DSLR camera for £350-£400

scottishminnie

I'm desparately looking for some help. I have up to £400 to spend on a camera for hubby's Christmas. It needs to be simple but effective. He keeps looking at DSLR's longingly so that's wehere I've started my search.

He won't do anything dreadfully fancy with it but it does need to have good picture quality - we current have a Sony which is really apalling and has driven the desire for a new one. To be honest I'm not keen on another Sony.

It will be mainly used for landscapes whilst on holiday but would be good to be able to capture things like fireworks etc.

Appreciate I've been a bit vague but I'm really stuck and there isn't a decent camera shop where I can go for help (not an independent one anyway)

Thanks

mr_fishbulb

Entry-level DSLRs have gone up in price over the past few years - I got my Nikon D40 for under £300, but there is nothing around that price now.

For £400 I would recommend the Canon 1000D with kit lens (around £350) and spend the extra on a memory card and a UV filter to protect the lens.

scottishminnie

I did look at this one - would I need to buy an Image Stabilisation kit for this one - that was suggested to me.

mr_fishbulb

scottishminnie wrote: »

I did look at this one - would I need to buy an Image Stabilisation kit for this one - that was suggested to me.

You don't buy Image Stabilisation as a seperate piece of kit, it is built in to some lenses (Canon ones have IS in the lens name). Only the more expensive DSLRs come with an IS lens.

For landscapes and for starting out then the non-IS lens will be fine

Mk14:37

scottishminnie, I've been looking at entry level DSLRs (same price bracket) for my birthday and would totally agree that Canon 1000D is the way to go.

However, I really want something with a decent zoom and there's no way that I can afford a further £200 on a zoom lens for a DSLR, so am now looking at bridge cameras such as the Fujifilm HS10.

patman99

Only Sony have IS built in to the camera itself. Why not try a Nikon D3100?, these are less than £450 on Amazon.

ukcarper

Here are a couple of useful web sites

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

http://camerapricebuster.co.uk/

Nothing wrong with Sony DSLRs. I wouldn’t worry too much about IS if you main interest is Landscape.

darich

ukcarper wrote: »

I wouldn’t worry too much about IS if you main interest is Landscape.

Why not?
IS reduces camera shake...so unless you're using a tripod*, IS could be useful for landscapes.

*for those who don't know, If your equipment has IS and mounted on a tripod, then IS should be switched off.

darich

mr_fishbulb wrote: »

Entry-level DSLRs have gone up in price over the past few years - I got my Nikon D40 for under £300, but there is nothing around that price now.

For £400 I would recommend the Canon 1000D with kit lens (around £350) and spend the extra on a memory card and a UV filter to protect the lens.

Good advice, but personally I'd go for a polariser rather than UV.
Mainly because it does the same protective job, but is also useful to have and means you don't need to remove one filter and replace it with another.

mr_fishbulb

darich wrote: »

Good advice, but personally I'd go for a polariser rather than UV.
Mainly because it does the same protective job, but is also useful to have and means you don't need to remove one filter and replace it with another.

A polariser reduces the amount of light so you will lose between 1 or 2 stops (i.e. the shutter speed sill be slower and more likely to introduce blur).

I keep a polariser on in the day time if it's really sunny, but take it off when the clouds come out.

ukcarper

darich wrote: »

Why not?
IS reduces camera shake...so unless you're using a tripod*, IS could be useful for landscapes.

*for those who don't know, If your equipment has IS and mounted on a tripod, then IS should be switched off.

In most situations with the shorter focal length lenses you will mainly be using for landscape photography unless the light is bad you should be able to use a fast enough shutter speed to avoid camera shake and if its not you can always use a tripod.

As the original poster doesn’t want a Sony and the Nikon is above £400 it will be hard to find a DSLR with IS in her price range.