sacher

Dear Robert,

I am very new to photography, so I do not know if I have the right to advice anybody in this forum. But if my words help you, just fine.

I own a film slr and I like(just like you) to pursue nature photography. I do have the same lenses as yours. I am also in two minds in investing in further lenses. With my budget, I can just hope to aquire a good macro lens Tamron 90mm. Even though I can shoot a lot of birds in my backyard itself, a good lens beyond 300mm is just not affordable for me. But with the available 50mm lens, a good amount of good landscape is possible. And then I start weighing down between the good Tamron 90mm and a good digital megazoom. Digital megazooms like Canon S2 IS, Sony DSC H1 and Panasonic FZ LUMIX are well within your budget and they have good optics too. With average zoom around 420mm(at 2.8), they are very much suitable for your kind of nature photography, which I think is not at the pro level. So you will endup with two separate cameras which you will be using for separate purposes. What I understand is that with your budget, no GOOD lens with image stebilisation is available. But the digial compacts I mentioned are having very good IS facility. So keep your 50mm lens, and get a megazoom : this seems to be a viable solution for you. Hope this helps you.

I bought this EOS66 last December. For the present price of Rs.7500/-, it is worth the money. I am very new to photography, and all my needs in this field can be met using this camera. I have used this camera in very cold & very hot temps. When I used slide film, I got very satisfactory pics(at my level of expertise, which is low at this time) even with the kit lens. I recommend this cam, if you are on a tight budget and need a film slr. But sincerly, as a person who invested in a film slr very recently, I advice you to better invest in digital compact with a better lens. Because you will always want to get more picture quality, which the provided kit lens will fail to deliver. Further, you will try to directly scan the negs to digital format and when compared to a picture taken by any compact digital cam, these scans will look inferior. That is my experience with the scanned images provided by the photolabs.

Thanks for all the answers. Now a lot of clutter seems to be removed. Certainly image quality is more important. But I wonder if I will be able to understand the differences in an image captured by a kit lens and the Tamron prime lens I try to get, since I am new to photography. Hope I can upload some images shot with this good lens soon.

 

Thanks for your time and suggestions.

 

Sacher

Please help me take a decision. I am about to make a new purchase for

my already existing EOS66 film camera. I was thinking about getting a

new Tamron 90mm 1:1 macro lens. But coincidentally, I come across a

used EOS D30 body which I can get for a bit more money.

Now I am confused. Is buying a used D30 3.25MP digital body a good

choice at this time?