New digital SLR Camera

[Saint-scooby]

Looking at the Canon 600D

Can anyone recommend it or something better in mind, have about £700 to spend?

[Baj]

From the advice I was given from Al de Man, it's better to go for a slightly cheaper camera, and get a kick ass lense.

[hutch]

I've got a 450D for the past couple of years. I'm not a photographer by any means, but it takes great pictures, and really easy to use for the layman.

I've got 2 lenses, an 18-55 which I use nearly all the time, and a 75-300 which I use very occasionally. Neither are image-stabilised.

Never have to use flash indoors (which I hate) but change the ISO instead (400 outdoors & 1600 indoors). Some shots in low light are blurrry with high ISO and no flash, but I use continuous shooting mode, and just discard the "shaky" ones. Most come our sharp. Shoot in RAW format and you can adjust the focus, lighting, shadows, etc. later before converting to JPEG.

There are loads of other settings you can play with, but I haven't got a clue about them so just leave them alone. The memory card plugs straight into my laptop so no need to mess around with cables.

Don't know the 600 but I guess it's an improved version of the older 450.

[dune]

Get a Nikon. That's what i've got.

[Al de Man]

From the advice I was given from Al de Man, it's better to go for a slightly cheaper camera, and get a kick ass lense.

^^^^
This.

For that sort of money, you could probably buy a second hand Canon 40D and put a 17-40mm L-series lens on the front of it. The image quality of that combination would blow the sh*t out of the 600D with an 18-55mm for example, although you won't get video and the live-view was quite basic.

40D selling for £320
17-40L sold for £390

If you get more in to photography and choose to upgrade the body, good quality lenses such as the 17-40L are something you're likely to hang on to for years and won't depreciate anything like as much.

[gaz]

I went with a 1000D for motorsport photography, went to one meeting with it so far with the kit 18-55mm lens and love it! Need to get a bigger 200 or 300mm one for better trackside shots but its just a case of playing with the settings and seeing what does what.

[Pancake]

^^^^
This.

For that sort of money, you could probably buy a second hand Canon 40D and put a 17-40mm L-series lens on the front of it. The image quality of that combination would blow the sh*t out of the 600D with an 18-55mm for example, although you won't get video and the live-view was quite basic.

40D selling for £320
17-40L sold for £390

If you get more in to photography and choose to upgrade the body, good quality lenses such as the 17-40L are something you're likely to hang on to for years and won't depreciate anything like as much.

Listen to this man.

[Minty]

It's all about the glass as Al said. Not much to add to that really.

One minor point just to pick up on though:

Shoot in RAW format and you can adjust the focus, lighting, shadows, etc. later before converting to JPEG.

Shooting in RAW mode mean you have the raw data to edit from, with no compression applied at the time of shooting and no white balance applied. (Camera's that record jpeg's have compression and white balance encoded in them).

So, whilst this gives more leeway for editing, and you can recover poor exposures more easily, and extract more detail from shadow areas for example, you CANNOT 'adjust' the focus, lighting or shadows directly. Once the exposure is made, that's it. That's probably what Hatch meant but thought it worth clarifying.

(Of course, the new 1DX does allow true 'multiple exposures' but I'm guessing it's probably only Al and I and a handful of others who are interested in that body...!)

[Pancake]

Mints, I assume he meant add sharpening in ACR et al. to "tweak" the focusing...

[Minty]

Mints, I assume he meant add sharpening in ACR et al. to "tweak" the focusing...

Yeah, probably, just thought I'd clarify for the benefit of those who wouldn't know any better. There is a growing element of budding 'togs who rely on post-processing to correct basic technical and compositional errors, because the technology is improving so much.

[Pancake]

Yeah, probably, just thought I'd clarify for the benefit of those who wouldn't know any better. There is a growing element of budding 'togs who rely on post-processing to correct basic technical and compositional errors, because the technology is improving so much.

Word, which is why I use film and instant. (and digital, alternative printing, mobile phones etc)