Advice please

[jay t.]

If you really want a Canon, get an AE-1. You don't need autofocus, you don't need various program functions, and you don't need various metering modes. For metering a simple center-weighted system works fine AND teaches you to be aware of light, which at the end is perhaps the most fundamental aspect of photography.

 

Of course you're not limited to Canon. I'm partial to Pentax myself, and getting a hold of a working MX or LX is not too hard. Plenty of lenses available too.

 

As mentioned above, with an older camera you may have to spend some money to fix things, so they don't necessarily present an outstanding financial value, though often they don't require much more than a simple CL&A. However, once they're up and running, they'll stay up and running and will take abuse better (in my opinion) than most newer cameras, especially the cheap Rebel you're considering.

[panos_voudouris]

"The other issue I read about was that the 7 has big problems in low light situations. Any insight on that matter?"

 

I find the focusing very fast and accurate. In low light focusing is not better than any other equally priced camera, and a bit better than the Rebel 2000. When it gets dark I start using the centre point which is more accurate. If that cannot achieve lock too you really are in a dark environment.

 

Film? That is a subjective question, anyonw you ask will give you a different answer. You should definately try a couple of rolls of each of the following: Fuji Reala, Fuji NPH, Kodak Portra NC, Kodak Ultra Color.

 

I'm only listing negative films here. If you want slides look for Fuji Sensia/Astia, Kodak Elite Chrome/E100G for your portraits.

 

Some of these come in different speeds, try all of them. Start with print films if you think these are too many. It might seem a lot of wasted film but there is no substitute for personal experience and negative films are always a combination with the lab you use. Try not to use supermarkets or places like that but a proper photo lab and try to match the labs so that your lab prints Fuji films to Fuji papers and Kodak films to Kodak papers.

 

And buy your film mail order. Much much cheaper.

[luis triguez]

Darren,

 

To start, moderation is a must, till your own knowledge will advise r you for new needs.

 

After lot of years photographig, my counsel is a manual body with standar lens plus a 28 and 135 to start with.

 

In case you need more you can buy a 2X for the telex.

 

And if you need even more, RENT lenses, until you can be sure they are really a necessity.

 

Good shoting!

[dietbrand]

""When I was in my photography class I had my PS and I had also borrowed a family friend's camera.""

 

 

You really can't compare a PS to an manual SLR. And you really need to know your camera before you can concentrate on the getting the picture right.

 

As you might have guessed I'm partial to a manual focussing SLR as well. The reason is simple the camera will force you to learn the basics of light(measuring), depth of field (and how that changes with aperture),...

I do realise that a modern camera does have a manual setting but this is not the same.

 

A second reason is that 80% of the cases (my guess) you won't need all the bells and whisles of a modern slr, so why pay for them. Especially when your interest lies with portaits and landscapes. You'll be getting more trouble from a AF and auto-exposure than benefits in that line of photgraphy.

 

My advice would be to buy into a system (so that you can expand when needed).

Get a good (prosumer grade) mf slr (perhaps with the ability for a motor drive).

The only necessary exposure feature is IMHO aperture priority (although a spot meter is nice too). Perhaps get a second hand external meter (very handy for studio portaits, especially if it's a flash meter).

Begin with the basic lenses 50mm (everyone should have one, it's a great learning lens), 28mm (landscapes), 80 or 135 (portraits).

Buy the best tripod your budget will allow (trust me on this one).

Look for a light bag that feels comfortable (hiking for landscapes) and water/sandproof. If you've grown into your system and are ready to upgrade you'll know what bag you want

 

For film i recommend Fuji Velvia for landscapes (it's a classic). And Ilford HP5 (BW) for portraits.

 

If you were to ask me a specific brand and model: I'd say get the nikon F2, it won't fail you and is a pleasure to work with.

 

Good luck and happy shooting

[panos_voudouris]

Personally I find an investment to a manual or MF system a waste of money. Given that

most will be moving to a digital system within the next 3-4 years, getting a AF system

from Canon, Nikon, Minolta or Pentax guarantees that your lenses will not be wasted

when you do get the dSLR. This does require some planning but still you won't lose out

that much. A manual system will be useless or at least cripple the digital camera and

an MF system needs silly amount of money to be used as a digital. Plus, for someone

on a budget, MF with the costs and processing is just ridiculous.

[mozart 2]

I'll add my two cents. Carefully look a Pentax K2 in excellent to mind condition with a 50mm F/1.4 lens and then fully explore the range of possibilities. If, after gaining some experience, you wish to add to your range of lenses, again carefully look for Pentax lenses made for that camera - don't waste your time and money looking for off the wall lenses; they're second rate either in terms of quality of manufacture and/or image or both.

 

A hesitant second choice would be a Canon AE-1 with a 50mm F/1.4 lens. Again after gaining some experience add only Canon lenses made for the camera.

