dayummmmmm

 

As a starter package, looks good. If that person has been on POTN for awhile, hard not to jump on it.

 

wow, that is a great deal.

 

I think I have a winner. PM'ed him to see if it's still available. What do you all think? (I noticed the prices are rising for some reason.. jumped by $30 on most sites)

Canon XSi/18-55IS kit and BG-E5 battery grip. I bought it brand new in February 2009. It's in perfect condition with about 7000 clicks and warranty is valid. Pack includes all original accessories, lcd hood and remote cord.

Price: $550 paypal'ed and shipped in North America.

 

That's about $100 less than new (w/o grip), if it's what it said to be, sounds good. I rather have grip than the other lens, as you posted in other listing.

 

Might be too late for this response... but for a few hundred more. Why not a mid-level DSLR (used) that you may not outgrow?

 

You thinking like a D40? Or something above that? It was a tough decision between the D40 and the XSi, but in the end I think the XSi is a better choice in my position. Let me know what you had in mind

 

A D40 is good but I would get the D40x or D60.. whichever you find cheaper.. those are the bottom of the spectrum though. I think he meant something like the D90.

 

i think he meant to say 40D from Canon. Nikon's D40 is their starter dslr so it wouldn't make sense.

 

He's saying something like a Canon 30D which you should be able to find for about $400-500 used.

 

Yes, I was thinking more 30d or 40d. HEAVILY leaning toward the 40d though. I was in the same position and really glad I went with a 40d instead of an xti. I would however love to get a FF though one day.... but not really a huge priority.

 

I thought my 30D had better IQ than the 40D, though the 40D has a couple bells and whistles are the 30D.

 

I don't care how much technology is advancing. I think IQ is going to suffer as they try to cram more pixels onto the same sized chip.

Maybe high ISO performance will improve, but baseline IQ seems to be sweet spot of 10 mp on a 1.6 sensor camera.

Just my opinion.

 

fwiw, adorama has refurbished 40d bodies for $699. add a tamron 17-50 (better optics) or canon 17-85 (bigger range + IS) and you have a hell of a starter dSLR.

 

Yes, and the 30D is 8mp, that's why I like the IQ better than that of the 40D. The pixels on the 30D are the same size as what they are of the 5D2.

 

I'm actually on POTN on another tab, so I'll check out the 40d's too. I've looked at them before but wasn't sure if they were actually "better" or if it was just a matter of ones opinion.

Stupid question.... but what exactly is FF and CF? Do the smaller body camera's not use full sensors or something? Everyone keeps talking about how they want full frame, but I guess I didn't realize there was a difference (not that I can afford FF at the moment, just curious I guess)

 

Full frame is what film was, cropped sensors are smaller

5D2 sensor size 36.0 x 24.0mm
50D sensor size 22.3 x 14.9mm

You get to more pixels on a full frame camera while keeping the pixel size big

pixel size on

5D2 6.4µm
50D 4.7µm


The difference between what you're looking at

Canon EOS 40D 1.6x 22.2 x 14.8mm 5.7µm
XSI ....... ........ 1.6x 22.2 x 14.8mm 5.2µm
Canon EOS 30D 1.6x 22.5 x 15.0mm 6.4µm

 

Cropped sensors aren't all that bad. I don't view FF cameras as a natural upgrade path for digital SLR users. FF cameras have advantages, but I think they are over-stated.

You get a smaller lighter camera and smaller cheaper lenses.

The "digital only" lenses have an imaging circle to fit cropped sensors. You could use them on a FF camera but you would have dark borders.

Back in the film days, 24-70 was probably the most useful zoom range to have for general use. Now, 18-50 is the standard. But if you multiply the crop ratios out, you find that an 18-50 lens is pretty much the equivalent of a 24-70. You also have access to many of the great super-zooms.

So unless you are trying to go for really wide shots, the crop factor is not a huge issue. There's also the larger pixel thing, which translates to better image quality, but we're speaking relative terms. I think the biggest change in IQ comes from point and shoots to SLR.

 

When Nikon came out with their full frame bodies, it turned the industry around. Full frame gives you everything better when it comes to image quality. Being able to shoot at ISO's of 3200 or 6400 with no noise.

The lens you talk about are lens made for cropped bodies, they're not meant to be used on full frame. But there are lens out there that for full frame.

I'd rather have a camera that will take an image with what I see, then cropped down in post with the same IQ that I get through out the entire image. I remember cropping images with my cropped bodies, four total. Never got the same image as to what I can crop with a FF body. Even the images from my old 1D3 when cropped weren't crisp. But with my 5D and D700 very crisp cropped.

Cropped bodies do a great job but FF is so much better.

 

Didn't Canon make the first foray into affordable full frame sensors with the 5D? I seem to remember the Nikon cameras coming several years later. Nikon's are fine cameras, but I don't see how they turned the industry around.

 

Yes, Canon 5D was/is the starter at the price point. But it's still is just a 20D with a FF sensor, which isn't bad. But with Nikon catching up FF and dropping them into Pro bodies with pro features. IMO it has eclipsed and turn it around, just wait and see what happens with all camera maker because of it. Plenty on the Canon side are pissed about the D700, they want their digital EOS3.

That's the only reason I said it.

And to say affordable when it was launched it wasn't really affordable. It was like $3500 when introduce.

 

Well that's what I mean with the digital only lenses. You lose out on these lenses if you get a FF camera, which means expensive lenses only. With a cropped camera, I could use both digital only lenses, and full 35mm lenses. With the 35mm lenses, only the center sweet spot of the lens is used, which sometimes turns average lenses into really good ones.

Clean images from cropping are a product of megapixels, and MP is something the full frame cameras have loads of.

They have their advantages. I just think a lot of the advantages are overstated and I don't understand the general hoopla of FF cameras.

 

Affordable compared to the FF 1Ds series of the time. It was still the most affordable FF available, by a long shot.

 

Yeah, the 1Ds2 was out at that time and the price differences then wasn't what it is now between the 1Ds3 and the 5D2.

But like I said it was a 20D with a FF sensor. Not a pro body as with the D3 or what Sony it trying to put out. Dropping a FF sensor in a pro-body for under 5K shook things up and then with the D700 under 3K with pro features.

 

Expanding on this. Imagine the image circle is big enough for a FF sensor. If you could overlay the Crop sensor in the middle so that you have a smaller rectangle inside of the larger rectangle, the crop sensor only sees the central portion of the FF image. Now freeze that image the crop sensor sees. If you want to make the FF sensor "see" the same image, you have to zoom in on the image by increasing the focal length of the lens by a factor of 1.6. This is why you hear that the 18mm focal length on an EF-S lens is equivalent to about 29mm focal length on an EF lens on a FF body.