 Kenneth DeSiata |
Help - My First Camera Hi, I am new to photography and I don't know which camera to get. I have signed up for a basic photo class in January so I need a camera. I like the way the Minolta Maxxum 5 fits in my hand, but some people say that I should just go with a Nikon N65 or a Canon Rebel 2000. Could anyone give me some advice? I don't take sports photograpy so a really fast camera is not really needed. What I want is a simple camera to learn and one that if I decide to grow it will grow with me.
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Jon Close |
(a) You might check with the instructor of the class to make sure that the camera/lens you get is suitable. Don't ask specific brand so much as ask for a list of features the camera should have. For example, it might be preferred if your camera has Depth of Field preview - the ability to close the lens aperture down so that you can see in the viewfinder how much of the scene will appear in focus. Not all SLRs have this feature (though the Maxxum 5, Rebel 2000 and Nikon N65 do). The professor may be "old school" and prefer that you start with a 50 f/1.8 lens instead of the standard 28-80 f/3.5-5.6 zooms that most cameras come packaged with. (b) All of the major manufacturers (Canon, Nikon, Minolta, Pentax) make terrific entry-level SLRs. There are a few specific models that are not well-suited to your photography class because they do not allow manually setting exposure (example the Minolta QTsi), but the 3 you mention will serve you very well. (c) The Maxxum 5 is as good or better than the other two cameras mentioned, so IF YOU LIKE IT, GET IT. (d) The main drawback that I see with the Minolta system is that IF you ever want to change to a digital SLR Minolta does not (currently) make one. With Canon/Nikon/Pentax you can use the film camera lenses with their digital SLR bodies. But that's a future consideration. You may not ever want a digital SLR, or Minolta may have a model available when you do, or Olympus's idea of digital SLRs with unique lenses not compromised for sharing with 35mm film cameras may take hold.
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Kenneth DeSiata |
To Jon Close, thank you for your answer. I read through the often asked questions and I have a 50mm 1.7 lens. I like the way the Minolta feels so I will go with that. It can be either manual or fully automatic so I can learn both ways in class. Thanks again for your help.
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Steve A. Stephens |
Man..this brings me back to alot of my memories when I started out with a camera and needed to get one for a beginning class... Ken, First off get a manual camera..pentax makes a good one for a beinner...this will teach you about manual focus, fstops, appeture settings, depth of field, and setting iso manually...if you have an weak eye like I do, get either a canon or nikon autofocus camera...which ever feels good to you...check the controls out in both and see if they are intuative to you..for me canon has intuative controls and makes sense to me...a minolta is a good camera, but they don't support them well if something breaks...Nikon and canon have a ton of lenses to choose from....for a good all around lense select the 24-70mm zoom and a 70-300 zoom lense...they are very flexible and will give you all the lenses you might need....also I usually recommend to my students to buy as much camera as they can possibly afford..don't settle for a botom line camera cuz after abuot a yr..your not going to be happy with it's abilities cuz you have surpassed it with your abilities....also learn the camera inside and out..if something throws u on you while your in a shoot you'll know what to do to clear it...hope this helps...good luck with your selection..
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Steve McCroskey |
This fall Minolta will introduce their first digital SLR camara. The digital Maxxum 7 will be compatible with maxxum accessories - lenses,flashes,etc. Steve McCroskey
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