Moving to a DSLR from a Superzoom Digicam

If you're known as the camera nerd among your circle of friends they might ask you what camera to buy next.  Recently, a friend has being passing my name to his friends and students as a resource to answer this question for them too.  It's kind of a tricky situation to be in; if I ignore these emails I start to get pinged to see if I've come up with an answer yet.  I wonder if I could go into business as a personal camera shopper?

My latest inquiry was from someone wanting to "move up" from a Superzoom digicam to a DSLR without losing any reach and without spending more than a $1000.  Here was my advice.  If you think I missed anything please leave me a comment or email:

Canon Digital Rebel 400xti

So it seems that you are looking for a Digital SLR (DSLR).  It also seems that you are looking for a long lens as well as a more general lens.  $1000 for these pieces of kit is doable but you may want to change one or more elements of your initial purchase at a later date (e.g. buy these lenses now, to be getting on with, then upgrade later.)

Choosing a DSLR has as much to do with deciding which brand and system you are going to buy into as much as a specific camera model.  Over time I have spent much more on lenses and accessories than I have on any one camera.  My personal preference is Canon lenses so I carry a Canon DSLR these days but that is a personal decision.

The brand leaders these days are Nikon and Canon, however, Pentax, Olympus and Sony all make interesting systems and are worth looking into.

Old & New Digital Rebel (300d & 400d)

Canon - more professionals use Canon than any other brand, however, the cameras and lenses you and I would purchase are a little removed from the professional line.  The current entry level Canon is the new digital rebel 400D (aka XTi).  It is 10 megapixels and can be bought for around $775. This is the camera I have now but the previous Rebel (the 350D or Xt) is very similar but only has 8 megapixels and can be found for much less (around $600).  To be honest, the extra 2 megapixels makes very little difference in the resulting image quality - the reason I chose the 400D over the 350D is the dust reduction system, faster speed and larger buffer - all of which may not be important to you.

The one problem with the Canon Rebels is the kit lens that they come with (kit lens means a lens that is sold with the camera).  It is usable but it is not a great lens.  The first upgrade lens I bought for my Canon was the 28-105mm f3.5-5.6 USM which is much better lens than the kit lens for around $230. It doesn't have the wide angle of the kit lens so you would still might use the kit lens for wide landscapes and cramped interiors but it has much more reach and better build and optical quality.  It makes a great walk about lens for travel, portraits, etc.  It is not especially long though.  Photographers usually think of long lens being at least 200mm and more usually 300mm.

The Rebels have a "crop factor".  This means that their sensors are physically smaller than the equivalent old 35mm film (known as full-frame cameras).  This is common to all the cameras I am going to mention.  If you are used to 35mm camera focal lengths you have to use a multiplier to get the equivalent focal length on a crop factor (also known as APS sensor) DSLR.  The crop factor for Rebels is 1.6x, therefore, a 300mm lens on a Rebel behaves like a 480mm lens.  This kind of focal length is great for taking good shots of animals in zoos, aircraft, etc.  You can buy a Canon 75-300mm zoom for $160 - it would get you started but it is not a great lens. 

One of the problem with long lens is that they exaggerate camera shake which makes them difficult to handhold in anything but ideal lighting.  A relatively recent technology that helps to counter this problem is stabalization (IS in Canon terminology, VR in Nikon).  This is achieved mechanically by spinning one of the elements in the lens and the gyroscopic effect this creates buffers the shake.  Unfortunately this technology cost a small premium e.g. the Canon 70-300mm IS zoom lens costs about $550.

On to Nikon.  The entry level Nikons are the 6 megapixel D40 and D50 which can be had for about $550 next up is the D80 which costs over $1000.  I'll be honest with you, the Nikons feel more robust in your hand than the entry Canons, however, I know less about their entry level lenses except that choices seem a little more limited than Canon e.g. Nikon have far less stabilized lenses than Canon.

The Olympus DSLRs are well built and very compact.  The 2 disadvantages they have over Nikon and Canon, however, are that the image quality isn't quite as good as the sensor is smaller and the lenses are more expensive and hard to find.  For these reasons I wouldn't have the Olympus in my short list.  Worth looking at, however, are both the Pentax K100D ($590 and 6 megapixels) and the Sony Alpha A100 ($775 and 10 megapixels).  What is interesting about both these cameras is that they have image stabilization built in which makes every lens you fit on them stabilized not just premium lenses offered by the manufacturer.  They do this by mounting the sensor on a moving chassis in the camera body rather than by spinning any glass in the lens.  I don't know much about the lenses offered for these cameras but I have played with both of these models in the store and they seem well built and fun to use; I prefer the Pentax but that's just because Sony is a new player in the DSLR field (they bought out Minolta last year).

So there you go.  I like Canon but many people prefer Nikon.  If you're looking for bang for your buck Pentax and Sony are well worth checking out.  The final choice is obviously yours and I would recommend actually handling all these models in a store if you can because  feel and opperation may play a large part in your decision.  Your choice may also be affected by how far you envisage going in photography - as I said, you're buying into a brand and system just as much as buying a camera body.  Canon and Nikon have more professional options up their lines if you plan on taking your photography further, while Pentax and Sony may be more economical to begin with.