Jump to content

I really need some help picking a digital SLR


Recommended Posts

Hello All

 

I started a small home studio a few months ago and things are going

well. I have a few 35mm film cameras and a Minolta Dimage A1 (SLR-

type camera). I think I am ready to upgrade to a digital SLR. I have

mostly been looking at Canon and Oympus. I need to have a PC

terminal on the camera or something that will trigger my Smith

Victor strobes. I'm really not sure how "professional" of a camera I

need. I take portraits and some commercial work for local businesses.

I would like to stay under $1200.

 

The Canon EOS 20D looks great but a bit expensive. The Rebel XT

looks good, but the sales person at Canon said it would not trigger

my flash system. I also had some interest in the Oympus Evolt 300,

but not sure if it has a PC terminal. I have a quesion in to Oympus

now for response about this.

 

If anyone has some input for me I would really appreciate it. I just

can't seem to find the right fit. Thanks- Janet

Link to comment
Share on other sites

See the review at this site. They do great comparisons between various cameras.

 

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympuse300/

 

In particular, look for comparisons between image quality at various ISO settings. In the studio, the Olympus should be fine, since you'll be able to shoot at ISO 100. But if you want to do other things the Olympus image quality falls apart at higher ISOs, particularly in comparison to the Canons.

 

A Canon 300D and a 50mm f:1.8 lens for portraits in the studio will be very inexpensive. Don't get Canon's 18-55 kit lens for professional work. You'll end up tossing it in the trash.

 

For group photos in the studio a 28mm f:2.8 Canon lens will be fine. Stay away from any of the inexpensive zooms. Just get the least expensive fixed focal length lenses in the range you need. You won't spend much money on hardware and the image quality will be excellent.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I thought I posted a response, but I don't see it. So here it is again.

 

I had heard about an adapter to trigger for strobes. but the Canon salesperson told me the adapter they had would only trigger their flash unit. Maybe she was wrong?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There are a number of way's you could go about this, for example:

 

A DSLR body of your choice that ranges less than $1000.00 and add a radio slave, this would keep you around or under your $1200.00 limit, and give you the freedom of being non tethered to the flash units!

 

I wanted to go the same route as you, so when I did it, I purchased a Fuji S2 pro body, it has a PC socket, although it was a bit more expensive at $1499.00, but I was impressed with its features that are mostly found on more expensive DSLR's, although I do wish I had waited and saved up for the Fuji S3 pro!

 

But now with the digital sensors breaking into the realm of being full size, "Full frame 35mm" I think the smart money will be in waiting to see what happens over the next few years, and hope in time that the full frame cameras come down in price, "As all new to market electronic equipment tends to do" so it may be a wiser choice to go with something you can live with for now, "If full frame is something you would be interested in that is"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Rebel XT has a flash hotshoe so unless there's something bizarrely proprietary about it, you should easily be able to use a pc sync cord adapter with that, OR you can attach an infrared wireless trigger to it (I use a Wein SSR junior).<P>

 

Anyway, why are you even listening to what a salesman in a camera store tells you?<P>

 

There is virtually NO serious or semi-serious camera on the market that cannot be attached to a studio flash. Even my little, old, Olympus 3030 digital point-and-shoot can be attached to a PC sync cord via an adaptor the company makes.<P>

 

One problem with the entry-level DSLR's is that they have el-cheapo pentamirror viewfinders which are small and dark. I find that a large bright viewfinder is very helpful in studio photography. This means you want a pentaPRISM viewfinder (Rebel XT is pentaMIRROR) and a FAST lens - nothing slower than f/2.8. So if you do buy the XT, stay away from the kit lens. The other reason you want at least f/2.8 is that most lenses need to be stopped down at least a stop for decent performance and f/4 still gives reasonable control over depth of field.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What sort of strobe are you triggering? I found a radio strobe on eBay BIN for under $30.

Sure, it lacks the features found on $300 radio triggers, but it works just as good as a PC

cord! (Better, in fact, since you aren't tethered.)

 

I find the E-300 to have adequate viewing brightness, even with an f4 lens.

 

But to me, the REAL reason to go Olympus is the glass. Skip the "kit" lenses and go with

one of their higher-end ones. I hear the 14-54/2.8-3.5 is lovely.

 

I'm a wide/macro freak, so I got the 11-22 and the 50/2 macro. The latter also makes a

decent portrait lens, although you'll probably want to soften those crows feet in

Photoshop, the lens is so sharp!

 

I also got the 7-14/4. This is simply an awesome lens. No one else has anything like it.

 

Oly has just announced a full-frame fisheye (great for spinners) and the world's first and

only constant f2 zooms.

 

So the N/C crowd will jump in and tout how many lenses there are for their mounts. If a

lens is great, you only need one! (Reminds me of the Windows-Mac debates: just how

many word processors do you need, anyway? :-)

 

The next Oly body is rumored to have in-camera image stabilization. What a great way to

protect your lens investment, rather than have to go out and buy new lenses to get IS!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As usual, salesmen don't know what they're talking about (or pretend not to in the hope of upselling). You state you have "a few 35mm cameras" without explaining which ones or the lenses you have for them already. It's likely that depending on what you have you would be able to re-use the lenses which will help to keep your overall costs down.

