Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Buying a DSLR

For some time now, I play with the thought to buy myself a descent DSLR. Of course there is a very wide range of products on the market and it seems to be quite impossible to decide here.

I had to start with some requirements for the cam:
  • Price: not more than 1000 €
  • Handling: beginner or semi-pro (I'm not a professional and I know that...)
  • Brand: I want to have a descent customer base so it should also be a well known brand
  • Lenses: In the future I might buy some more specialized lenses for other purposes: whats available?

It took me a while to figure out, what I actually need, what I want and what I can afford. This Page really helped me a lot there: you can actually compare DSLR's side by side for every feature and make up your decision. Also it offers very good reviews of recent cameras and lenses and it helps you decide what you need in a very objective way.

Furthermore there were many people around me who helped me making up my mind. Endless discussions and some final agreements, that there is really no single best camera out there.

After quite some time, I filtered from all the offers out there two cameras which seemed to be quite the thing I want.

Canon EOS 550d
Nikon D3100

Now to the next step: which one of these to actually buy? And this decision is everything but easy: Of course the price matters, but then you also need to think about the extras you have to get (or might get in the future somewhen) like other, more specialized lenses etc, and the cost of those extras.

Furthermore I was a little worried about how fragile those cameras looked since they have plastic, and not like other, more pricey cams, magnesium bodies.

I really considered that fact, until a coworker of mine showed me the videos below with comparable products:





I was simply amazed by the fact, that after all those tortures, the cameras still made pretty good pictures: even with the cracked lens!

Something else you have to consider aside from all the mentioned points is, that the camera has to feel good in your hands. This means you just go to the next shop and see if you can handle all the buttons on it :) Actually my choice was also not very much easier after that: both cam's felt good and there was no problem at all I could find in this 5 minutes.

And now the reason why I renamed the title of this post from "Buying Guide DSLR" to just "Buying a DSLR": because it didn't became a guide at all: in the end I followed my guts and decided myself to buy the Canon EOS 550d with the 2 Lens Kit (18-55, 55-250). The results of this decision will be posted here in the next weeks and on flickr.

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