I’m considdering buying a digital camera in the $1000 to $1500 range, and I am looking for some advice on which cameras are best. I need quite a bit of flexibility, although most of my photography is nature and wildlife.
I’ve been looking at the Canon 20D (out in Sept.) and the slightly cheaper Nikon D70. Any others that I should consider, or any clear advantages of one over the other (or for that matter of canon over nikon or vicea versa)?
Because I did have a whole bunch of excellent prime Pentax glass, I bought the *istD last March. I have been very pleasantly surprised at the quality of its images.
Now I’ve got the go ahead from the wife for a Nikon digital SLR body as well, since I also have Nikon lenses, and I’ll buy one of the rumored new models to be released this fall.
The bottom line is that you can’t really go wrong with any of the current digital SLR models from Nikon, Pentax, Fuji and Canon. It comes down to which camera body feels better in your hands.
What I did is use as many digital SLR cameras as I could by borrowing or renting each one for at least a couple of days at a time.
I’m sure there are vast numbers of Nikon, Canon, Pentax or Fuji owners ready to jump in with glowing endorsement. They’re all fine pieces of equipment.
The only line I’d be hesitant to recommend would be the Kodak digital SLR, but the Kodak cameras are way over your price range anyway, so there’s no need to go into that.
Check the Adobe Photography forum, as well as the "New gear, Drool!" thread here in the Photoshop forum. There are literally thousands of posts on point.
I just went D70 $1300 (because I had some Nikkor glass), but I read that the Canon telephoto is the better for focus response(?). I also have little need for anything over 150mm.
I have extensive experience with the Nikon D2H, D100, and D1X, and the Canon 1D Mark 2, as well as the Canon 10D.
As it would be off the focus of this list to go into too much detail, I’ll keep it brief. My advice is… GO WITH CANON. You can contact me off list at photoshoplist at bake dot org if you want to know exactly while I feel this way.
I personally use the Mark 2, and it’s a spectacular camera. But it’s out of your price range. The 10D is also really good for the money. Subject to the consideration of slightly diminished latitude, the quality of the 10D is arguably equal to 35mm.
The 20D looks to be a clone of the Mark 2 with the same imaging chip and filter, but with diminished battery life, processor speed, and buffer size. So if you can wait, then that’s going to be the camera you want.
If you MUST have a Nikon, get the D70, as it is the least affected by the issues that cause me to dislike the rest of the Nikons.
What Ramon said. Either Nikon or Canon digital SLRs will serve you well. You should handle the cameras and see which brand "feels" best to you as you take test shots in the store (pointedly ignoring the salespeople, who no doubt are fine folks but have their own agendas and personal biases).
I would avoid the Canon Digital Rebel series as being lower quality than its competition, particularly against the D70. The Rebels are capable of very good pix but definitely are not professional quality.
The Nikon D70 is IMO the best SLR digital camera in your price range at the moment. It is very solid at the under US$1000 price point. However, I have not worked with a 20D because it is not readily available yet. And when it is available my understanding is that it will cost a substantial amount more than the D70 (+50%?), for a while at least. If production models (prototypes are essentially irrelevant) of the 20D are as solid as the 10D, then the 20D may become the next temporary leader in the best US$800-1500 SLR digicam evolution.
I am very anxious to see what Nikon releases this fall because my work screams for a D2x…
Both Nikon and Canon make a range of lenses from good to excellent, and you will get what you pay for (a $500 17-55 zoom lens is about a third as good as a $1500 17-55 zoom lens by the same manufacturer). In any event buy only modern lenses made by the camera manufacturer and specified as ideal for your SLR digital camera. Many retail sellers will try to con you into a "value" third party lens; do _not_ go that route because (among other things) you are likely to find that next year’s camera firmware or your next camera body does work fully with the electronics built in to the third party glass. Even more so than with modern film SLRs, digital SLR camera/lens systems are very much about proprietary electronics that must match perfectly if you want optimum pix.
"I personally use the Mark 2, and it’s a spectacular camera. But it’s out of your price range. The 10D is also really good for the money. Subject to the consideration of slightly diminished latitude, the quality of the 10D is arguably equal to 35mm."
Arguably. Maybe close to color neg, but not even near a fine grained transparency film.
"The 20D looks to be a clone of the Mark 2 with the same imaging chip and filter, but with diminished battery life, processor speed, and buffer size. So if you can wait, then that’s going to be the camera you want."
The 20D has a 1.6 factor while the MKII is a 1.3 factor. The chips are not the same even if the megapixels are.
My guess is that what Peter meant to say is that "the quality of the 10D is arguably equal to a typical 35mm film SCAN." And I would very strongly concur with the statement as modified.
Film on the light table is beautiful – – but quite useless in production work. After expensive, time-comsuming scanning 35 mm film generated files typically are not any more useful than quality SLR digicam files.
One-up (non production) photo art work is another medium, another story.
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