DSLR for beginner

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ben13

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Ben
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Hi all,

Could anyone recommend a dslr for landscape photography? I have very limited experience but would like something fairly decent. I'd rather go for something second hand around the £200 mark. Is that at all realistic?

Thanks,
Ben
 
Canon 5d - the original one. You'd struggle to find a better landscape body for that price.
Depends if you have any lenses already or are invested in a system yet

You might get better answers if you could get the post moved to the 'talk landscapes' section
 
MattyW, thanks for the quick response. I'll have a look at the 5d, mark 1 I assume?

I can borrow a lens for the time being but will need to buy one as well. Any suggestions (bearing in mind I'm on a budget)? I'm quite interested in photographing at morning/evening when the light is lower. Should I consider this when choosing a lens?

Thanks
 
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That's the one mate. I used one for years, delivers really good quality for the price.
If I ever get round to it, I'll be selling the old girl when I take some photos. I've been meaning to for 6 months now
 
Oh nice, well let me know if you put it up for sale!
Cheers
 
I found a new Canon EOS 1200D for £200, could anyone tell me if this body would be suitable for landscape?
Cheers
 
I'm sure they're all suitable for landscape, Ben :)

Question may be what lens you use (kit lens' are fine to start I'm sure), whether you want a tripod and most importantly understanding how to take a good landscape photograph / photography in general.
 
Any camera is suitable for landscape photography, it's a broad church and allows for many different approaches.
 
Yes on one hand I was thinking that the camera itself is not that important at this stage. But then a friend said that using a not-so-good camera might put me off.

I think I'll do a little more investigating before I make a purchase!

Thanks for the help :)
 
I bought a second hand 600D, prior to that I was borrowing a friend's 500/550D (I forget which one it was) on and off for several months when they weren't using it. I bought a spare battery and 50mm lens, so the 600 seemed logical as I could use my own bits with it :)

I liked it because it had a tilty/rotatey screen and having had one I don't think I'd want one that didn't at least tilt. A bit gimmicky perhaps, but for if your'e a midget like me and can't see through the viewfinder when the tripod's as high as it'll go, or really low down then it's great for composing in live view.

It depends what you'll mostly be using it for. Mine was crap for action shots, but perfectly good for landscapes if there was enough light - low light noise was a bit iffy... Served me mostly well for a year and a bit :)
 
Does the £200 include a lens?
And what do you mean when you say "landscapes"? - could you find online examples of the type of photograph you'd like to take.

I can personally recommend the Canon 40D and a secondhand body will be within your price range. It's an older semi-pro body, it's not as good in low light as more modern cameras but it has proper controls for learning with (separate shutter speed and aperture dials) unlike any of the beginner DSLRs.
 
Thanks for your replies Jonny & Alastair.

I quite like the idea of early morning & evening for taking photos so the problems with low light are a little concerning. I've been finding out about the advantages of a pentaprism, would it make a considerable difference over a pentamirror in low light conditions? If i find a camera I like but it has a pentamirror should I avoid?

Yes the £200 does include a lens - but I've come to realise that I'll have to increase my budget, to around £350.

I'll try to find some examples.

So in short: a second hand camera (including lens) that is good in low light conditions.
 
ben13 said:
So in short: a second hand camera (including lens) that is good in low light conditions.
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Landscape photography at night generally allows for longer exposures, so the high ISO response of a camera body is much less critical. Low light capabilities only really come into play when you want to take fast exposures - e.g. of people or moving objects.

If there's a specific type of shot you want to take, you could share a link to an example online. t would make it easier to give advice.

ben13 said:
Canon 700D?
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Sorry, you can't delegate your purchase decision to someone else.. you need to decide for yourself and you need to decide how you're going to balance your budget between body and lens. I imagine the 700D is a decent enough camera, but I haven't used one and don't plan on looking up reviews of it (try DPreview and Amateur Photographer).
 
As said, we can't be the decision maker here... that's for you :)
I don't know what the difference in sensor is, if any, but they do have a different image processor (the details of which I also don't know anything about). And the 700 has some weird multi-image noise reduction feature, apparently.

This was taken with a 600D, at iso 100*. It's not TOO noisy... but as soon as it got much darker I lost the ability to recover any meaningful detail from shadows... it's just noise. (Will see if I can find an example). It wasn't great for "low light" - especially if you tried to autofocus on anything... that just didn't work, at all.
Skye-10.jpg

*I realise it's not a very big image, but didn't want to annoy people by posting a huge version.
 
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Jonny Funkweasel said:
This was taken with a 600D, at iso 100*. It's not TOO noisy... but as soon as it got much darker I lost the ability to recover any meaningful detail from shadows... it's just noise. (Will see if I can find an example). It wasn't great for "low light" - especially if you tried to autofocus on anything... that just didn't work, at all.
Click to expand...

