photographers

[souleh 0]

Hm, if you're certain you want to go dSLR, might want to look at a second hand Canon 350D. They're bloody good, and combined with a reasonable lense (which you can upgrade later) I doubt you'd go too far wrong.

As to macro.. well, decent macro lenses alone are probably too expensive if you're not going to spend $1000 on a camera.

Maybe something like this?

'buttplugs? where?' - geno

[Squeak 17]

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Woody how much experience with photography do you have?

Point and shoot is my experience, so you could say I'm a beginner (just starting out)

how much Macro experience do you have?

No macro experience

what sort of photography do you plan on doing mostly?

Landscapes/wildlife

My job and activites take me to some pretty interesting places and I would like to take some very kewl pics of what I see.

As for Macro - macro pics are just beutiful and would like to start playing in that world a little.

Billy

OK Woody, heres my advice (worth every cent you paid for it)
First thing you need to do is learn more about photography, Composition, exposure, depth of field, rule of thirds etc.. There are a plethora of good beginner websites out there just google any of those phrases or learning photograhpy etc..

Secondly, as a starter, a camera body is nothing more than a modified black box. so any good second hand Canon or Nikon will do. (personally I'd go Nikon), buy something cheap without to many features, if you really want to do good photography you need to learn how to manipulate exposure time and aperture size manually.

Thirdly, given your current skill level, I would suggest a couple of reasonable quality zoom lenses. 24-80 and 75-300 (macro Zoom). the longer lens has a facility for doing Macro, which will be more than adequate for your skill level. when you get better and you know for certain that you will be doing more Macro you can focus on purchasing a good prime macro lens.

Fourthly, get yourself a small note pad and right down all your setting for every pic you take. it serves 2 purposes, it makes you focus on what the camera is actually set on, (takes you away from the point and shoots mode) and it also allows you to see what settings work best for your Eye, when you check out your pics later.

Lastly you are fortunate that you are in the digital age, I can not tell you the amount of film I have exposed and developed over the years.
I have been shooting pics for over 20 years mostly B&W but quite a bit if B&W Macro (and some MICRO work at Uni), it can be very very rewarding, but also very frustrating.
Like when i returned from South East Asia and realised my eyes were getting worse, 10 rolls of slide film all slightly out of focus, had to Trade my manual focus cameras for auto focus.
Have fun with it

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[Icon134 0]

Quote

OK Woody, heres my advice (worth every cent you paid for it)
First thing you need to do is learn more about photography, Composition, exposure, depth of field, rule of thirds etc.. There are a plethora of good beginner websites out there just google any of those phrases or learning photograhpy etc..

Secondly, as a starter, a camera body is nothing more than a modified black box. so any good second hand Canon or Nikon will do. (personally I'd go Nikon), buy something cheap without to many features, if you really want to do good photography you need to learn how to manipulate exposure time and aperture size manually.

Thirdly, given your current skill level, I would suggest a couple of reasonable quality zoom lenses. 24-80 and 75-300 (macro Zoom). the longer lens has a facility for doing Macro, which will be more than adequate for your skill level. when you get better and you know for certain that you will be doing more Macro you can focus on purchasing a good prime macro lens.

Fourthly, get yourself a small note pad and right down all your setting for every pic you take. it serves 2 purposes, it makes you focus on what the camera is actually set on, (takes you away from the point and shoots mode) and it also allows you to see what settings work best for your Eye, when you check out your pics later.

Lastly you are fortunate that you are in the digital age, I can not tell you the amount of film I have exposed and developed over the years.
I have been shooting pics for over 20 years mostly B&W but quite a bit if B&W Macro (and some MICRO work at Uni), it can be very very rewarding, but also very frustrating.
Like when i returned from South East Asia and realised my eyes were getting worse, 10 rolls of slide film all slightly out of focus, had to Trade my manual focus cameras for auto focus.
Have fun with it

This is all very good advice...

The only difference I would suggest is that you probably would be better be served by getting a book on photography in lieu of just researching it on the internet... there certainly is a plethora of information online but with a book you'll have access to it regardless of where you are.

I'd suggest trying a local used book store as a lot of the basics of photography haven't changed much (i.e. exposure, f-stop, composition, etc... is all pretty much the same in digital as it is with film...)

and the digital age is awesome... like squeak when I was learning photography I used a lot of B&W film... I also used fully manual cameras which required me to learn about exposure, depth of field, etc...

Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...

