a question to those that know ......:thumb:


I feel I've fully exploited my Panasonic FZ8 and although great when there is a lot of light ...see link Kenya Honeymoon - a set on Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/antbphotos/sets/72157600378313393/) ... I think I've reached the end of its abilities.

The shortfalls based on my style/ability as a photographer have been the following:

I want the ability to take 3 shots of differing exposure to use in HDR photography (I'm guessing they all do this now??)
Low light performance and / ISO performance (this is the main biggie for me)
Reliability of image quality.... ie some times fantastic some times (same day same light same settings etc ) utter crap.

Lens not very wide.

Things I've liked:
Image stabilised
Image clarity (when very bright)
Quick to autofocus
Zoom length


What I want:
I basically want an SLR that will take good low light/overcast photos reliably with the ability to take action shots of motor racing for example. Image quality is the most important, and as long as it's more than 8mp I'm happy. Not worried about the zoom length as long as it's wide (going to keep the fz8 for the quick distance stuff).

Other important thing is speed of use, I've had the opportunity to use some older SLRs and I found them almost unusable becuase of the speed of menus/saving to file etc etc again I assume this is now sorted....

and I think that's about it. I would like to use my pile of SD cards but that's not a biggie and I would like image stabilisation (pref in the camera itself)

Budget around £500
Looking at Sony A300/350
Oly 510
Pentax 200d / Samsung GX10 same??!?!?
Canon ..... loads of them guessing 400d or 30d
Nikon d40x maybe d80 if I can get one for rough budget


any help would be appreciated. Missus preggers so that's the excuse for getting a new camera and I can't rely on the fz8 in low light .... ie inside !!!


thanks in advance !!!

:thumb: :thumb: :thumb: :thumb:

First thing I would say is go down to a local camera shop and try out the various models and makes and find one that feels the most comfortable and then try and narrow it down from there

No point picking a camera based on looks or features only to find its too small/too big cumbersome or fiddly etc, best to actually hold them in your hand first, but then dont try and be sold something there and then in the shop, go away think about it and then come back here and ask for more advice once you have narrowed down the cameras a little bit

Im sure they all have their own pro's and cons, and I am Canon biased, but cant vouch for the other makes/models

I did go in Jessops and have a play. From a look and feel point of view I thought they were all alright. Needed something chunkier than my panny and they all fit that bracket hence why I'm now on a spec hunt.

As a canon man then what differences are there between the 40 and 30d .... obviously I'd like a 40 but probably just outside of my price range.

40D has higher frame rate, bigger screen, a bit of weather sealing, 2m extra pixels, sensor cleaning amongst others.

450D takes SD cards if you've got a few.

Canon & Nikon say that in-lens IS is best as they can optimise it for the lens and different lenses have different requirements.

You'll need to budget for lenses as well - 50mm f1.8 is cheap and good in low light conditions.

oi pants you can have a go with my 400D if you like:thumb:

oi pants you can have a go with my 400D if you like:thumb:

nice one will do :thumb: I wondered which one it was you had.

The 300D was a bit slow, but all other Canon models are pretty much instanteous on power up. Save speed will depend on the card and camera write speed/buffer, so the later cameras & cards will perform better, but mixing slightly older cameras with slightly slower cards will not affect performance too much, see Rob Galbraith DPI: CF/SD Performance Database (http://www.robgalbraith.com/bins/multi_page.asp?cid=6007) to see what works best together.

I would recommend either Canon or Nikon, as you are buying into a huge range of proven equipment with good residual values and no shortage of second hand kit if you are on a budget.

The Canon 20D is not that far behind the 30D and considerably cheaper second hand. Not sure on the evolution of the Nikon models but the D70 is a decent start.

Low light high ISO performance is improving all the time so later models will generally be better, although there are fundamental laws of physics that get in the way ;)

I'm selling a D70 body with a shutter count of about 2000 in the next week or so. Immaculate. Want to make me an offer?

Alcazar

I'm selling a D70 body with a shutter count of about 2000 in the next week or so. Immaculate. Want to make me an offer?

Alcazar

They have been around for nearly 4 years now and the res is just a bit too low for me but thanks anyway.