Going to disagree with you here, I find the 600D very good for low light or even night shooting. Most of my use takes place early morning, late evening or at night and rarely have reason to fault the camera. Granted there is not a lot of dynamic range to recover if you do a lot of manipulation in post processing, not something I tend to do.
Here is a night shot which should illustrate the point and yes I did use autofocus :)

[url=https://flic.kr/p/nioYEK]Pool Of Light by Steve Bennett, on Flickr[/URL]

And here a link to my photostream showing all the shots I remembered to tag as being taken with the 600D

https://www.flickr.com/photos/steveblackdog/tags/canon600d/
 
You'll need to tell us if you already have equipment, if not £200 is a very small budget unfortunately. As well as the camera, you'll want a tripod that won't fall over in a breeze, a fairly wide lens for expansive views (something like a kit lens 18-55mm on a crop sensor), a telephoto lens (for capturing details, e.g. if you're above mist and want to capture it swirling around a church spire - maybe a 55-300mm will do). Polarising or neutral density graduated filters are also important, grads especially if you have to buy a camera that doesn't have a high dynamic range. It's not to say you can't take great landscape pictures without all this equipment as there are some wonderful phone photographers out there (https://www.flickr.com/photos/52096016@N03 , also see 2015 LPOTY winner Mark Littlejohn's Twitter feed), but there's no point in buying a DSLR if you can't afford lenses.

If you do buy a DSLR, I'd probably go for a Nikon D3200/D3300 over a 1200D. The D3300 especially as it has a 24mp sensor without an anti-aliasing filter so landscapes will appear sharper. That's £329 from WEX with an 18-55mm lens and you can get an extra £20 cashback. Other than that used higher spec camera and lenses aren't a bad idea (and WEX have a used section on their website), although I have been unlucky lately with two cameras arriving not in the condition I'd hoped for, despite being from an excellent retailer (not WEX).

Good luck anyway and let us know if we can help further.

PS don't forget to budget for a bag if you don't already have one, also a remote shutter release. Also low light performance isn't really going to be an issue as you'll generally want to use a tripod and low ISO, and actually it's not really that dark close to sunrise and sunset
 
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Steve B said:
Going to disagree with you here, I find the 600D very good for low light or even night shooting. Most of my use takes place early morning, late evening or at night and rarely have reason to fault the camera. Granted there is not a lot of dynamic range to recover if you do a lot of manipulation in post processing, not something I tend to do.
Here is a night shot which should illustrate the point and yes I did use autofocus :)

Pool Of Light by Steve Bennett, on Flickr

And here a link to my photostream showing all the shots I remembered to tag as being taken with the 600D

https://www.flickr.com/photos/steveblackdog/tags/canon600d/
Click to expand...

That's a lovely image, Steve :)
I *do/did* try to do a fair bit of manipulation in post processing, which is where the lack of DR started to frustrate me :)
AF works fine - depending on what you're doing. Moving subjects in poor light - not so much :) I don't mean to be hard on the 600D. It's a great little camera, just not up to the job of what I was starting to want from it.

Here are two images of similar subjects - one's a 600D and one's from a 6D. Granted, they are different beasties entirely, but all I'm trying to get at is what you lose if you do try to push the shadows more :) (which is what I was doing)
shadow600d.jpg shadows6D.jpg
 
Jonny Funkweasel said:
That's a lovely image, Steve :)
I *do/did* try to do a fair bit of manipulation in post processing, which is where the lack of DR started to frustrate me :)
AF works fine - depending on what you're doing. Moving subjects in poor light - not so much :) I don't mean to be hard on the 600D. It's a great little camera, just not up to the job of what I was starting to want from it.

Here are two images of similar subjects - one's a 600D and one's from a 6D. Granted, they are different beasties entirely, but all I'm trying to get at is what you lose if you do try to push the shadows more :) (which is what I was doing)
View attachment 53849 View attachment 53850
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Cheers.
Unfotunately the 6D is way outside the OP's budget (and mine) let alone the lenses for full frame, we can all dream though :)
 
Yep... I wouldn't know what to suggest. 2nd hand if you can get a good one at a price you can afford, that'd be my choice, anyway.
 
Jonny Funkweasel said:
Yep... I wouldn't know what to suggest. 2nd hand if you can get a good one at a price you can afford, that'd be my choice, anyway.
Click to expand...

I use an EOS M mainly for landscapes now, BUT wouldn't suggest it as an only camera. There are times when a viewfinder, a larger body for a long lens, or handheld action where a DSLR is a better tool. So I still have the 600D for those times.
 
Thanks for all the help guys. I'll have to read through again and check all the links properly when I have a little more time :)
 
I couldn't wait any longer and so went for a Nikon D5200 in the end - hope it'll be suitable :)
 
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