Starting up again

mxfun

mxfun

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Sean Logie
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Been away from photography for a while , the itch has returned . I’m looking at an older body along the (Nikon d7100/7200 type body maybe Pentax K5/7 ) with a good lens for walkabout type shots . Budget of around £400-500 ,any good suggestions?

Cheers
Sean
 
As you seem to be looking for APS format, what about the Sony A65, with a Tamron 16~300mm lens?

Mine came in at a few pounds ove the £500 mark and I find it a very useful outfit...

Camera Sony A65 on trivet in kitchen DSC01375.JPGBicycle with big tyres and trailer in Exeter A65 DSC02564.JPGCrane operator at bus station construction site Exeter A65 DSC03443.JPGHalifax bomber at Yorkshire Air Museum A65 DSC02648.JPG
 
Sorry not a Sony fan , but thanks anyways
 
mxfun said:
Sorry not a Sony fan , but thanks anyways
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Any reason why? I’d actually suggest the Sony A77-II and 16-50mm f2.8 would be a great bit of kit.

If you like Nikon then the D7200 with 18-105mm would be my suggestion.
 
Quite a range between a 7200 and a K5.

I would be wary of Pentax (check for common faults on the internet)

In the price range of the K5 and 7100, I would rather look at a Canon 650D (I moved from Canon just under a year ago, but kept a 650D for various reasons)
The Canon kit lenses are better (by far) than Pentax, and their in-lens stabilisation seems to work better than the Pentax in-body stabilisation (I used Pentax from 1973 to 2017/8)

The standard Canon 18-55 is good, and a very nice wide range lens is the 18-135 or a bit heavier the 18-200.

A low count 650D would be around £200 or less, possibly with a 18-55 lens, and less than £300 with a lens if you were in a hurry, there's a goad chance you could get one + and 18-55 + an 18-135 for your £400.

It would give you a feel for things so that you could decide what direction your interest was going to take, and give good performance and features for the money.

I don't know Nikon well enough to comment, I could never own one :)
 
Sangoma said:
Quite a range between a 7200 and a K5.

I would be wary of Pentax (check for common faults on the internet)

In the price range of the K5 and 7100, I would rather look at a Canon 650D (I moved from Canon just under a year ago, but kept a 650D for various reasons)
The Canon kit lenses are better (by far) than Pentax, and their in-lens stabilisation seems to work better than the Pentax in-body stabilisation (I used Pentax from 1973 to 2017/8)

The standard Canon 18-55 is good, and a very nice wide range lens is the 18-135 or a bit heavier the 18-200.

A low count 650D would be around £200 or less, possibly with a 18-55 lens, and less than £300 with a lens if you were in a hurry, there's a goad chance you could get one + and 18-55 + an 18-135 for your £400.

It would give you a feel for things so that you could decide what direction your interest was going to take, and give good performance and features for the money.

I don't know Nikon well enough to comment, I could never own one :)
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For a given price point Nikon DSLR bodies are generally better than Canon from a sensor point of view. Lens wise you’re splitting hairs most of the time, and handling will be personal preference (y)
 
My normal advice would be to look towards a mirrorless system if you’ve not not got any system at all but thats a little more difficult with your budget.

Personally I’d stay well away from Sonys A Mount as it’s pretty much a dead system. The lenses can’t be adapted to Sonys new E Mount mirrorless cameras and I don’t think there have any A mount cameras released in quite a while.

Any of Nikons and canons older DSLRs and lenses will likely do. There were some great performing Nikon crop lenses going very cheap. If I remember correctly the Nikon 18-70 cropped lens was very good as a kit lens and for the price (currently circa £70 used). If I’m correct Nikons and canons crop sensor lenses can’t be adapted to their mirrorless cameras so that potentially has to be considered too.

Have you thought about Olympus? There mirrorless system is probably the best bang for buck mirrorless out there but if you want good AF performance then you have to look towards the newer bodies. There is a dedicated olympus thread to ask for further advice.

What photography genres do you see yourself doing? It may help to know as people can advise based on whether it will do what you need it to.
 
rob-nikon said:
Personally I’d stay well away from Sonys A Mount as it’s pretty much a dead system. The lenses can’t be adapted to Sonys new E Mount mirrorless cameras and I don’t think there have any A mount cameras released in quite a while.
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I agree if you’re likely to expand your kit at some point, but if you just want a cheap walk around with great performance and unlikely going to buy any new kit for a long time it’s a great cheap option.
 
rob-nikon said:
Personally I’d stay well away from Sonys A Mount as it’s pretty much a dead system. The lenses can’t be adapted to Sonys new E Mount mirrorless cameras
Click to expand...

I use a Tamron 90mm macro and Sigma 12-24 in A mount adapted with Sony's LA-EA4 adapter, and they now have a new adapter to give full access to the ceras internal af system.
 
mxfun said:
Sorry not a Sony fan , but thanks anyways
Click to expand...

Seems an odd thing to say. To be truly independent and brand agnostic (as I think we should be unless there's a very good reason) you really shouldn't care who made the kit.
 
mxfun said:
Sorry not a Sony fan , but thanks anyways
Click to expand...
If Sony doesn't appeal to you, then another, often overlooked, bargain in APS cameras is the Nikon D5nnn series. They're compact, have a decent finder and articulated screen and surprising fast and pleasant to use. I got good service from a D5100 for a few years and they're dirt cheap at the moment...

