Recommendations for a good dslr starter camera

justjoda

Hi All,
My dad used to be right into photography had several expensive lenses and his own dark room. He has since given this us and now only uses a 'typical' point and shoot cheap digital. I was hoping for christmas I could get him into dslr and was hoping for reasonable recommendations. Having looked around on google I think Im looking at around £500.

Any thoughts?

googler

If he has a PC, you might want to consider getting him a negative and film scanner instead. That way, he could delve into his library and convert them into digital format, at least for backup purposes....

Without overtly discussing it with him, maybe he just uses the point and shoot because he got tired of schlepping 3 or 4 lenses around...?

yangptangkipperbang

Would suggest something like:

http://www.cliftoncameras.co.uk/Nikon_D3100_18-55_VR_Kit

or the Canon equivalent.

Would strongly suggest that he is involved in the purchase as some cameras just "feel" better in the hand than others. There is very little to choose between Nikon and Canon other than that.

debitcardmayhem

I recently bought a Nikon D3200 Kit , thus far I am very pleased, am also using old (non-digital) lenses too, the drawback being the loss of autofocus, but the effective focal length of those is about 1.6 x the digital ones. It might be worthwhile if he still has his old camera and lenses he may be able to use those too assuming you buy him the same format of lens mount.

InsideInsurance

First of all.... you say he has expensive lenses.... what camera are they for? They may well be possible to continue using them depending on what they are for. The current Canon dSLRs use the same EF mount and system as the film EOS SLR cameras did so you could get full use from them. The older FD mount Canon lenses cannot be used fully but you can get an adapter to get partial use from them.

Secondly, I would strongly recommend getting him down to a camera shop to actually look and feel them. One of the "problems" with entry level dSLRs is that they are much smaller and lighter than a traditional SLR was and some guys with big hands find them uncomfortable to hold. Even smaller handed people can feel the cameras are unbalanced when adding larger/ heavier lenses to them.

It can often be better to buy a retiring model from a higher range for a more robust build and better ergonomics than buy the bleeding edge miniture budget model