First DSLR!

[BlueStinger]

Hi, I'm new to all this, still, as you might have guessed from my welcome thread a few weeks ago. I was taking pics of the nightsky with my Huawei P20 Pro, both with just it mounted on a tripod for Milky Way shots and attached to my Binoculas for some closer shots of Orion etc. I was impressed at how well it performed and with some stacking (new to that too!) really impressed at the level of detail, and colour, it pulls. The only disappoinment was The Moon, no matter what I cannot get any real detail to show.

Anway I have been binge watching youtube vids regarding shooting the Milky Way and came across one of some guy just pointing a dslr at the moon and taking a pic (in manual mode of course) and, boom, a great shot. Wow! So I had to have one! As I have zero experience of any camera let alone dslr's and a limited budget it seemed I would have to settle for something like a Canon 4000D unless I went the second hand route. The reviews of the 4000D say it's a decent camera for the price but it has some drawbacks that put me off mainly the fairly low quaility, fixed, lcd and so some older used models might be a better choice.

I scouted through ebay, fb marketplace and the like and came across some guy selling a 'like new' Canon 700D with some really nice extras and the seller was in the same town! I fired some questions his way as there was no mention or picture of the USB data cable or the shutter count (seems this is very important) and the reply was that there was no USB cable included and he had no idea of the shutter count. He said he only had it a few months, after buying it from a friend, and never even heard of it. I decided to go have a look anyway as it really looked in excellent condition form the pics and the extras were tempting. So I went for a look last night and even though there was no way I could find out the shutter count (as he had no pc available, and without the usb cable I couldn't even connect it to my phone to check the website camershuttercount.com.) I took a risk and bought it (stupidly I guess) as it really did look in excellent condition. I picked up a usb cable on the way home from a local supermarket and straight away went looking for the shutter count (a bit late now but I had to know). camerashuttercount.com told me that this camera doesn't add the required info to pics so I tried EOSinfo. To my absolute joy and relief it says the shutter count is 11,446 which is lower than I expected but I guess not really considering the overall condition of the camera

So, I paid £250 for a really nice Canon 700D, the 18-55mm stm kit lens, a 55-250mm stm telephoto lens, a battery grip pack with two Duracell batteries and some weird looking AA cage that can also fit inside the grip, a remote shutter release, a brand new looking Evecase vintage camera bag, a cleaning kit (the rubber ball dust balloon thing will be useful elsewhere too) and of course the standard battery and charger pack and manuals.  All in all I think this little lot is pretty good for a complete novice like me without spending a fortune!

Sorry for the long write up (I'm good at that) but I'm excited haha! Cheers.

 

Edited April 4, 2020 by BlueStinger

[adyj1]

Congrats! That's a good set of stuff there. The foldout screen will be especially useful for focusing and framing at weird angles! 

If you have a tripod, perhaps have a go at the Pleiades and Venus tonight with that zoom lens? 

Ady

 

[BlueStinger]

I do have a tripod and fully intend to use it whenever I can. I'll have a look out tonight at some point before they drop out of view. Thanks! Oh and yes, the fold out screen was a big draw for me as I'm already fed up with crouching down to see what i'm doing using my previous phone and bins method. This is a perfect solution.

Edited April 4, 2020 by BlueStinger

[BlueStinger]

Took a few of the moon tonight, and then messed around with them to produce this monstrosity, but I kind of like it. I was going to put it in the Lunar thread, but I think I'll just hide it here

 

[MarkAR]

Looks great, you've brought the colours up nicely.