 

As to the strobe issue: you obviously have already developed a technique for your strobe setup and choice of aperture/film speed with your existing cameras, and there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to carry this across to a digital setup, essentially regardless of which camera you go for. You could go for a PC link, if necessary via a hot shoe adaptor, provided that the voltage is within limits for the camera you choose (250V in the case of the Rebel XT). You may also be able to trigger your strobes using a regular flash on the hotshoe (one that can be manually controlled to say 1/16th power would be fine) if they are equipped with an optical slave. You probably can't use a popup flash to do this conveniently (certainly not on the Rebel XT) because it emits a preflash that will trigger your strobes too early (about 1/20th before the shutter opens). The advantage is you get rid of the cord trail to the camera, as well as having a light that can be just enough to give catchlights in the subject's eyes. If you don't want the on camera flash to upset your lighting, provided you can tilt the head to the ceiling or swivel it so it is aimed directly at an optical slave instead of the subject there would still be enough light to trigger your strobes. Even if your strobes don't already have an optical slave, these are available cheaply and can be plugged in to the lead that otherwise would have trailed to the camera.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This has been extremely helpful.

 

The camera kit I can get with the Olympus Evolt would be:

Camera Kit with 14-45mm f/3.5-5.6, and Zuiko EZ Zoom Lens and 40-150mm f/3.5-4.5

 

Since I hardly ever use an ISO setting higher than 400 I am thinking this camera may be the answer.

 

The film cameras I still have are an old Minolta x700 with a 50mm lens and a Nikon N50 with a zoom. I never used the Nikon camera much and just got it for a backup off of Ebay.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I am looking to get into a dslr myself. I'll be moving from the Mamiya RZ system to digital

capture and I'm leaning toward a used 1D. The 20D has been an option, but I'm going for

a pro body with quality pixels. The 20D may be a higher resolution, but I don't beleive it

beats the 1D in all around quality. If that's out of your budget Panasonic just announced

an 8 mp camera that looks very appealing. The DMC-FZ30 has a fixed lens, PC terminal

and shoots RAW files.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The issue with the strobe is probably whether or not the camera's built-in system for determinaing exposure will work. If you don't use that and stick with the tried and true aperture-distance method, the methods suggested should work. It should also work if the flash system itself has sensors which determine the duration of the flash.

 

You should get a DSLR rather than a fixed lens digital camera. It will allow you much greater flexibility in the end. Also reflex viewing and framing is superior, in my opinion, to trying to use the typical eyepiece found on a consumer grade digital camera or the LCD.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think you need to consider what lenses you really need for this sort of work. Studio portraits are usually done with lenses with an angle of view ranging between 35mm (small group) and 135mm (headshot) in 35mm equivalent terms. On a 35mm camera, it is also useful to be able to reduce depth of field to throw the background out of focus and create a more dreamy look, and this is done by using a wider aperture.

 

As a first order rule of thumb, you need to divide the aperture you would use on 35mm by the camera crop factor (1.6 for the Rebel or 1.5 for Nikon or KM, and 2 for the Oly) to get the same depth of field at the same angle of view in 35mm equivalent terms (multiply the actual focal length of the lens by the crop factor to get this). You probably want your lenses to be a bit faster than this, so that you are using them slightly stopped down where they will perform better than wide open. Using this to define the lenses you would want to have will allow you to choose the camera that best meets your needs.

 

One other thing to bear in mind is that so far there has been little effort to produce specialist portrait lenses for crop factor cameras. Look at some of these images to see what I am talking about:

 

http://www.pbase.com/cameras/canon/ef_85_12u

 

http://www.pbase.com/cameras/canon/ef_85_18u

 

http://www.pbase.com/cameras/canon/ef_50_14u

 

http://www.pbase.com/cameras/canon/ef_135_2u

 

http://www.pbase.com/cameras/canon/ef_135_28_soft_focus

 

The above are all Canon lenses (and with the exception of the 50mm) designed for portrait work. Note none of them is a zoom, and they are all fairly fast. You could probably find similar offerings for most other manufacturers (try the search facility at pbase, select by camera, then the manufacturer, and you will find the lenses listed). Bear in mind that some of the images will have been taken with larger format sensors/film than the cameras you are considering (you can usually see details of the camera used etc. by looking at individual images).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I agree with the recomendation of the hot shoe to PC terminal attachemnt to trigger your flash. As a note though get one with a circut protector on it about $30. Voltage from the flash coming back through the attachment can fry a digital camera. I can also recomend the Nikon D70s camera. One of the pluses (in my opinion) is the CCD sensor in the Nikon vs the CMOS sensor of the canon, 1/500 flash sync. My best piece of advice is Good Glass is Forever if you have quality glass now stick with it if you don't look at which system fits you needs best
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...