What one!!

[tcsnapper]

Hi all.
Terry is the name.
Bit of history: Live in London, used to work for news/picture agency (about 25 years ago) work camera used to be Nikon F4 with a Photomic head (yea I know........really old). Now wanting a new camera.
Have been reading up on TP for a few days now and I am more confused about new technology than ever!!
I had it down to a Nikon D80, Canon 40D, Olympus E 620, not too many lenses for the oly!!.
Looking further afield there are now these superzooms, (why carry a load of lenses around if they do most of it with one!!. And then there are the super compacts.........what's going on!! there is so much choice.
Any advice/help/hints would be most appreciative.
Terry

 

[rpn]

Hi Terry, I know how you feel. I was in a similar situation about three years ago.

After a gap of nearly 15 years (Canon A1/T90) I decided to pick up this hobby again and was confused with all these technology. Before I find this site and after talking to friends I got myself a Nikon D300 with a 18-200mm lens as a starter. As you said one lens covers all but since then and mucho £££££ spend on other lens and bits and pieces.

Back to your question and being a Nikon user I would say D90 is a good camera for a (re) starter. I'm sure others will be along soon to give you more advice.

 

[phototuition]

Hi Terry, as a trainer I own and use the lot so here it goes -

Top compacts like canon G10 too slow to function in every way and impossible to blurr backgrounds without using telephoto zoom. Superb as a pocket landscaper though.

Superzooms similar probs to above plus poor image qual at full zoom and they are mainly bulky and hard to pocket. Great for twitchers and perverts!

crop sensor DSLRs like d90 and so on offer fantastic speed and quality but once you add a tele zoom and another lens the kit is really annoyingly heavy to carry around all day if it's for fun.

My camera of choice on a day off is a Panasonic G1 with a tele zoom in my pocket, it's light incredibly cheap at the mo and the image qual is superb. When my punters turn up with no camera it's the fave of retired folk and walkers and hikers.

 

[Arkady]

If you've been with Nikon before then the jump from F4 to current Nikon DSLRs isn't quite so daunting as you might think.
Having used an SLR in the past, my take is that anything else would seem like a 'climb-down'...others may disagree...in the pure image-quality stakes they'd be right, but for flexibility, an SLR based system is still the best bet.
Depending on budget, anything from D5000 to D300s will be fine with a decent medium-zoom to start you off again.