 

Why a hesitant second choice - well, the Canon AE-1 is a very nice camera, but it is a little on the tinny side compared with the K2. I know because I own a chrome K2 and my wife, Sue, has a Canon AE-1. Over the years, we have added a nice array of lenses to our collection via visiting various camera shops on our infrequent travels and/or through Ebay.

 

If you're really serious about your photography, get a Leica - there's no comparison - but even used equipment is relatively expensive.

 

Since you seem to be a little hesitant about your photographic endeavors, the first two cameras are excellent learning tools.

 

Best wishes in your endeavors!

 

Bill

[Jochen_S]

Sorry I can't interfere a lot with the wich EOS discussion. In the pre digital age I would have told you to get "just something" especially Minolta non AF. Today I should leave the option to go digital and you'll be on the safest imaginable side with EOS. The question which film body isn't very important. Usually you'll end owning at least 3 for wide, tele & other film. Lenses: Well primes give good pictures, zooms convenient shooting. I own both. A used 3rd party consumer zoom is earned during 1 day of McJob and worth it. It makes your camera point&shooty leaving you in control of focus exposure and so on. Get it just by the way. Primes: I love 20, 35, 90mm combo. With MF I did a lot with 55 & 135 mm meaning 85 and 35 in 35mm equiv. Talking portraits: 35mm is useless - groups in small studio only. 85-90mm is the does it all lens, if you have cooperating subjects and space for environmental shots. If somebody of you 2 is shy; you'll need a longer lens for headshots. A zoom ending at 200mm is nice to have, I even used the 300mm end of a AF zoom on a croping DSLR during a huge family meeting. - lazyness... It's nice to shoot teachers from the middle of the classroom. I'd say a 90mm f2.8 macro is among the most important lenses and the best point to start from. I don't love 50mm a lot. It was my 1st lens, I go out with rangefinders and nothing else but still... on the other hand: get it with a digital rebell mark III waiting for you! - for Portraits (on film) it is the very wide end. Means: If you shoot somebody with it you'll have to include lots of environment. It's a way to say something about persons, if you are able to blow the pictures up far enough to make the face visible again. I own a book showing portraits done with a 50mm by Henry Cartier Bresson. They look great on the Pages larger than a letter and the living conditions showed around the main subjects can express a lot, but good headshots are easier to start with, so that's why I don't suggest 50mm. - Yes, you could frame 2 people ad once with 50mm, but using available light only one might be in focus; again a longer lens might be easier. Or a zoom should do the job with flash. My shopping advice is 1st damn good 90mm 2nd cheapo 28-70 3rd some 80-200, 4th fast good prime of focal length you fell in love with. 5th good primes substituting the 2 zooms. I can't predict if 4th will be EOS, MF or LF; you'll discover it by yourself.

Big warning: Interchangeable lenses are "pro" spending half of the day changing lenses isn't. I wouldn't go with 3 lenses for one body without special need. - means either DSLR (expensive and sooner obsolete than you've earned the next one) or LF, wich is symply to heavy for a 2nd body.

With the old 2 lens combo 90+ 35mm you can mange with one body, when a 135, 50, 28mm (You'd like a 28mm for your landscapes, believe me)

Guy has either 28 and 50 on 2 bodys you choose 35mm and 90 in the other case. - It works. I suppose I owe a 2nd note upon zooms. I suppose many will agree they are good enough up to 5x7" prints, if one's able to stop down. At my wet darkroom I printed up to 8x10" they did the job. I once had a large print of a girl I admired hanging on my wall, the cheap 75-205 at f8-11 was good enough too. My slides weren't really bad. Now with a DSLR I see the world a little bit different. Viewing the single pixels I discover a lag of sharpness here, no contrast there and so on. I see this very clearly with most of my long zooms. The fast 35-70 is bad wide open but as the other short zooms quite usable stopped down. I'm really impressed of the pictures delivered by my Pentax 35-80mm f4-5.6, which was once sold out unused for about 40 Euro! and is a premium example for a boring consumer lens made from plastic. - Yes, my premium primes might be a little tick sharper, but I couldn't resist from making this lens one of my workhorses. On the other hand film has its limits. 35mm looks grainy at 8x10" if you used Delta 3200 or TMZ. HP5 or TriX should be similar at least push processed. To see details in landscapes or groups it's no bad idea to use larger film. I love my MF gear for these cases. - No there were no zooms at all when it was made. I have a open end war with a friend who uses the fanciest Leica and Nikon gear and owns a old Hasselblad too; he claims his super lenses are better than Hasselblad, I say my roll of Delta 3200 exposed with a old Russian Rangefinder fed me up with 35mm for a long time; I'll shoot my Mamiyas, Linhofs, Agfa or Pentacon if I want to do something serious on film. And his exhibition prints are grainy and don't show enough details to please even my naked eye on short distance. I accept there are conditions when there is no way round 35mm or DSLR, let's say covering something with a light bag of gear, but the final stage of serious photography is bringing some studio strobes and even a power source, if needed, with you. under these circumstances a heavy tripod and view camera don't count a lot; you'll need a car to move the stuff anyhow... The zooms come up again when you start considering lazy photography. If you want to do average holliday pictures for example or at a party and so on. They do the job. Remember the "f8 & be there!" rule. It's much better to do a shot with a Zoom on 28mm than to miss it because you went out with a 50mm prime. For your portrait work a zoom might not be the wrst choice. Either you show every wrinkle with a stopped down macro, wich might insult every lady between 16 and confessing to be a grandmother, or you work around it by shooting wide open and being happy to have at least one eye in focus, which is a challenge to your AF. Starting with primes only is no mistake in general; if you know what you want, are able to afford and carry it and so on. As a student on a budget? Well I don't know. I was lucky. My Pentax gear was moderate priced, lots around on the used market, so I collected what I could reach. Today with EOS it's different. EOS came out much to late to encourage 3rd partys to built primes for it. Consumers wanted zooms then. I'm not willing to talk you out of AF. Today it is really nice to have. I grew up without and hope I can still use my old gear from time to time.

