Alpha 350 DSLR a good buy for a first DSLR camera?

[navs]

<p>I am new here , just bought a sony alpha dslr 350 in Canada for CAD$650 with std lens 3.5-5.6/18-70 last december on boxing day. Just took first pictures last month , is confused if its a good buy and should one invest furhter in building lens or learn then move on to Canon body for more serious work. Appreciate all inputs , I am a novice photographer , also need advice if any photo related software is needed to learn more in depth stuff. thanks all , have a good snapping day :). oops forgot to ask what size of jpg is good enough to load and share your work out here need help :) Navnitrai Saini</p><div></div>

[ricardovaste]

<p>Hi Navnitrai,</p>

<p>You have a good camera.</p>

<p>If you are notive, you will take no advantage from switching to another brand, if anything it may be detrimental to your development (focusing on equipment rather than the actual photographs).</p>

<p>A good buy? Well, buying a camera in December then only using it 3 or so months later isn't a great investment, no... it's been sitting around losing value (although with the current climate you may have actually not lost much at all). But, most importantly, a camera like this is never a financial investment or a 'good buy'. It's brought to do the job, the cost of it should just be whatever your willing to pay for a good body and then as soon as you've parted with your cash, you should forget about the price - it will hopefully serve you for many, many years, where the shots it captures will hopefully be 'priceless'.</p>

<p>Just keep taking pictures and enjoying your camera. If you want to take it more seriously, maybe look at getting some books on photography or post-processing.</p>

<p>Good luck, Rich</p>

<p>p.s. I think the posting size allowed on photo.net is 700 pixels max length?</p>

[tommyinca]

<p>2 cents worth, IMHO, used Minolta lens (mide level, good for learning type), some can be lower in cost. ie: Check the price of a 70-200 f4 zoom or check a 24-105 f4 mid level zoom. On the flip side, if you are ready to spend good money, Both Canon and Nikon do have a bigger range of toys. ie:14-24/2.8 Nikkor or a 200/2L EOS</p>

[paul_de_ley]

<p>Welcome to the Alpha mount!</p>

<p>You're all set to get going with DSLR photograpy, and the current Sony range of lenses and bodies is more than extensive enough - plus has the quality to match - so it will easily keep you going for the foreseeable future. Of course you wouldn't expect us to tell you otherwise in a Sony forum :)</p>

<p>To give you an idea of what the equipment can do check out the portfolios from people who participated in previous threads here. For equipment questions and a very extensive alpha mount lens review database, check out <a href="http://www.dyxum.com">www.dyxum.com</a></p>

<p>For lenses to add to your kit, if you're willing or forced by circumstances to look for bargains, then check out the for sale forum in dyxum.com as well as the used inventory of <a href="http://www.keh.com">www.keh.com</a> and search photo.net as well as dyxum for comments about shopping used in general and shopping from keh in particular (they have the biggest used inventory and the best service).</p>

<p>For photo editing software you have too many options to mention, but if money is an issue then you'll find all the basics you need to start with in for example <a href="http://www.gimp.org">GIMP</a> which is open source and free.</p>

<p>Have fun and show us some shots along the way!</p>

[freewolf]

<p>Greetings, Navnitrai... I'm also quite a novice photographer on a budget. I purchased an a350 a little over six months ago and have been relatively happy with it for the most part. However, as I've shot more and more and my photographic interests have taken a more specific direction, I have discovered a couple of shortfalls. Whether they will apply to you may depend on what kind of photography you prefer doing.</p>

<p>I've found the a350 does a fine job at ISO 100-400, but above that the noise is a real problem. If you're doing mostly controlled light or fairly bright natural light shooting, it should do very well for you. If you prefer low-light or night shooting, particularly with moving subjects, it really doesn't perform that well overall with the kit lens or other low-priced and/or slow lenses. For these kinds of shots, the emotional "return" on my investment in this camera has been less than stellar, but I'm only using the kit lenses so far and have no idea if image quality will be improved sufficiently by investing in faster lenses.</p>

<p>I've also found myself somewhat uncomfortable with the a350's optical viewfinder, which really cuts a good bit of your view and can make in-camera composition a bit difficult at times. I find myself cropping pictures more frequently than I'd like because of this, though further experience and practice may make this less of a problem.</p>

<p>All things considered, I'm glad I got my Sony. It's got some good features, is a great learning tool and creates some wonderful photos if the lighting is good and ISO is kept down. However, because of my leanings toward landscape, wildlife, and natural/available light shooting, I find myself considering more and more making a switch to Canikon before investing significantly in quality lenses. You may find that it suits you quite well, but again, it really depends on what kinds of shooting situations you prefer.</p>

[paul_de_ley]

