New DSLR camera

[Grunt]

I don't know what the Austalian price will be. The retail price for the body in the US is US$999 and with the 18-135 lens US$1299. The price will drop rapidly once they've been out for a while and assuming Nikon can keep up with production. I paid $1400 for the D50 nearly 12 months ago and I wouldn't pay more than $1000 today.

The 18-200 VR lens is about $1200. It's an excellent value walk-around lens.

[Jack E]

Harry,

Have you purchased your kit yet.
If not I have the 18-55 and 75-300 that I am willing to sell.
If it would save you any money to buy body only, it will do us both a favour.
Not sure of cost, if you want them we can come to some sort of arrangement.

Cheers, Jack.

[Harry72]

Yeah already paid for... oh wel dem's the brakes!
BTW, are they auto focusing?

[Jack E]

Oh well

Yes mate, they are auto focusing.

The 18-55 is the new lense made for the digi, which is signified by a white square on the lense where it attaches to the body.

The 75-300 is the old lense with the red dot.

I wonder if yours will be the same.

No big deal, just something I noticed when I got mine.

I think I read earlier that you had a 4 gig card, that will be more than enough.
I have a 1 gig card and never ran out of room after a pretty serious month of shooting including our wedding and honeymoon (we had a pro photographer as well as a 350D and 2 300D's operated by friends, I think all up there were about 2000 shots of our wedding day).
The wife probably took twice as many honeymoon photos as I did on the Casio Exilim, as someone said earlier, she took more photos as she had the tiny camera with her all the time.

Cheers, Jack.

[Studley 2436]

Harry you bought the gear and then asked later if it is autofocus.

Actually Canon came along with the EOS autofocus back in about 85. I don't think you can buy a camera now that doesn't autofocus. Mind you the mini cams with their tiny sensor are pretty much focused at any distance because of the huge depth of field but anyway that is not much about anything.

There is one camera actually that doesn't autofocus. Nikon still sell one of their old manual cameras. No battery at all. Everything is manual. I think it has through the lens metering but that operates on a selenium cell and raises a needle in the viewfinder. There is a circle that is on an arm that goes up and down depending on where you set the aperture. Anyway when you are in Africa where it isn't always easy to get batteries that's a camera you can use. People who do silly things like climb Everest love it too as it will keep working long after any camera that uses a battery has just died. Or at least the battery has lost it's charge from the cold.

Anyway way back when Canon ditched it's FD mount lenses and went to the Autofocus mount. People refused to believe it was anything more than marketing. Nikon who are the ones who invented the whole thing but couldn't make it work well enough to satisfy the standards they have before they let something out to the consumer sat on the sidelines for a while and Canon did a dodgy patent on them. Anyway then the whole thing came around and everyone has autofocus. Canon is boasting it's "Full Frame" sensor and Nikon hasn't made one yet because no one has been able to make one work well enough yet .

Funny how it all goes around. But it does give me fond memories of a Canon AE-1 I had which was a great camera and a FD200-f4 which was a lovely sharp lens. And of course photographing at the Australian GP when Prost won and you had to pick a spot and focus on it, then wait for the car to hit that spot. Amongst other things the camera does for you now.

Studley

[Honest Gaza]

Adding to that it comes with a 75~300 zoom as well as the standard 18~55 lense

Not according to their website. With both lenses the price is $1649 (not $1499)

[Honest Gaza]

Regardless of current price conjecture....I too will be purchasing the 400D this month. I'm heading to Hong Kong in October and had planned on buying it while I was over there. Unfortunately, further research showed that the camera is not covered under Australian warranty if I purchase it in HK.

So now I'll buy the Body and basic "walk around" lens (not the Canon Kit lens which gets ordinary reviews), before travelling to HK.....and then purchase a quality zoom lens while over in HK (because the lenses ARE covered by an international warranty).

One of the camera stores in the city (Sydney) indicated that the Body & 18-55mm kit lens will be selling for $1399.

[Harry72]

SO Harry you are going to chuck your taxi and get a BMW or something and toss the Canon and get a Nikon, just as soon as you get some money?

