DSLR wanted.

[willbackhouse]

Hi There

 

We are currently looking at purchasing a DSLR camera for our school. We have a budget of £400.

 

We don't have much knowledge in this area so I've come here for some expertise. We are currently looking at the Canon 100D and Nikon D3200.

 

Any other suggestions or advice?

[teejay]

What's it going to be used for?

[willbackhouse]

Mainly for high quality pictures on our school website, but will also be used for events etc.

[plexer]

Get a Sony Alpha:

 

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-Translucent-Mirror-Interchangeable-18-55mm/dp/B00BHXVWVU/ref=sr_1_1?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1412857958&sr=1-1&keywords=sony+slr

 

Ben

[3s-gtech]

We recently bought an EOS 700D, just over £500 including storage and spare battery. Very nice piece of kit, and comes with a decent bundled lens which can be an unexpected extra cost with some.

[teejay]

Either of those would be fine, it really comes down to how comfortable they feel to use. The other thing is you will need to look at some extra lenses, for events you will need a zoom lens that goes up to about 200-250mm, but make sure you get one that has image stabilisation. It would also be worthwhile getting a 50mm fixed lens as even the cheap ones give cracking results, far better than zoom lenses. Also, get a screw in UV filter for each lens, they're only cheap and saves the lens from getting scratched. A spare battery is useful, plus a tripod and a remote release if you want to get some nice sharp images.

[plexer]

but make sure you get one that has image stabilisation.

 

Which is the good thing with the Sony's they have in body stabilisation so whatever lens you slap on has it including older Minolta lenses, you can also get lenses with additional in lens stabilisation as well.

 

Ben

[MatthewL]

I only use Sony, found Canon and Nikon to be way over priced and get some quality results with my Sony, plus I can use Tamron lenses with mine.

[Dos_Box]

We got the EOS100D this summer. So far it's proved excellent at taking pictures without resulting to the more 'professional' settings.

The rear touch screen is a godsend too!

[dhicks]

We are currently looking at purchasing a DSLR camera for our school. We have a budget of £400.

 

For a school DSLR, you'll want to put aside a bit of money for a case, battery charger, several spare batteries and several spare SD cards. We have our main DSLR set up with an Eye-Fi card, so any pictures taken go straight on to the network, although these days you'll probably find wireless connectivity built straight in to the camera itself.

 

I'd probably go for a bridge camera rather than a DSLR. They tend to be a bit more robust in a school environment - no removeable lense to get dust in, for a start, and you tend to get a good lense for your money compared to what you could afford with a DSLR. I have a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX150 from a couple of years ago that has worked very well, and I see the newer FX200 is out now. I could have sworn I saw something the other day abut Panasonic's new consumer-level (i.e. cheaper) bridge or DSLR now supporting 4K video - bear in mind each 4K frame is effectivly an 8 megapixel image, taking photos now becomes a case of pointing the camera at the action and deciding on the best shot to use later.

 

Personally, I generally wind up using a monopod and a remote shutter release cable a fair bit - it gives you something to hold the camera by, letting you hold it up above your head if you're in a crowd.

[john]

I only use Sony, found Canon and Nikon to be way over priced and get some quality results with my Sony, plus I can use Tamron lenses with mine.

 

Indeed I like my Sony had it for a good few years now (A200 so shows how long ago it was!) and I use a range of Minolta goodies on it from the SLR I had.