Please suggest a starter camera

Norsman

My wife is interested in photograghy and has been trying hard to learn and her Nikon D80 and all it's setting are a little daunting. I suggested she get an older film camera that has a dial for speed, a ring on the lens for F stop, and a ISO setting somewhere.

This way should could practice/learn what speed and f stop changes do... minus the confusion of white balance, metering modes, etc.

Ideally, a digitial camera with the old school dials for speed and f stop would be great (to forego the film developing). Cheap is good, beat up is good, ugly looking machinery is fine.

What would you recommend (I have no idea where to start)?

swintonphoto

Well, her D80 will do all of those things. Just have her work in manual mode.

angevin1

The idea of an older camera is a reasonable suggestion. However that cost, plus the cost of film and developing puts that one down. With Digital, she can shoot all she wants and never buy film nor have to wait to see how she did. So tell her to shoot, shoot and shoot away. trying out the differing settings and read, read and read some more. And post some photos here too!!

cheers, tom

NikonsandVstroms

The Nikon FE (on the right) has all those features,

And you can pick one up used for really cheap, or if you want new they have Nikon FM kits for about 250



But you are dealing with film, and those costs can add up quickly, really quickly depending where you get it developed.

As for the digital choice, the Olympus E-420 which is on the left, or the 520 (which has a grip, and image stabilization) both have a menu system where it's a simple graphic interface on the rear LCD. Just highlight the feature click okay and it says the options. So there's no menus to go through.

ziggy53

Norsman wrote:

My wife is interested in photograghy and has been trying hard to learn and her Nikon D80 and all it's setting are a little daunting. I suggested she get an older film camera that has a dial for speed, a ring on the lens for F stop, and a ISO setting somewhere.

This way should could practice/learn what speed and f stop changes do... minus the confusion of white balance, metering modes, etc.

Ideally, a digitial camera with the old school dials for speed and f stop would be great (to forego the film developing). Cheap is good, beat up is good, ugly looking machinery is fine.

What would you recommend (I have no idea where to start)?

I used to teach to first-timers and the very best way to learn is to find a single interesting scene and shoot the camera in manual mode, changing one thing at a time. Later you can explore the EXIF to see what worked and you begin to understand why.

She might benefit from a hand held meter that shows the correlation between f settings, shutter speeds and ISO.

An on-line tutorial might also help:

http://www.nikondigitutor.com/eng/d80/

Cato

Norsman wrote:

My wife is interested in photograghy and has been trying hard to learn and her Nikon D80 and all it's setting are a little daunting. I suggested she get an older film camera that has a dial for speed, a ring on the lens for F stop, and a ISO setting somewhere.

This way should could practice/learn what speed and f stop changes do... minus the confusion of white balance, metering modes, etc.

Ideally, a digitial camera with the old school dials for speed and f stop would be great (to forego the film developing). Cheap is good, beat up is good, ugly looking machinery is fine.

What would you recommend (I have no idea where to start)?

I think the whole film thing would get rather expensive, and also she would not have the immediate feedback/gratification that you can get with digital.

Have you introduced your wife to the D80's scene modes? To me, it would be a shame to spend more $$ on another camera when she already has such a nice one, not to mention that if she learns on a camera that is significantly different than the D80, then she will have to go through the hassle of acclimating herself to different ergonomics, menu system, etc.

nightowlcat

What is she using right now for lenses and flash? Is it the kit lens and the pop-up flash? A steady tripod too, will be a big help. I picked up a D1h this year, and being forced to use an external flash, along with some better glass, made a definite difference, and it wasn't all that hard to change things in my D50 when I used it.

Norsman wrote:

My wife is interested in photograghy and has been trying hard to learn and her Nikon D80 and all it's setting are a little daunting. I suggested she get an older film camera that has a dial for speed, a ring on the lens for F stop, and a ISO setting somewhere.

This way should could practice/learn what speed and f stop changes do... minus the confusion of white balance, metering modes, etc.

Ideally, a digitial camera with the old school dials for speed and f stop would be great (to forego the film developing). Cheap is good, beat up is good, ugly looking machinery is fine.

What would you recommend (I have no idea where to start)?

jdryan3

Norsman wrote:

I suggested she get an older film camera that has a dial for speed, a ring on the lens for F stop, and a ISO setting somewhere.

This way should could practice/learn what speed and f stop changes do... minus the confusion of white balance, metering modes, etc.

What would you recommend (I have no idea where to start)?

Bryan Peterson's Understanding Exposure. Back in the film days (and before this book) I actually had my very patient wife sit there while I shot roll after roll of all the various settings, taking copius notes to sync up with the prints. But even doing that gives you a lag time from when you engaged in shooting to seeing the results.

That is the beauty of digital: Instant Feedback!
If you want a baseline that mimics film, start with ISO 100, WB for Sun, no exposure compensation, f/stop of f/5.6 or f/8, and whatever the 'neutral' setting is for JPEG in a Nikon (I use Canon). And then start shooting. Change one variable of the triad at time. Review results.

There is nothing quite like the "Aha" of getting the relationship between these and the impact on your captures.

sweet caroline

Okay, so a long time ago I learned with film. Then I had kids and stopped using manual, and forgot all the technical stuff. When I went digital I used the Nikon 8700, which is a nice P and S, but not a DSLR. I finally invested in my D300 a couple months ago, despite reviews saying that it had too many dials and wasn't good for newbies.

So now that I've had my camera for a couple months, I always shoot in manual and I'm pretty happy with my results ( and extremely happy with this camera). Being able to see the image immediately has really helped me learn fast. I would choose one thing to work on learning at a time. Participating in this forum and reading a book specific to my camera (other than the manual) have also contributed greatly. I also feel like I've learned more using my 50mm 1.8 lens than the kit lens because I can play with the aperture more.

I think you should tell your wife to put the camera in manual mode and practice. A lot. The way I got comfortable with my camera was to use it as much as possible.

Caroline