[souleh 0]

There's a box in my parents loft.. it's got an enlarger, fumble bag (always loved that name), developing tank and some other bits in. I know I'm never really going to touch celluloid film again, but hey, it hurts a bit much to throw it away!

'buttplugs? where?' - geno

[Icon134 0]

Quote

There's a box in my parents loft.. it's got an enlarger, fumble bag (always loved that name), developing tank and some other bits in. I know I'm never really going to touch celluloid film again, but hey, it hurts a bit much to throw it away!

5 years ago I set up a darkroom in a "spare" room in my parents basement (though I use "room" very loosly... LOL)

The enlarger that I have is an old Meopta (made in Czechoslovakia...) its a nice enlarger that can be used with 35mm and medium format... I got it from my uncle about 6 years ago...

Livin' on the Edge... sleeping with my rigger's wife...

[ltdiver 3]

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Only reason I chose nikon is all the camera guru's I work with use them. I have no issues with using a canon though is someone can recomend a good one and saving money is always great.

So, what model and what lense?

Stick with Nikon, then. You can borrow all their cool lenses!
ltdiver

Don't tell me the sky's the limit when there are footprints on the moon

[woodpecker 0]

Thank you all for the responses/advice. Getting ready to order a few books and will be ordering a Nikon D40 package to start with. This will give me something to work with and fine tune/learn what I hope to achieve.

Billy

SONIC WOODY #146

There is a fine line between cockiness and confidence -- which side of the line are you on?

[iamsam 0]

A cheap way in, if you're not buying a macro lens is extension tubes.

They fit between camera and lens so are changing the focusing point. This means is you can get really really close to things, depending on the lens you're using. They also give you a super shallow depth of field which can give you interesting effects.

Check them out.

Sam

but what do I know

[Squeak 17]

Quote

A cheap way in, if you're not buying a macro lens is extension tubes.

They fit between camera and lens so are changing the focusing point. This means is you can get really really close to things, depending on the lens you're using. They also give you a super shallow depth of field which can give you interesting effects.

Check them out.

Sam

stay away from extension tubes until you understand Fstops and exposure settings

You are not now, nor will you ever be, good enough to not die in this sport (Sparky)
My Life ROCKS!
How's yours doing?

[freethefly 6]

I personally prefer Pentax and am looking forward to getting the new Pentax K10D. Due to having an inventory of Pentax K mount lenses and that standard 35mm lenses can be used on a Pentax digital SLR as the focal length is the same on their digital as it is on the film based camera (Pentax uses a sensor that is closest to the size of a 35mm plane. That and also the K10D is just one badass camera.
As for lenses, I have a couple of macro lenses. My favorite lens is my Tamron 90mm SP Macro. Its F stops from a slow 32 to a fast 2.8. You can photograph the eye of a fly with amazing clarity. I normally used it to do portraits and some weddings as it is perfect for such work with its versitality to go either way. It was a pricey lens in 1999 at over $650.00 but, well worth it for a high quality lens. Personally, I'd recommend any Tamron lens for its given application.

"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young

[freethefly 6]

Quote

Secondly, as a starter, a camera body is nothing more than a modified black box.

That is somewhat true with film camera but I believe to be different with DSLR. As with film the shots I took with my old P3 35mm were every bit as good as those taken with my 645 medium format. What it really boils down to is a great lens and high end professional films. My film of choice was Portra as it came in a wide range of ISO's as well as B/W and color. I have also shot single 4x5 Tmax 100 in an old 1959 Polaroid Land camera with amazing results. I had to load a single sheet of film into the back of the camera where a film cartridge would go. This had to be done in total darkness and using a fumble bag was not possible due to the size of the camera once openned up. For exposure I used my Minolta Auto Meter IVF to calculate for distance, time of exposure and F-stop. F-stops on the land camera were defined as 1,2,3,4,5... so test shots were first made to figure out which numbers corresponded to known f-stops such as 2.8, 4, 5.6 and so on. After a full day of going back and forth from the darkroom to the street, I was able to come away with some fairly amazing shots. The two shots attached were taken with the Land camera. One out doors, overcast. The other was indoors using 3 strobes w/umbrella3 at roughly 5/1 and a silver reflector to reduce shadow.

"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young

[iamsam 0]

Quote

stay away from extension tubes until you understand Fstops and exposure settings

Extension tubes let less light in, you need to compensate.

Digital provides instant feedback, if you can read a histogram, you can use extension tubes.

Have fun

but what do I know