Wow...

Heaney

I stumbled upon this forum on accident at work today. I am in complete awe! I found my love for photography last year. I don't have a lot of money and bought what I thought was the best bang for my buck. I ended up getting a point and shoot Olympus SP 550 UZ. I have taken a few good shots, but no where near amazing as those on here.

If all goes as planned, I should be able to purchase a DSLR (hopefully) by mid-year. I am looking at the Rebel XTi. I have looked at the EOS 5D but think that might be a bit too much for what I plan on doing. I really enjoy taking macro shots, or as close to it as my camera will allow. I also enjoy photographing animals and I think its called still life.

I am looking for opinions and suggestions from the pictures I have taken as to what lenses and if the Rebel XTi is the right fit for me.

Here is a link to my photos:
http://web.mac.com/jlheaney/Portfolio/Welcome.html

Thanks in advance, and I apologize if this is has been posted in the wrong area.

jonh68

Well, the specific lens is up to you and what you want to photograph. The rule of thumb when stepping up to DSLR is to spend money on lenses and get cheap bodies. The lenses will not de-value like bodies.

If you post your budget, others will be able to make more specific recommendations. If you are at the point where you know you are going to take up photography as a hobby, I suggest you save up for better glass if you can't afford it now. Even though you might say just a kit lens would do for know because you are learning, you quickly find out you want more and you end up paying twice for better stuff. If you know it's a passion, it is better to grow into it.

That said, learning the basics of composition, post processing, and just having an eye for good pictures makes more of a difference than than the equipment. Better equipment makes it easier and when you get the hang of things, it will make good pictures great.

JavaLover

Welcome Heaney! I too am a novice and from AZ (Maricopa to be specific). I've been hanging around here for awhile and trying to soak up all the knowledge these great folks have. Good luck and enjoy!

Manfr3d

Heaney wrote:

I stumbled upon this forum on accident at work today. I am in complete awe! I found my love for photography last year. I don't have a lot of money and bought what I thought was the best bang for my buck. I ended up getting a point and shoot Olympus SP 550 UZ. I have taken a few good shots, but no where near amazing as those on here.

If all goes as planned, I should be able to purchase a DSLR (hopefully) by mid-year. I am looking at the Rebel XTi. I have looked at the EOS 5D but think that might be a bit too much for what I plan on doing. I really enjoy taking macro shots, or as close to it as my camera will allow. I also enjoy photographing animals and I think its called still life.

I am looking for opinions and suggestions from the pictures I have taken as to what lenses and if the Rebel XTi is the right fit for me.

Here is a link to my photos:
http://web.mac.com/jlheaney/Portfolio/Welcome.html

Thanks in advance, and I apologize if this is has been posted in the wrong area.

I you love macro, checkout the inexpensive but excellent Canon 60mm/2.8 Macro 1:1.

LiquidAir

Welcome Heany!

For macro work, I'd suggest a 40D with an EF-S 60mm macro. I think the better viewfinder of the 40D (compared to the XTi) will help quite a bit when trying to focus close and the 60mm macro is a great lens. I have a 5D and the shallower depth of field of the full frame sensor makes it a difficult camera for macro photography.

As for the rest of a system, it really depends on your budget. To go with the 60mm macro, the Tamron 17-50/2.8 and the Canon 70-300 IS would make a great kit at a reasonable price.

Icebear

Welcome to the asylum!!!!!

claudermilk

Welcome. Allow me to make a completely non-intuitive suggestion: Keep your Olympus and continue using it for now. It's a perfectly good camera, in fact looking at the specs on the Olympus site it appears to be a very good learning tool. You have nearly full manual control available which is important. So, get it off the automatic modes and learn how to use it in aperture and shutter priorities. Take it off Auto anything & get comfortable with specifying each setting.

Once you have gotten proficient with telling the camera exactly how to take the picture instead of allowing it to tell you how it's going to take the picture, you will begin to find places where it is limiting you. Once you hit that point, THEN it's time to start looking at DSLRs, because then you will be able to truly use the capabilities. This is the route I took and it was worth going this way; once I stepped back up to the SLR world I was ready to take control of the camera.

Going that way, you will also have gotten a feel for what lenses would be most appropriate to get with the DSLR.

Heaney

Thank you for all of the advice. I will break out my users manual to learn more about the manual controls. I have just started to play around with the shutter speed.

I took a glance at the different titles under the tutorials and didn't see anything that mentioned shutter speed and aperature. Can someone direct me to website, or perhaps a book (preferablly a website) that can offer insite on shutter speed control and aperature control?

Awais Yaqub

Welcome !

anwmn1

Heaney wrote:

Thank you for all of the advice. I will break out my users manual to learn more about the manual controls. I have just started to play around with the shutter speed.

I took a glance at the different titles under the tutorials and didn't see anything that mentioned shutter speed and aperature. Can someone direct me to website, or perhaps a book (preferablly a website) that can offer insite on shutter speed control and aperature control?

These controls are going to be camera specific which you may or may not have the ability to manually control with your camera. In just a few words though:

Apeture Control is adjusting the amount of light being allowed to the sensor. You can use Apeture to help deal with current lighting situations or you can shoot to a specific apeture and adjust the rest of the settings to get the desired look. In your auto settings the portrait is most likely F4 to F5.6 and your landscapes are usually F8 to F11

Shutter Control is adjusting how fast the shutter actuates. For sports it is usually fast and for night it is slow.

Since you are in Chandler let me give you some advice-

Go check out Tempe Camera and talk to "Guy" yes that is his name.
Go checkout Photomark- 21st St. and McDowell-

These are two of the best pro shops in town and are a great resource. Both offer classes on photography, photoshop, and lighting. This is where - when you are ready- you can go compare the cameras in your budget and possibly pick up a used one.

Go to meetup.com and search for photography. There is a FREE group called AZShutterbugs- (myself and Javalover are both members)- join it and come out for one of the many events each month. Nothing like shooting with others to improve your work.


Cludermilk - provided excellent advice- save now- learn now- you will have a better idea of what you want to do and that will help determine which camera and lenses are best for you.


Welcome to dgrin!!

ziggy53

Heaney, welcome to the Digital Grin.

You are getting good advice. Take your time with your existing camera. The comment about lighting is a very important concept to grasp. After choosing your subject and composing the subject in the shot, light and the control of light is at least as important as the lens and the camera.

claudermilk

Molsondog wrote:

Check out which brand of camera has the best pool of good used equipment.

That's easy: Canon. Simply because the majority of DSLR users have been Canon users.

For a book, one of the favorite reccomendations is Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. While I haven't read this one, I've read other books by the same author & he is an excellent writer on the subject of photography.

The advice from anwmn1 is great: get out with other shooters, you will learn a lot & get to see a bunch of different gear in action. Just don't worry about being picked on for bringing a P&S to a DSLR group. I once attended an outing of local FMers way back when, they were 99% Canon DSLR shooters with impressive arrays of gear; me, I brought my piddly little Nikon 995 and was on the receiving end of good-natured joking all day. It was still a lot of fun & I learned a lot.

[Deleted User]

I would agree with jonh68, I bought my first DSLR camera in October, a canon 400D (XTI in USA) with two lense's (Camera body, 2 lemses, twin battery grip, and memory card all in one package deal). In the past couple of weeks I have replaced those two package lense with lense a bit better suited for what I want. had I done my home work I could of probably got a better deal buying the body and the two lense that were going to be more suitable for what I wanted.

Any welcome to your new hobby, hope you have deep pockets

Tim