Camera Labs

Hi,

Firstly I must say that I love the site and the review have been very helpful as I have been looking at DSLR's.

At the moment I have a Kodak DX6490 but I am looking to upgrade. After a lot of research, and a trip to Jessops, I have decided that I prefer the Canon EOS400D. I have two main problems however.

Firstly I bought a Kodak Schneider-Kreuznach Xenar 0.7x Wide Angle Lens with my DX6490 for about £100. What I was wondering was, is there and easy way to use it with an EOS400D? It has a 55mm thread on it whereas the kit lens has a 58mm thread.

Secondly I am worried about the amout of zoom that I will loose moving to a DSLR, to combat this I was thinking about buying a Sigma AF 70-300mm lens. In your opinion would this then give me a decent overall system, i.e. the Canon and Lense Kit with the Sigma?

Thanks in advance

Steve Lamerton

Firstly you have no chance of being able to use your Kodak lens on an EOS 400D. The mounts aren't the same, both electronically and mechanically.

As to the choice of camera and lens, to put it simply you get what you pay for. First you have to decide on your budget. Next you need to work out what you want to photograph. Do you want to take landscapes, portraits, macro or sport photos? Whichever ones of these appear up the list will help you decide on the lens or lenses you need.

Once you have decided your budget you then have to decide how you want to allocate it. Having been through this exercise myself 3 weeks ago, this is what I came up with as a list of essentials:

1. Camera body - of course
2. Lens or lenses - decide what you are most likely to shoot and find a lens to suit. You are better off buying one lens, getting used to the camera and finding out what you need rather than picking from a list.
3. Memory cards - these are essential. Your Kodak uses SD cards. The EOS 400D uses compact flash. You'll need to budget for these.
4. Camera bag - you need something to put all your kit in
5. Filters - it is a good idea to fit a UV filter to each lens to protect the front element
6. Spare battery - you can't use AA batteries in dSLRs so it's best to carry a spare for when you run out of juice
7. Air blower to clean your camera
8. Lens cloth to clean your lens

After that everything else is a luxury.

I thought you might be interested in seeing what I had spent. I wanted a dSLR camera to take great pictures when my wife and I go on holiday to New Zealand. I also wanted a camera capable of taking photos of motorsport and macro.

When I was buying I started off with a budget of £800. I was able to sell 2 electric guitars I no longer played for £275 and got a nice Christmas bonus which has allowed me to spend more than I had planned.

I had to chose between the EOS 400D and the Nikon D80. In the end the D80 felt better in my hands so that's what I went for. Here's what I got:

Nikon D80 + 17-70mm kit lens - £699
2 x Sandisk Extreme III SD cards - £102
Hoya 67mm HMC Haze UV filter - £26.10
Crumpler Ben's Pizza XL camera bag - £29.99
Giottos Q.Ball - £8.99
Spudz 18% grey lens cloth - £8.25
Nikon EN-EL3e battery - £34.99

This came to a total of £909.32. Once I found out about my bonus I bought the following extras:

Nikon AF-S VR 70-300mm F4.5-5.6 G lens - £379
Hoya 67mm HMC Haze UV filter - £26.10
Nikon ML-L3 remote control - £14.99
Crumpler The Formal Lounge rucksack - £49.99

The extras come to £470.08 bringing my total spend to £1379.40. That's quite a bit over my initial budget but I was lucky enough to be able to afford it. I'm quoting figure so you can see that it is very easy to spend a lot of money very quickly. If I had gone for the 400D I could have saved around £200 and ended up with the 18-55mm kit lens and the 70-300mm IS lens.

I hope you find this useful.

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Nikon D80, Nikkor lenses: 35mm f1.8 G AF-S DX, 50mm f/1.8 AF D, 18-70mm f/3.5-4.5G ED-IF AF-S DX, 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6G IF-ED AF-S VR, SB800 flash
My photos on SmugMug

OK, thanks that was very helpful, the only reason I mentioned the Wide Angle was because it has a screw thread on the end, and it isn't really a lense, per se, you can get a bit more information here. Anyway your post has given me a lot to think about and I think that I am going to do more research before I commit to anything, as you say it can become very expensive quickly. Thanks once again.