<p>Hey Kevin,</p>

<p>There's several ways to go if you're taking more shots indoors/around down or dusk and getting less pleased with the results. First off you'll need to invest in a few lenses with widest aperture of f2.8 or better (which is true no matter which DSLR brand you own) and you probably want at least one prime. Plenty of choice there in all but the longest focal lengths. Some good used bargains around the middle are for example the Minolta 28mm f2.8, Minolta 50mm f1.7 and Sigma 24mm f2.8 primes.</p>

<p>At the long tele end you'll have to invest more significant amounts of money (which again is true for any DSLR brand) but the long Sony G lenses or on par with the competition.</p>

<p>Small viewfinders come with all live view models, which is why I don't go for live view myself. The best step up within the system in that respect is currently Sony's A700 which also performs better at higher iso, and which has been coming down significantly in price this year.</p>

<p> </p>

[ricardovaste]

<p>Kevin, Paul gives you some great advise (as usual:) - I have to completely agree with him here. There is no hope in abandoning your camera if it isn't performing as you'd want it. It's a tool, you just have to learn to get the best out of it, which naturally takes time - the end results are always what you've created, not the camera.</p>

<p>Not being able to use above ISO400 with confidence sounds a bit worrying though. I'd expect you'd be able to get good results at atleast ISO800. Some really simple post-processing can do wonders for high ISO noise, as can actually printing or viewing your images at a logical size. There are books around, but you can probably find some good advise just through googling. Like Paul says, a prime like a 50/1.7 would be perfect for you by the sounds of it!</p>

<p>Good luck and stick at it.</p>

[navs]

<p>I appreciate all the inputs, encouragement, guidance by Richard,Paul,Kevin and Lee, thanks for the warm welcome and good wishes. I just shoot by instinct most of the time , dont know if if thats a good trait . I am new to Canada as well ,just visited Niagra falls 2 times and took some 200 plus pictures , I do wish to share some pictures but seems pixels size are too large to fit in , and I dont have any related software to experiment or work upon , just windows xp home and corel snapfire plus ( havenot used it even once ) so perhaps need a tutorial or may be tips on the same. I have 5 year warranty deal for alpha at no extra cost with purchase price, I do plan to stick with this atleast till such time, will look to add lenses for I enjoy more natural photography, birds , flowers more then potraits,indoor stuff, appreciate the links of web sites for shopping, for a novice what book would guide in easy lay man terms, any pointers? extend My thanks to all who responded to this thread so far. :) Navnitrai Saini</p><div></div>

[freewolf]

<p>Navnitrai, I hope I haven't seemed to co-opt your thread, but I think the replies to my post have been very pertinent to your question as well. Both Paul and Richard have given some solid input... Perhaps as novices we could both benefit by taking more time to learn the a350 (and, for me, photographic technique as well) before making any big decisions to change. Since my livelihood doesn't depend on photography, I'm happy to take my time and become more familiar with the camera and its capabilites before relegating it to backup status.</p>

<p>Tommy, Paul, and Richard... thanks for the reminder that there are less expensive (than Sony) quality lenses available from Minolta and third parties, and also that Sony has at least one excellent APS-C upgrade option (a700) and a full frame as well (a900). Also, I do realize that no matter what brand, satisfaction isn't likely to be found with kit lenses alone -- the advantage I see here is that Sony's in-camera image stabilization <em>should</em> keep all alpha-mount lenses a bit more competitive in price than comparable glass from the Big 2. </p>

<p>Also, Navnitrai, be aware that there is a ton of Canikon hype (not that much of it isn't deserved, mind you) that often obscures the fact that Sony's Minolta-based heritage is nothing to scoff at!</p>

[paul_de_ley]

<p>Very cute puppy Navnitrai: nice pose, well focused and exposed, you may have found the perfect model there! For the flowers the composition works well, but the exposure is a bit too dark. Because the flower itself is large and white. it tricked the automatic metering of your camera into measuring higher overall brightness for the whole picture than what was really visible to the eye. So it chose a slower shutter and/or narrower aperture than what was really needed.</p>

<p>Try opening the picture file in Sony's Image Data Converter, look for the exposure slider and increase the Ev by about +1 to brighten the picture you already took. Or if the flower is with you at home, try taking some more shots with Ev set higher in the camera itself (press the +/- button and then turn the wheel up to +1 or thereabouts). When you plan to upload to a website like PN, it also helps to increase the contrast and sharpness a little bit - but not too much.</p>

<p>One of the best book series on Sony Alpha models are Gary Friedman's "The Complete Guide to ..." books. For me the version about the A100 really opened up not just that particular camera but also digital photography in general. Unfortunately the later volumes have become a bit more pricy in print, but the pdf versions can be downloaded from <a href="http://www.friedmanarchives.com/alpha350/index.htm">http://www.friedmanarchives.com</a> for a fairly decent $20 or so. I haven't read the version for A300/A350 myself, but if you search older posts here in PN as well as in dyxum.com then you'll probably find comments from other A350 owners - or if not then you could post the question in both sites and you should get some good pointers from people who have it already.</p>