OK so here is the quandry, Im in the process of buying a Camera for my Son who will be starting do a Graphics and Design HND course this September at
university level. Having flown through his art & Graphics and Design courses over the previous three years with Distinction passes.
He will be buying a MAC laptop himself but I will be buying him a camera. I have got it down to a short list of either :-
Nikon D90
OR
Canon EOS50D.
So can anyone out there give further incisive input as to which to go for. They both have their good points and bad points, but do any of your have
relevant personal experience.
Over to you PLEASE and Thank you.
Personal oppinion is Canon (im a canon owner though).
Is the 50D the right camera though. Would he not be better off with a 500D (which is a stunning camera) and then some good glass.
Dont forget bodys move on. Good glass is for life.
What type of photography will he be doing and what experiance does he have?
macspeedy has a nikon that is superfast
give him a shout. This is the video output from it not bad for a 10 meg still camera. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K5JIz4WkTmY
Cannon/nikon depends on a few things, i find the cannon bodys too small when shooting with long lens's, i now run a D80 and can't see many
benifits to the d90 apart from the extra 2 Mp, however as said above what about lens's.
The len's should last a lot longer than the body
i personally would look at the d80 or 500d and buy better lens's.
Also don't under estimate the cost of lens's some of mine cost a lot more than the body.
The movie function is a bit 'lame' yes it will record it by why ? use a video camera.
hth Roger
I have a 50d and cant really fault it. im no camera wizard but i allways seem to get good pictures out of the thing.
the only real issue i have with it is that the twain32 driver for it is pretty crap for importing into an editing suite that i use.
I am currently a high end Nikon user (D3) and have some of the new f2.8 lenses excellent peice of kit but found the earlier Nikons disapointing.
Both Cannon and Nikon are good systems always vieing for the top sales spots.
Yes the lenses are very important but the D90 is not a full frame camera meaning you have a choice of the more superior FX lenses or the DX range, it
is realy about money.
I would personally look at the packages you can get with the Cannon and Nikon and go from there.
Just to throw some more confusion into the mix, have a look at the new Nikon D5000, a good range of lenses, movie capability, i quite like it.
*** hijack alert **** there was a good digital camear comparison websit that I cane across few years back - anyone know of it or one simlar?
am the proud owner of a nikon d50, had it for a few years now and while its not anywhere near top of the range now it was when i bought it!! for a
very similar reason to why you are buying for your son (but i bought it for myself)
i love it, the lenses i have got did cost more than the camera itself in quite a few cases, but the camera is still very much in action, and stil
takes very good pictures. dont worry to much about the MP, because it really just means the max size of image is bigger, the quality comes from the
lenses and the camera itself, and ive found nikon to be very good. id say get a slightly lesser camera and buy (depending on what hes doing) either a
long lense, possibly telescopic or if he does really close up stuff a macro lense, maybe with a ring flash... if he does neither then perhaps buy a
higher quality intermediate lense, or an intermediate with a slightly longer range.
the canon nikon argument is very similar to bec cec argument on here really!
but nikon is better
Al
www.dpreview.com do good reviews and appear to be quite independent (ie will moan about stuff)
I've got a canon 450d. I do like it but .... wish i'd gone for a nikon d80. I picked the canon as it was entry level camera of the year and
LOTS of people have canons so i figured they're would be more second hand bits + more bits developed for it.
Wish i'd gone nikon because the D80 is a level above teh 450 (and about the level you're looking). If people do a lens for a canon they
invariably do it for nikon. Nikon comes with built in remote camera flash option.
In reality the cameras are very similar. Just be aware that the lenses (glass as people tend to refer to it) gets very expensive and the better glass
is designed for full frame cameras. This works on 3/4 size cameras but .... lenses designed for 3/4 cameras won't work on full sized. So if you
invest in lots of 3/4 sized glass you could end up selling it later on as you upgrade the camera body.
I have Nikon d90 which i am very happy with, copes with all types of light very well and can do complex stuff really well and easy stuff just as
easily, uses the same processor as from its bigger more expensive brother, lens are plentiful had a 80-400 which i enjoyed using greatly but didnt use
it enough so sold it i would buy a fisheye if i had the pennies as they look so much fun, the 18-200 package is highly reccommended for its
flexibility, the video mode is good but has its limitations... no auto focus.. time limit of 5 mins and a fairly poor mic.
check out ken rockwell he does very in depth reviews of his nikons
http://www.kenrockwell.com/
and here for d90 vidz
Hope that helps
http://vimeo.com/groups/d90/videos
After looking and looking fo rover a year finnaly plumped for a D90 with the 18 -105 from argos after keeping an eye on
http://www.camerapricebuster.co.uk/
Reasons for the D90 borrowed a D80 for the day and really liked it
I have had it arround a month and getting to grips with it ( here again another vote for ken rockwell - who goes through the menus and tells you the
important ones )
Features I like
Auto mode anyone can use it,
Other modes gives you features for most things.
Auto Iso
Auto whitebalance that seems to work in most lighting.
LCD display on top that tells you all you need to know ( this can be replicated on the LCD with the info button ).
beware of grey imports that can cause warranty issues ( got 2 years on mine ).
would i recomend the D90 yes is the cannon better I dont know.
which gave the d90 67 and the eos50 76 but there is a few commets on the Which reports sugesting that the D90 lense they had was duff as the
photo's I have taken suffer from non of the issues reported on which.
See u2u re which reports.
Regards
Agriv8
[Edited on 4/7/09 by Agriv8]