Reptile Forum, Reptile Classifieds - CaptiveBred

[Darky]

Ohh I forgot to say one tip i learnt early on when I had a DSLR was it pays to choice good glass, doesnt matter how good your body is you have a Carp lense your camera will only be as good as what it see's through the lense.

Cheers James

[Stuart]

I would be very carefull buying second hand lenses off ebay..I would stick to reputable dealers that have a good range of used equipment..lenses vary in quality from one to the other and sigma and tamron etc all have there select few lenses that are prone to problems such as back focus front focus etc..
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[neep_neep]

*Pssssssst* (looks around furtively).....

If you're not into all this fancy expensive DSLR malarkey... (thus avoiding the Canon vs. Nikon debate ) i'm going to suggest an alternative...Though I may get shouted at by the photography purists...

I am basically a beginner in photography, and despite the fact that I would *love* a DSLR, I simply don't have the money for the camera, the lenses, nor do I have the photographic knowledge to do anything with them once I have them!

I have what's known as a 'bridge' camera - it's styled like a DSLR, but doesn't have the SLR mechanism, and I believe is a bit smaller than your typical DSLR. I have the Pansonic FZ50, and although I bought it mainly for macro photography, it has done well at other things too. It has a 35-420mm lens built into to it - so it has a damn good zoom. Yes, the quality isn't going to be good enough to blow the picture up to giant poster size, but it will still make a good bigger than normal photo! It has the advantage of being able to shoot in RAW (apparently that's good? I havn't a clue, people seem to indicate it's a good thing...I dunno though. I just use the automatic settings )

You can buy extra lenses for it (though you don't have the choice of the DSLR lenses! I have a great macro lens (Raynox 150 - cost me £15 incl. P&P, considerably cheaper than the macro lenses you'd be buying for a DSLR!). You can also get telephoto and wide angle lenses. Of course the quality isn't 'as good', but it certainly does the job! I'm not going to be publishing any of my photos, or blowing them up to poster size, so these lenses do perfectly well for me. Oh, and obviously you can get UV and polarising filters and such like.

But at the end of the day, it depends on how much you want to spend, and how far you want to take photography! One day i'd quite like to work up to a DSLR (maybe, if I ever stop being a student and actually get a job ) but at the moment, I find this camera very versatile, and it does everything I need it to.

Some examples of what it can do (or can't, as i'm sure the DSLR owners will point out! ):

To start - macro, as you said that was what you were initially interested in. I looooooooove macro! The following photos were taken with the additional cheapo lens Firstly is the eye of a dragonfly who was sitting nice and still for me yesterday, and secondly, a nice hairy fly.





Next, landscapes - this is at the widest angle the camera can do on it's own...but as said, you can get a wide angle lens for it. I don't have one, so I can't really comment on it! But just to show that the camera *can* actually take photos of big things too!




And finally, an example of the camera set to nearly full zoom (somewhere between 300 and 420mm). Duck in the river!



So that's my input - just in case you wanted some reviews on non-DLSR's!
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Sophie

[snakeypete]

stone me mate !!!! gotta say that is pretty well dam impressive .

it does the job ! an the duck zoom aint three bad either , focus wise , not sure about metering tho , but still none the less its there . nice one .
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3.7.0 Royals


We do not stop playing because we grow old;
we grow old because we stop playing.

[zarozinia]

Thankyou all, I will take a look at all those mentioned when I return from holiday ( sorry for the delayed response, Ive been away on Bali for the last 11 days and have another 12 days til I return, Waves from Bali ).
Budget is not an issue, I would rather find something that suits my needs and save for it, even if it means waiting an extra few months. Bear in mind that I do need to take photographs that require printing in a magazine, so quality is an important issue. I will most likely take a photography course too at some point so I can learn how take decent shots rather than rely on hoping I get a couple of good shots now and then
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Cheers Angi
Proud to be a Geordie!
My Images - http://anginelson.deviantart.com/

[Stuart]

Hope you have a great holiday..From what you have said above then I would go for the D200..probably all the camera you will need.Camera on its own can be had for around £800 or used at about £6-650
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[Stuart]