A good DSLR for beginners?

[Progenix Oj101]

I have also recently just started out, and I decided on a 650D. My interests are also landscape, here are some shots I have taken with it to give you an idea of what sort of results you can achieve with the camera as a beginner (like myself).

http://www.panoramio.com/user/7997213

I've found that photographing the night sky with a crop (APS-C) body does not really work, unless you create star trails. What you can do is go to a sight like Flickr or 500px and search for images taken with a 650D or 3100 and you will see some great stuff on there cant go wrong either way IMO, although I do believe that canon is cheaper.

I'll always keep a crop camera for shooting stars, why isn't it working for you? The extra 60% reach is awesome.

 

[waveparticle]

Yep, for long exposure you can set your shutter speed to bulb. You'll need a remote though.

Although depending on what I'm shooting (star trails for instance), I prefer to set the shooting mode to continuous and take lots of pics at a fixed shutter speed like 30 seconds, then merge them into one. Reason being that noise tends to accumulate over time.

Below is my first attempt at star trails. Still a bit too noisy for my liking, but it would have been much worse with a single long exposure shot.

Whoa This is the kind of stuff I'm looking to shoot for. Would a kit lens achieve this?

 

[Mike Hoxbig]

Whoa This is the kind of stuff I'm looking to shoot for. Would a kit lens achieve this?

It was done using a kit lens

Will obviously need to drop the ISO and increase aperture but each attempt takes over an hour so it takes time to get the settings right.

 

[The Voice]

A problem I find with mirrorless cameras is their slow tracking/continuous autofocus, a semi-decent DSLR is far better at keeping a moving target in focus. A small sensor also means worse noise performance, it isn't all about megapixels. Maybe one day they'll get there, but for the foreseeable future I'll stick to an SLR thanks.

I was dead against mirrorless, too, and then I played with an Alpha 77 by Sony: there simply isn't anything better for shooting something in motion (sports, etc). Iirc, it has the highest frame rate of any of the DSLR's. No blurring. Just beautiful images every time. Also costs a hell of a lot, so there's that, and no traditional viewfinder. Again, no mirrors, so technically not a DSLR, either.

Oh well, still a lovely piece of tech.

 

[bwana]

I was dead against mirrorless, too, and then I played with an Alpha 77 by Sony: there simply isn't anything better for shooting something in motion (sports, etc). Iirc, it has the highest frame rate of any of the DSLR's. No blurring. Just beautiful images every time. Also costs a hell of a lot, so there's that, and no traditional viewfinder. Again, no mirrors, so technically not a DSLR, either.

Oh well, still a lovely piece of tech.

Nope. I've yet to come across a sports photographer using one but should that happen I'll make sure to make enquiries.