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*SoulEyes Photography>>>Slr Digital Camera

What is a good SLR camera that dosn't cost a fortune?


I am looking for a good digital SLR not too expensive that can use a wide variety of lenses for around $1000.

my suggestion
go to yahoo shopping
digital cameras
digital camera GUIDE
be sure to check titles on the left side
the guide should answer your questions

canon makes a good one. slr e somethin? sorry, i cant remember the exact name. if you look though theyre around 800. look an amazon, i found the body w/lens kit (not a great lens, but still ok) plus an extra lens for about $850

SLR cameras would be the Nikon F series (F2 and newer) Canon (EOS).

Digital SLR would still be Nikon and Canon brands.

Look at the dpreview site and compare the Nikon and Canon SLR cameras listed that are under $1000. If you have either Nikon or Canon glass already, stay with the camera brand you have already. Both cameras are professional quality.

The best "affordable" value is the Pentax K100D 6.1 mp DSLR which comes with two Pentax lenses: a normal 18-55 mm lense and a 50-200 mm telephoto. The Pentax K Series has the best in-body "shake reduction" bar none. It also have "multiple" burst exposure capability. This camera kit sells for $600 [after Pentax mail-in rebate good until July 31, 2007] at samys.com. and comes with (1) case; (2) 1 gb SD memory card; (3) tripod; and (4) 200 free prints @samys.com Here's a review link:

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2006_revi...

Good luck!

Costco is currently selling the Nikon D40x (10mp sensor) with two lenses in a kit for $999. The D40 (6mp) is a couple hundred dollars less in a kit with two lenses. Either camera wil ltake great pics and are excellent beginner pro-sumer SLR's.

I'll assume that you want to purchase a camera body AND lens for around $1000. If you are looking for the body alone, please click on the little pencil icon under your question and "add details" to tell us so. Otherwise, if I had $1,000 of your money to spend on a digital camera, I'd get a Nikon D40X with the 18-135 mm lens. Here are two of my stock answers that you can mentally merge together to see why. The first one talks about the virtures of the D40 in general and the second one tells you why the D40X is a worthy upgrade.

You can get a Nikon D40x, 10.2 Megapixel, SLR, Digital Camera Kit with Nikon 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor Lens and Two SanDisk 2GB Ultra II Secure Digital (SD) Card from B&H Photo for under $1,000, including shipping. Note that this kit includes two excellent memory cards.

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Nikon D40

The Nikon D40 is a great little camera, very easy to use and quite reasonably priced. It has a few "consumer friendly" totally automatic modes that make it very easy to use - including a "Child Photo" mode - but still offers total photographic control when you are ready to take charge. It will get you in the Nikon family which is a great place to be. If you buy accessories and lenses, you will be able to use everything on any Nikon that you might upgrade to later on.

Check out Nikon's "Picturetown" promotion, where they handed out 200 D40's in Georgetown, SC. http://www.stunningnikon.com/picturetown...

Here are a few reviews, in case you have not read them yet. Be sure to note that they are several pages long and some of the reviews also have some sample images that you can look at.

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond40...
http://www.steves-digicams.com/2007_revi...
http://www.popphoto.com/cameras/3756/cam...
http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40/d40...

I hate to see people slam the camera because it can't autofocus with older Nikon lenses. It is true that there is a "slight problem" with older Nikon lenses not autofocusing on the D40, but if you do not own a bag full of older lenses, it is not going to be a problem. It is barely a problem anyhow. If you check www.nikonusa.com for "AF-S" lenses, which are ALL 100% compatible with the D40, you will find 23 lenses, including 7 "VR" (vibration Reduction) lenses and one true macro lens with "VR". There are another 25-plus lenses in the current catalog that provide all functions except autofocus as well as many (possibly dozens) "out of print" lenses that will work just as well. In addition, although these lens will not autofocus, most of them will still give focus confirmation. From the D40 manual: "If the lens has a maximum aperture of f/5.6 of faster, the viewfinder focus indicator can be used to confirm whether the portion of the subject in the selected focus area is in focus. After positioning the subject in the active focus area, press the shutter release button halfway and rotate the lens focusing ring until the in-focus indicator is displayed." (See http://www.members.aol.com/swf08302/niko... for a list of AF-S lenses.)

The D40 only has 3 autofocus zones arranged horizontally at the center, 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock positions. This might be considered a limitation, but realistically, most people will find this perfectly adequate, especially if you are moving up from a point and shoot with only a center zone.

There is no "Status LCD" on top of the camera, but Nikon chose to use the rear LCD for this information. This is actually a nice move, as the display is bigger than the top display and you aren't using the read LCD for anything BEFORE you take the picture anyway. This is not a step backwards and it actually makes sense to me.

You can get the D40 with the 18-55 kit lens at B&H Photo available through Yahoo! Shopping or at 1-800-622-4987) for $525 (June 2007). Add a Lexar Platinum (60X speed) card for $25 or 2 GB for $35. Or - get the D40 with 18-135 lens and 1 GB Lexar card for $750. This is a decent lens and it is very versatile. You will find it suitable for pretty much anything you want to do, other than really long telephoto shots. It will let you explore the range of focal lengths to decide where to start filling in your lens collection. If you don't want to buy any more lenses, this one will carry you through pretty much everything. B&H also have used D40's with the lens from $475.

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Nikon D40 vs. D40X

There are a few slight differences in these cameras that need to be considered. Rather than write it all out, I'll send you to a few sites.

See: http://www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d40x.ht...

See: http://www.popphoto.com/cameras/3896/cam... for a glowing review.

See also:

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/compare_...

See also:
http://www.nikonians.org/dcforum/DCForum...

See the REVIEW here:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/nikond40...

As far as the pixel issue, I say, if you have no other basis for making your decision, go for more pixels. If you always plan to compose your pictures perfectly, you don't need a whole lot of pixels. If you want to allow for cropping, which means enlarging only a portion of your image, the more pixels the better.

Imagine taking a scenic view and then noticing that the middle 20% of the photo would make an even better picture. Suppose you take a picture of a whole group of people and Aunt Clara really, really looks great in the picture, but everyone else looks lousy. If you have the pixels to work with, you can still make a decent print of Aunt Clara that she would be happy to have. If you buy an 8-to-10 MP camera and don't want to TAKE large photos, you can always set the camera to a lower file size. You can never go the other direction, though. Unless the cost is a major issue, buy the camera with more pixels. You will never be sorry that you did, but you might one day be sorry that you didn't.

I have a few photos on Flickr to include in a discussion on how many pixels are enough. Go to my page at http://www.flickr.com/photos/samfeinstei... Some of the pictures are from a 4 MP or even 3 MP camera, showing you what you might expect without any cropping. I think they are quite acceptable. Some of the pictures are from a 10 MP camera (the swan and the pansies), showing the value of having those large images so that you can crop a smaller image out of the original picture and still end up with a satisfactory image.

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