Advice on which DSLR to buy

[George]

OK I have the photographic bug and my birthdays coming up in June so which camera do I buy? I'll be doing this on a budget so NO expensive toys please

I'm thinking secondhand Canon 300D, 350D or Nikon equivalent, if necessary can we have a C versus N discussion on this

Thanks

[GordonCopestake]

I have a D70 and enjoy using it. However for astro stuff the Canon 350D is probably your best bet.

[moondog]

I know I have one but the Canon 350D is a great astro camera. It's also very well supported by the astro software guys.

MD

[russ]

Depends on your budget. If like me you are on an extremely tight budget, there's probably only one choice. I picked up the following:

Canon 300D body only with software, cables etc - from Ebay for £150 delivered

Canon 18-55mm zoom - from Ebay for £21 delivered

T-adapter - from Ebay for £8 delivered

basic wired remote - from Ebay for £5 delivered

Compact Flash 1Gb - from Mymemory for £7 delivered

2" adapter with T-thread - from FLO for £16 delivered

Spare battery BP511 - from Ebay for £7 delivered

Total cost of a full DSLR imaging setup - £214

On the ultimate tight budget there's no other choice really in the DSLR field. The 300D is still a benchmark for astro use. The 350D and 400D produce fractionly less noise but perhaps not enough to justify their choice over the 300D for astro use. But may justify it for daytime use as well. The 350D will cost approx £100 more than the 300D.

The Nikon's are getting close to the low noise levels of the Canon's now but the older Nikon D100, D70 and D70s had issues (can't remember now but I think it was the in-camera noise reduction, the camera has to be turned off before it completed the noise reduction) for astro use. The latest Nikon D40 looks excellent value new and the D50 looks great value secondhand.

The Pentax IstD and IstDL both produce too much noise and too much amp glow for astro use. Olympus are renowned for their noisy sensors but the E500 is a stonking good camera and terrific good value. The forthcoming Olympus E410 is the DSLR i'd most like to own...a modern Olympus OM1.

Regards

Russ

[Kaptain Klevtsov]

The Nikon range will do better than the Canon range but only with hardware modifications. The D50 has been found to have the lowest noise and highest dynamic range in the 300D, 350D D70 D70s type of price bracket, but you have to get soldering to get this to work.

Stick with the 300D Canon for these reasons:-

The more expensive Canon models have more bells and whistles that you don't need for Astro stuff.

The standard software will talk to Canon models more easily than Nikon or others.

The Nikon cameras do in-camera noise reduction wether you like it or not, unless hacked.

The 300D can be modified by removing the IR filter - its a common modification on this camera.

HTH

Captain Chaos ("stuck" with the Nikon D50)

[mhc]

You don't actually say whether this is an astroimaging bug, or a more general photography bug. Both are good!

I'm not an imager, but do class myself as a serious amateur photographer.

From a non astro photography point of view, the Canon 350 is significantly better than the 300. The 350 has been superceded by the 400, effectively making the 300 2 generations old. The 350 is good.

For the sake of balance, I'm a Nikon D70 user. I simply didn't like the small physical size of the Canon 350, despite it outperforming the D70 on paper in certain aspects, underperforming in others. I wanted to like the 350, since I already had Canon lenses from my 35mm film SLR, but it just didn't work out for me

The D70 is good. Can be picked up very cheaply. Differences between D70 and D70S are negligible and can be ignored.

[Cloudwatcher]

I like the 350D for astro work the lock up mirror reduces vibration. Not sure the 300D has this.

Check out Covington's DSLR Astrophotography Proceedures on the web,a very helpful guide for

Canon EOS users. www.covingtoninnovations.com

[Albireo380]

Excellent link to the Covington website, Cloudwatcher. I have a Canon 350D which is used for general (mainly landscape) terrestrial photography, and for widefield and prime focus Astrophotography. In just a few minutes on the Covington website, I have picked up some useful tips. All I need now is some cold, dark nights - then I can get cracking.

Incidentally - I am very happy with the "beginner astrophotography" results I get from the 350D. An excellent camera.

Thanks

Tom

[russ]

I had the 350D for a short while, I'm most of the old hands will remember my time with that camera. I moaned from the day I got it. Had it two weeks, then exchanged it. As with mhc I hated the body size, couldn't get a comfortable grip and just pined for my 300D. I found the buttons awkward to use and it still carried over the same cruddy screen from the 300D. That just my opinion.

Russ