Tips for buying a semi pro camera?

Question

m frm india.I m planing to buy a semipro camera.ll ther b any difference between the price here and if i purchase it online frm B&H. and is it safe to buy online?

And my budget is arnd $500-$600 my prorities

1)Good battery life

2)lenses shud be replacable and even the default lense shud be good

3)It ll be good if it has bluetooth (optional)

4)SLR or other?

5)it shud nt b too bulky or heavvy

6)atleast 4gb memory and expandable

7)atleast 10x optical zoom

Answer 1

I don't think you'll find much use of what most semi-pro cameras feature. Most people make the mistake of spending so much money on fancy cameras and only wanting to use them as a point-and-click camera. Lens quality is something that comes at a higher price and not many people that pay the extra money for better glass and faster lenses can point out the differences to a standard lens. Also, these people that go spend money on extra megapixels usually are wasting there money, because most of their photos are only viewed on the computer or printed out on prints no bigger than 8x6". I think you should review what your after.

Look for something like:

Budget: $500-$600

LCD Screen Size: Small (will use up less battery power)

Good quality Second-Hand

Minimal or no internal memory (you can buy a cheap memory card)

No bluetooth

Give those specs to your camera dealer and I am positive you will find something you'll be more than happy with.

Answer 2

Not for that price. For $500, you would get the least expensive dSLR Canon or Nikon. Very usable and good cameras, but hardly "semi-pro".

They don't come with any memory card either. And certainly not 10 ratio optical zoom.

Semi-pro camera--I am thinking about $2,000 or $3,000 for the camera and a basic (kit) lens. If you're getting a "pro", you're talking $5,000 or double that for body alone.

This may be painful to hear, but if you have to ask this question, I am guessing that you are inexperienced with photography.  Best to get a basic model and learn how to properly use it. A camera, cheap or expensive, is just a tool. Buying the most expensive piano won't make me a concert pianist--same with a camera.

Answer 3

For that price you can get a pentax k100d or a nikon d40 but only with basic lenses - 18 - 55mm (about 3x optical zoom) to get close to your 10x zoom you would need a 250 - 300mm lens whitch is big dollars.  that wouldn't include the memory card either you would need a 4gb sd card for the pentax, not sure about the nikon.

I have the never k200d pentax dslr and love it, and as a bonus it takes everey k-mount pentax lens that was ever made so there are heaps of old manual lenses cheap on ebay.

B&H is a great place to shop online from.

If you havn't had much to do with cameras before do not start with an slr because you will probably be dropped into photography way over your head and wish you had never seen it before and end up smashing the camera against a brick wall. I  would suggest something like a panasonic FZ8 i had one of these before the dslr and it is a great camera, 7mp, 10x optical zoom, easy to use and you can use filters with it like you use with slr lenses such as ND filters, UV filters, polarizers, etc. The fz8 would be the cheaper option and be heaps easier to use if you are not expereaced with cameras

Answer 4

You wont get an SLR for that price, 4 gb memory, wow! are are planning to take shots of indias population in one go.

Answer 5

For your budget I'd look at the Nikon D40 or the Canon XT. Or you could look on Ebay for a Canon 20D. It's a higher-end camera than the first two but it's two generations old (still good though).

These three cameras will fulfill criteria 1, 2, and 4. The first two will definitely fulfill 5 (the 20D might also depending on your definition of bulky). I don't know of any camera that fulfills 3 (why would you have bluetooth on a camera?).

6 isn't a property of the camera. They're all expandable, though. How much memory you have depends on the card you buy. You can get a 4gb CF card at http://www.bhphotovideo.com/ for $30.

7 is also not a property of the camera, it's a property of the lenses you buy. You're also probably making the mistake of associating 'zoom' with being able to enlarge the image. SLR lenses are classified by focal length (in mm). Zoom is the ratio between a lens' lowest focal length and highest focal length. For example the zoom of an 18-55mm lens is 55/18 = ~3x zoom. You could also have a lens that was 100-300mm and that would have a 300/100 = 3x zoom. What you're probably looking for is the ability to make far-away things appear large. What you want for that is a "telephoto" lens. These lenses usually have focal lengths of at least 100mm.

Another note on zoom - you don't generally want to buy lenses with more than 5x zoom. If they have more than 5x it generally results in lenses that are bulky and compromise build quality.

EDIT: After a little research I see that they do make point-and-shoots with bluetooth for sending the pics to phones and stuff. Weird. You're not going to find that on an SLR though.

Answer 6

A good camera at that price is the Canon Powershot G9 it takes the best photos I have seen in a while.