Nikon D5100 Body Only 1Ds II 12CL8072.JPG
Customer and cafe manageress Seefeld D5100 B0037.jpgWoman driving tourist carriage Innsbruck D5100 A0096.jpg
Swindon Library D5100 15011901.jpg
 
I shoot Pentax, so declare a bias, but there are no issues with the K5. Big attraction of Pentax is the enormous range of legacy lenses and weather/dust sealing across the range.

As a user of Pentax over many years I have always been impressed with their ethos of making cameras for photographers, which might seem an odd thing to say but their cameras and software are designed to make life easy.

I went on a course a few years back, and was the only Pentax shooter. Tutor asked everyone to make certain changes to settings on their cameras. A few seconds later I was done. Took a good five or more minutes for the rest of the togs to make the same changes, many requiring the tutors help.

Every modern camera is good, but each have their individual strengths. In the case of Pentax, in my view, it's usability - button location, software, etc.
 
In the 80s a colleague bought the first Canon EOS camera and I bought a Minolta 7000 which was the equivalent. Sitting side by side I'd ask 'how do you do such-and-such'? The answer was always obvious on the Mino and in the manual of the Canon.
 
JohnX said:
I shoot Pentax, so declare a bias, but there are no issues with the K5. Big attraction of Pentax is the enormous range of legacy lenses and weather/dust sealing across the range.

As a user of Pentax over many years I have always been impressed with their ethos of making cameras for photographers, which might seem an odd thing to say but their cameras and software are designed to make life easy.

I went on a course a few years back, and was the only Pentax shooter. Tutor asked everyone to make certain changes to settings on their cameras. A few seconds later I was done. Took a good five or more minutes for the rest of the togs to make the same changes, many requiring the tutors help.

Every modern camera is good, but each have their individual strengths. In the case of Pentax, in my view, it's usability - button location, software, etc.
Click to expand...
I love the Pentax brand and have had the K100D,K10D,K20D ,Kr in the past stretching over many years ,I still have a couple for sale adds for the K10d bookmarked . Your reference to the enormous range of lenses was my downfall ,I just kept buying and buying these beautiful things :);) I have decided to go the Nikon route for the foreseeable future .
 
woof woof said:
Seems an odd thing to say. To be truly independent and brand agnostic (as I think we should be unless there's a very good reason) you really shouldn't care who made the kit.
Click to expand...

Been thinking about that, doesn't seem to make much sense to me, different brands spend millions to build up a reputation for the simple purpose of make who made it matter.
Who makes it matters to me depending on the reputation of the maker, and people experiences with that make before.
 
Sangoma said:
Been thinking about that, doesn't seem to make much sense to me, different brands spend millions to build up a reputation for the simple purpose of make who made it matter.
Who makes it matters to me depending on the reputation of the maker, and people experiences with that make before.
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Brands don’t matter to me, I buy based on how good something is and whether it suits me. If that happens to be Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus etc etc I couldn’t care less. I try not to buy subjectively as it may blinker you and you end up with something that might not be as suitable.

I get building a brand is important to the manufacturer, clearly it helps sales as people do tend to buy subjectively and with bias. You see it all the time and it amazes me how people defend a brand, sometimes to the point of getting aggressive which is crazy :eek:
 
It makes little sense to me to follow brands. Just find what works for you and use it. No-one will think you're cool with a Canon, neat with a nikon etc.
 
snerkler said:
Brands don’t matter to me, I buy based on how good something is and whether it suits me. If that happens to be Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus etc etc I couldn’t care less. I try not to buy subjectively as it may blinker you and you end up with something that might not be as suitable.

I get building a brand is important to the manufacturer, clearly it helps sales as people do tend to buy subjectively and with bias. You see it all the time and it amazes me how people defend a brand, sometimes to the point of getting aggressive which is crazy :eek:
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Agreed, but how do you know how good it is?
And how do you know what the back up and customer service is like? Surely that has something to do with the brand, and customer service is important to me, may be it is to a few others as well.

At the same time I don't just buy something because of the brand name, but the reputation behind that name does count.
 
Sangoma said:
Agreed, but how do you know how good it is?
And how do you know what the back up and customer service is like? Surely that has something to do with the brand, and customer service is important to me, may be it is to a few others as well.

At the same time I don't just buy something because of the brand name, but the reputation behind that name does count.
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I know how good it is by looking at and reading reviews as well as trying it for myself. Through experience I know which sites and reviewers I trust. What I don’t tend to go by is all the advertising flannel you get, half of which doesn’t translate to real world usage.

Customer service is important of course, but some of this is down to the store you bought it from and then the rest is all much of a muchness, unless you’re using their pro service. In fact I’ve sometimes found third party brands can have better service than main brands.

Fortunately I’ve only had to use customer services a couple of times, but if I was choosing between Canon, Nikon, Sony etc I don’t think customer service would ever be a consideration tbh as I would expect them all to deal with a problem should it arise. YMMV
 
snerkler said:
Fortunately I’ve only had to use customer services a couple of times, but if I was choosing between Canon, Nikon, Sony etc I don’t think customer service would ever be a consideration tbh as I would expect them all to deal with a problem should it arise. YMMV
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Agreed.

Cameras and lenses seldom fail dramatically.
 
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