Camera Labs

Well, I finally did it. After some deliberation while on holiday, I decided to get my hands on an A100 DSLR (Kit version with the 18-70mm kit lens). It ultimately came down to either that or a Canon EOS 400D and although both cameras felt good, the A100 was cheaper and had the anti-shake, which ultimately won me over. As it happened, Argos was selling the silver version for something like £379. Makes me wonder why the black version was somewhat more expensive at £400+. Oh well.

Now I have this beast of a camera, what hints and tips can anyone give me on using it effectively? Also, what brand and speed of memory card should I look at getting, if there is any difference. So far I'm resorting to using a Memory Stick Duo in the supplied adapter until I can get a Compact Flash card.

EDIT: I'll probably post a user review once I get a better idea of how the camera works in use.

High Dean,

congrats for your new gear. Memorywise I'm a big fan of large mem-cards, esp. as I shoot RAW+jpeg (=15MB per pic).
So go for at least 4GB and the fastest card if you love to should continuously. Otherwise a slow card works just as well.

SanDisk is always a quality manufacturer of cards and you can get the cheapest SanDisk CF 4GB for around 40EUR and the Ultra II (9MB/sec write speed) at only a little more. Extreme III (20MB/sec write) is around 50EUR. I'd even go as far as to suggest you take the 8GB variant from the outset. Perhaps a little overkill if you only shoot jpeg. But I'd always advise to shoot RAW (+jpeg)!

And try to shoot automatic first to get a feeling how the camera behaves without twiddling with to many controls. Otherwise you might not be able to decide what went wrong, the cam or your twiddling
When shooting RAW you have lots of leeway to correct bad exposure at home...

_________________
Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

If you got it with the 18-70kit lens and you have some money left (around £100) then I urge you to get either the Minolta 70-210/4 (known as beercan) or the cheaper a 50/1.7 prime on the used market. Then you will see how sharp the camera really is and how great the a-mount lenses is or once were. The beercan is a really impressive suplement to the kit lens that performes much better in every aspect and you can even get relly nice macro shots with it. I will see if I can post a short review of it.

_________________
Minolta primes: 2.8/20 2.8/24 1.7/50 2.8/135
Minolta zooms: 28-135 35-70 70-210(beercan) kit
Minolta cameras: Dynax 5D 7000
M42: Pentax Asahi S-M-C Takumar 1.4/50 and 2.8/105 Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 2.4/35 Industar-61L/Z Kiron 2.8/105 Macro

Thanks for the hints. I'll look at getting a CF card from Sandisk. It seems almost all photographers seem to use them.

As for the lens, I'll consider it and have a look on ebay, though I suspect given what I've read that isn't the best place to buy photographic kit although I have had few problems buying other items. Any ideas on an alternative lens if I can't get that particular model?

Why not consider the Tamron AF 70-300mm f/4-5.6 LD Di macro
See test here: http://www.photozone.de/8Reviews/lenses ... /index.htm
Not too shabby performance, 1:2 macro and a price starting at 130EUR

_________________
Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

The 70-210mm f4 shows up very often on ebay in uk (I can see 2 for sale at the moment) but I would recommend to buy it used where you can meet up with the person, but if you decide to try your luck on ebay this lens is fairly easy to service yourself if it should come to that. It really have great colors and is surprisingly sharp so I can't really recommend any other lens in that range unless you want to buy a G class lens (70-200 at Sony Style shop for only £1,849). I bet you wont regred buying the beercan

_________________
Minolta primes: 2.8/20 2.8/24 1.7/50 2.8/135
Minolta zooms: 28-135 35-70 70-210(beercan) kit
Minolta cameras: Dynax 5D 7000
M42: Pentax Asahi S-M-C Takumar 1.4/50 and 2.8/105 Carl Zeiss Jena Flektogon 2.4/35 Industar-61L/Z Kiron 2.8/105 Macro

Update. I got myself a SanDisk UltraII 4Gb as a starter card. As for the lens I think it may be out of my current reach at the moment, but I might look at it later.

Please update your signature, Dean! So that we know, when you post again, what you're using...

And have fun with your new gear!

_________________
Thomas (beware: Nikon-fanboy and moderator!) My Lens Reviews, My Pictures, My Photography Blog
D800+assorted lenses

Done (I think).

Hoping to write an initial user review about it.

_________________
"Where does the lens end and the camera begin?..."
Sony Alpha DSLR-A100
DT 18-70 mm F3.5-5.6 (Kit)