[huntrbll]

On a limited budget, I would suggest a used 35mm camera - Nikon or Canon because of lens quality - and two prime lenses. A 24, 28, or 35 for landscapes, and an 85 or 105 for portraits. I shoot Nikon, and a Nikon FG, FE or FM2 combined with Nikon's 105mm ais lens makes an OUTSTANDING portrait combination. Prime lenses, generally, will give better quality than zooms. Buy two quality lenses from the above two groups, learn to use them well, and then expand from there....good luck!

[darren_corrao]

The problem is that I don't have the money for both... so I'm kind of limited to a 50mm instead. You guys are making it sound like it's pointless to do this though?

[jbq]

It's definitely not pointless to "only" have a 50mm lens. It's probably the most versatile of prime lenses, but as such it's also not an "easy" lens, and requires to work at each picture. Once you know how to use a 50mm well, you'll be able to learn any other lens.

[mike_elek]

Darren, some of my best photos are with a 50mm lens. In fact, sometimes to challenge myself, I'll take just one lens out with me. And more often than not, it will be a wide angle or 50mm and occasionally the 135mm. Rarely a zoom.

 

If you really want to have some fun, get a 1970s SLR with the 50mm lens and have a blast. I can personally recommend the Pentax MX, the K1000, the Nikon FM or the Nikkormat FT3. The Minolta SRT series are great cameras, as are the Canons and Olympus OM series.

 

Once you get a little bit of experience under your belt, you can try a rangefinder or a medium format camera, if you get curious.

 

There's a lot to be said for learning photography from the ground up. Oh my - that means having to wind and rewind the film by hand, determined exposure by hand and focus by hand. :)

 

Point and shoots are fine for taking snapshots. They tend not to be the right tool for learning photography and composition because the emphasis is on "point and shoot," not think.

 

Best of luck to you.

[panos_voudouris]

How much money exactly do you want to spend? A used Rebel 2000 is <$100 and a 50/1.8 is another $80. That is a good starter kit and it does work for many things. In fact, it is all I had some time ago and it didn't limit me that much. You just have to work a bit more if you only have one lens but that is not a bad thing. If you are strapped for cash, get the cheapest body and add lenses. Also, I would say ignore the calls for older manual cameras as an EOS kit at least leaves you the lenses when you get a digital camera in 2-3-4 years' time. You can always use the EOS camera in full manual mode too.

[Zave Shapiro]

I'm one of those who would recommend a manual focus camera even though they aren't much cheaper used than the autofocus stuff. However, as we head in to the holiday season, it is time to be reunited with a wide range of family, whether we want to or not. Even those who have gone digital will be unlikely to give away a relatively new film camera even if they aren't using it.

 

Do you have uncles or cousins that are twenty or thirty years older than you? If you do then you may have someone who has a good old manual focus camera (and maybe a couple of good lenses) that have been unused for years. Offer to buy and hope the spirit of the season softens them towards an enthusiastic but money-challenged student.

 

The last generation of manual focus cameras (from the mid-80's) were very good, with simple but effective metering, and still have some years of reliable service in them. There are a wide range of accessories and lenses for Minolta, Olympus, Canon, Nikon and Pentax. Get one as a gift or permanent loan and you're set.

 

For lenses my basic kit would be a 24, 35 and an 85. Landscapes, groups and portraits. However this is a boxers vs. briefs issue - rather personal. Good luck.

[darren_corrao]

Hey again...

 

I wanted to thank you all for your advice and input, in the end I just ordered the 7n with a 1.4

 

So back to my next area of concern, film. What brand do you prefer for landscapes? day to day life? photography? Any advice would be great