Digital Camera

[koffiejunkie]

When buying a digital camera, price & Mega pixels is not the only criteria.

Search a few online photography forums for "megapixel myth" - it's a bit like the time when lower clocked Athlons were slaughtering Pentium4s. Megapixels only makes the pictures bigger, it rarely ever increases the image quality. On the contrary, higher MP cameras tend to suffer more from high ISO noise, for example.

 

[bwana]

I'm not going to be so quick to dismiss MP as a valid consideration. If the sensor is good then as far as I'm concerned the more the merrier and ceteris paribus those extra MP sure come in handy when you're cropping.

Those extra MP are the main reason I chose the 400D over the 350D . . . twice.

 

[undesign]

First make sure you want/need a SLR. Something like the Canon Powershot S5 is very versatile, x12 optical zoom and easier to lug around than a SLR. And now going for R3999 or less...

 

[st0rm3rs]

I'm very new to DSLR. So I might be talking crap...

Make sure you get one with some sort of "Anti-shake".
I bought a Olympus E-400 a while back. (it was a good price.)
But I was very dissapointed with the way most of my photo's are blurred.
Especially with my Sigma 55-200 zoom lens on max.

I've got a tripod now, but it's a schlepp carry-ing it around.

 

[bwana]

I'm very new to DSLR. So I might be talking crap...

Make sure you get one with some sort of "Anti-shake".
I bought a Olympus E-400 a while back. (it was a good price.)
But I was very dissapointed with the way most of my photo's are blurred.
Especially with my Sigma 55-200 zoom lens on max.

I've got a tripod now, but it's a schlepp carry-ing it around.

If you're shooting in daylight then there is no reason why you should be having any problems. The faster you can keep the shutter the better you'll be so if necessary bump up your ISO and fix it in post if you get too much grain. (Noise Ninja works really well for that).

 

[st0rm3rs]

Thanks I'll keep the shutter speed in mind.
I had it on auto most of the time. We were in Kruger National Park and I didn't have time to fiddle with all the settings.

 

[arf9999]

This one was on promo @R8999 last week, maybe you'll be able to convince them to sell at that price:

http://www.makro.co.za/ProductDetail.aspx?cat=-1&prod=39558&SKU=000000000000135126|EA
For R9K it was a great deal.

 

[bwana]

Thanks I'll keep the shutter speed in mind.
I had it on auto most of the time. We were in Kruger National Park and I didn't have time to fiddle with all the settings.

A happy medium between fully automatic and fully manual are the Aperture Priority (AP) and the Shutter priority (often called TV) modes - your camera should have them. I generally keep mine set to AP because I like controlling depth of field.