photographic kit is generally looked after well.
For greater peace of mind you could even pick something up with some warranty remaining, have a look around the classifieds at what is and what was for sale to get a comparison between new and s/h.

Best of luck and welcome to photography and this forum.
 
I bought my second hand 20D with the canon 'Nifty Fifty' takes great pics for the money and works very will in low light/indoors, the previous owner bought it for that very reason to take piccies of his little un. He also bough a zoom possibly tamron or sigma 70-300 for out door piccies and not having to chase her around to get a shot ;) I was not so impressed with that but I bought the canon 28-105 3.5-4.5 (predecessor to the 28-135 IS) and its a great lens for the money IMHO.
 
With the total budget of £900 I would seriously look at the Canon 550d twin lens package (18-55 IS/ 55-250 IS) from warehouse Express for £850 and put the spare into a nifty fifty for indoor work. See here
 
grahamsewelluk said:
With the total budget of £900 I would seriously look at the Canon 550d twin lens package (18-55 IS/ 55-250 IS) from warehouse Express for £850 and put the spare into a nifty fifty for indoor work. See here
Click to expand...

As the proud owner of a 550D, plus the 18-55 and 55-250 zooms, I would agree. I've found my 550D to be much better than my earlier 450D in poor light and indoors. This would make it ideal for taking shots of your tiny terror. The 3.7 frames per second burst rate is also handy for catching rapidly moving, small animals.

Incidentally, watch out for when the terror gets to the diving head first off the furniture stage - babies are very poor at comprehending that such behaviour isn't really such a good idea.
 
Thanks for your input guys.

The twin kits lens (18-55 and 55-250) definetly makes financial sense however some friends of mine said that they wouldn't produce the kind of quality that would do the 550D justice.

This now leaves me somewhat confused?!

For my own peace on mind and so I can make an informed decision, IF I decided not to get the Kit lenses, then going back to my original post, which of these (or any others) would you recommed?

Tamron 17-50mm F2.8 XR Di II LD Asp
Canon 28-135mm EF f3.5-5.6 IS USM
Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM

Thank!
 
alexhcowley said:
Incidentally, watch out for when the terror gets to the diving head first off the furniture stage - babies are very poor at comprehending that such behaviour isn't really such a good idea.
Click to expand...

QFT! MY daughter dived head first off the sofa as I was about the take a picture. Unfortunately there was a table in the way and didn't make it in time, but after she repaeted this off the bed, she realised dad was useless and now checks where the edge of the furniture is :).

Taking video from a DSLR is quite hard work, not as easy as I thought it would be when I got my 7D
 
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I would also budget for a flash unit, for a Nikon an SB600 at £200 would be great, as that will make a hell of a difference to pics of your babies. Canon or Nikon are good choices. A D90 kit would be around £750 so getting to top end of budget, but a D5000 kit would be good too.
 
I am thinking of perhaps starting out with the kits lenses and then add the a better lens a bit later after we feel comfortable with the camera.

On that note, in your opinion, which of these Kits lenses would be better; given the price difference is nominal.

The '18-55mm IS + 55-250mm IS Twin Kit' or the '18-135 IS Lens Kit'
 
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