Monday, June 26, 2006

Digital SLR conundrum

I've been looking at digital SLR cameras for a while now. I've narrowed my choices down to the Olympus E-Volt E-500 and the Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT. Both are 8 megapixel SLRs, both fine cameras as far as I can see. I think the Canon body is slightly better in terms of capabilities, but the Olympus kit comes with two lenses instead of the one Canon lens. Decisions, decisions.

I'm still accumulating the cash so it will be a while before I make the jump. I currently shoot with a point-and-shoot Fuji Finepix A210 and it is terrible for shooting moving objects (like, um, trains). The 1/2 to 3/4 second delay between pressing the shutter button and it actually taking a picture make it impossible to compose a good shot of a moving object.

Does anyone have any recommendations on a digital SLR in the $800-$1100 range? Don't even both mentioning something like a Nikon D200 to me - it's way out of my price range.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Steve - I bought into the Minolta System about 21 years ago and they dropped out of the business this past March. Sony picked up their patents and is going to issue their new Alpha A100 which is a 10 megabyte camera with a $999.00 USD price. Street price should be around $750-800 USD after introduction. My assistant has a Canon 20D and loves it! I've shot with it and like it, but I still have two Minolta Digitals that I like better (7D and 5D).

Ed Gray
Missouri DAR Fan

Canadian Train Geek said...

Thanks, Ed. I see there is a review at dpreview.com. I did a side-by-side comparison there and found a few ways that the Sony is better than the Canon Digital Rebel - 10 megapixels vs 8, Sony has image stabilization and Sony has a slow-sync flash setting. I'm not sure that's enough to make me want to pay another $200 for it, but I'll keep it in mind.

Anonymous said...

hi Steve,

I am in the same boat.. or train I guess... thinking of the rebel or now that the 30D is out... perhaps the 10 or 20D since they are coming down as well. Course I do not see a ton of difference in the 10 nor 20 nor even 30 D over the rebel for um... the bucks!!!!

I do not have any canon gear and the Olympus, like you said... comes with two lens kit and does not seem to be all that bad. Super high speed (ie 3200iso) tends to be grainy as you probably saw on dpreview... which I do not seem to find matters on most stuff but I am also into astronomy (20Da?) so black frames are important as well to me. The best colour are shades of grey... if you cant do a clean black and a nice grad. of grey... you can't do good colour LOL.

I am again on the fence on the rebel (it did not drop like I thought it would once the 30D came out) and the olympus with 2 lens... it is a nice offer for someone without all the canon baggage LOL.

My buddy is the president of the NS photoguild (yes I am in Hanwell NB) and he swears by canon and last year picked up the 20D with a nice 700 lens... which I guess is the other part... used canon parts are all over... I was on ebay the other day and saw lots of accessories usually in the 80-120$ range... now down to sub $20 for rebels...

hard to beat the VW-beatle of cameras LOL