No Id spend money on some Felder and festool first!
Not likely to spend much money on anything soon other than upgrading my $hit hole house to something nicer(with bigger shed... err workshop just dont tell the )

Harry you bought the gear and then asked later if it is autofocus.

Nooooo I didnt... was asking if the lense's he's selling are of the AF kind

I think I read earlier that you had a 4 gig card, that will be more than enough.

Going by the Canon spec sheet at max raw setting its about 9~10mb per pic so thats around 400 pics per 4gig card, and I got 2 of them!(I do get click happy at car shows)

Not according to their website. With both lenses the price is $1649 (not $1499)

Yes I stated that! The $1450 was for the 350D with both lense's.

The Canon EOS400D/EFS 18-55mm/75-300 Zoom Twin Lens Kit deal from Teds looks good at $1650, or Canon EOS 350D with Canon 18-55mm zoom, and additional EF90-300mm lens at $1450

[woodbe]

the camera is not covered under Australian warranty if I purchase it in HK.

So now I'll buy the Body and basic "walk around" lens (not the Canon Kit lens which gets ordinary reviews), before travelling to HK.....and then purchase a quality zoom lens while over in HK (because the lenses ARE covered by an international warranty).

That is also my understanding, and a good plan. I've been surprised how negotiable the price is down at Teds... Bear in mind that you are likely to have to cough up GST upon your return to Australia if your purchases are above a certain amount (they always are for me).

There's a good reference for current HK lens prices here: http://www.ygdragon.net/ Just click on "Lens Price Reference List 鏡頭價目表" on that page. This is not a shop, it's a list of recent sales per lens. The prices shown are generally very competitive, but it's up to you to negotiate.

woodbe.

[Harry72]

Well it turned up today!

Had a play with it(the camera Ozwinner), please give crits on this photo!

Camera Model: Canon EOS 400D DIGITAL
Shooting mode: Macro
Shutter speed: 1/125
ISO Speed: 400
Lens: EF-S18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
Focal Length: 55.0 mm
Flash: On
Flash Type: Built-In Flash
Flash Exposure Compensation: 0
Red-eye Reduction: Off
Shutter curtain sync: 1st-curtain sync
White Balance Mode: Auto
Sharpness: 3
Contrast: 0
Saturation: 0
Color tone: 0
Color Space: sRGB
Noise Reduction: Off

[woodbe]

Hey Harry, that was quick for a new model to turn up!

The photo is ok, but you can do better The background is a little distracting and it all looks a bit flat. Needs better lighting to give some highlight and contrast. Seeing as the inbuilt flash fired, maybe it would come up better with some fiddling in Photoshop. Flowers like that are hard to photograph well, because of the depth of the flower - something is always going to be out of focus, the trick is in getting the interesting bits in focus. What F stop did you use?

A great photo has an interesting and balanced composition as well as being suitably exposed and focussed. That doesn't neccesarily mean everything is in focus, and often out-of focus effects add a lot to a photo, and reduce the effect of unimportant objects in the frame. This is one of the real advantages of a DSLR.

Knowing this stuff doesn't make it easy. I still chuck thousands of duds Actually, in the days of digital, I seem to keep them regardless unless they are really, really, bad.

woodbe

[Grunt]

Not a bad shot. The shallow depth of focus means that there is nothing interesting in focus to draw you eye. Also, it could use a tad more saturation. The colour is a little flat.

Chris

[Studley 2436]

Harry that is a beautiful self portrait. It shows you in all your glory! *LOL*

To give it a lift use levels in Photoshop to brighten it up a bit and then give it a touch more contrast.

Try shooting RAW.

And the photo I am interested in seeing is the stock pages of the Australian. Take time to iron them first and then tape them up to the wall and use a tripod to put the camera on. Set the lens Zoomed all the way out and move it so it frames the page neatly. Take the photo at F5.6 and whatever the wide open aperture is. Then Zoom all the way in move the tripod back and do the same again. That will give us a good idea of the resolving power of the lens and sensor.

Studley

[Studley 2436]

OK I juiced it up a bit

Studley

[Harry72]

Iron... whats that?

So use something with heaps of detail?(I dont have/read newspapers... ) What if I use my computer screen(24"LCD)
What do you mean by resolving, like the distance difference between full zoom and minimal?