Calling all keen photographers.

[Reynard]

Another one here to suggest you go down the secondhand route on that sort of a budget - that way you'll get far more bang-for-buck. Also don't be afraid to look third party for glass e.g. Sigma, but do read reviews as some lenses that look great on spec are real clunkers. DSLRs are far more unforgiving to glass than film SLRs... Plus you can always trade in / upgrade / expand as you see fit. I'd highly recommend Park Cameras if going down the used route - they do a lot of good kit, and I've had a fair bit of stuff from there over the years, both new and used.

Whatever you do end up going for (canon / nikon / other) I'd get at least a semi-pro body to give you greater flexibility (double digit on the model number as a ballpark if looking at Canon), simply because if you do get serious, being confined to the "idiot modes only" of the more basic DSLRs will frustrate you. They are, after all, only as good as the person who wrote the code for them... It's always better to have more camera capability than you need as opposed to not enough.

For a landscape kit I'd go camera body, a decent walk-around zoom somewhere in the 24-105 range, plus, if you are going Canon, their Mk2 50mm prime is a little gem at around £80 new, even if people do dismiss it at plasticky. Also, a tripod and remote release might be useful for you. Wouldn't get anything beyond that for starters (esp when it comes to glass) until you get a feel for how you like to work and at what focal length.

 

[Grant Fondo]

I have used cameras of every brand from Zenit to Hassalblad. My main SLR was Olympus OM so I have no axe to grind. I recent!y had to up my camera from a nice Canon compact to a DSLR. I decided on a mainstream brand rather than something more exotic like Fuji. Basically it was either Canon or Nikon. i went to a decent photo shop (WEX) in Norwich, and handled them. With the Nikon D3500, the camera felt OK in my hand and the shutter button was in a good place. With the equiv Canon it just didn't fit my hand and I had to search around for the button.
A tilt and rotating screen is really useful for me. The GPS and WIFI are just toys. I went for the Nikon with an extra Tamron lens. The camera is way better than the kit lens and Canon may well have the edge on midrange glass but 3rd party lenses are pretty good.
Now that the decidion is made ,I can stop fretting and take some decent pics.

Agree they are all good its best to get out there and start shooting...its the feel thats important and the brain behind the viewfinder!

 

[ufkacbln]

Outside your choice of manufacturer but..

I wanted a camera that could cope with Arctic weather and also that of the UK

I chose the Pentax K 50 because of its waterproof seals and have not regretted the purchase

 

[Reynard]

Actually, I picked up a couple of working russian and east german SLRs and some M42 mount lenses in a charity shop relatively recently for less than the price of a fish & chip supper

 

[Grant Fondo]

Actually, I picked up a couple of working russian and east german SLRs and some M42 mount lenses in a charity shop relatively recently for less than the price of a fish & chip supper

I had an old Praktika for years and it eventually fell apart ..good stuff though..it cost like 2 kebabs and a coke

 

[Reynard]

The old eastern european cameras did a job of work. The tech was always a generation behind what was in the west / japan, but they were decent, if a bit on the heavy / clunky side. The ones that I picked up (1970s vintage) have the heft of a house brick LOL... I also have a couple of more recent (!) bayonet mount Praktikas from the mid-to-late 80s, but no glass.

 

[Grant Fondo]

The old eastern european cameras did a job of work. The tech was always a generation behind what was in the west / japan, but they were decent, if a bit on the heavy / clunky side. The ones that I picked up (1970s vintage) have the heft of a house brick LOL... I also have a couple of more recent (!) bayonet mount Praktikas from the mid-to-late 80s, but no glass.

Clunky sums it up.. new dslrs are a world apart...but i kind of miss getting hand ache from eastern european hardware

 

[Grant Fondo]

That bird photo is really nice but the background is busy....a bridge will never isolate the subject properly...a quality lens at short focal length would completely isolate the bird in total sharpness...YGWYPF

 

[PhilDawson8270]

Arguments will go back and forth all day about the virtues of pro quality lens, super fast auto-focus etc etc, but with a maximum budget of £400 for camera, lens and any extras and a stated aim of landscape photography those kind of considerations go out of the window.

Its not about "now". Once you're invested in a system it rarely makes sense to change. So you're better investing in the system that offers you best options for growth.

 

[Grant Fondo]

[QUOTE 4600678, member: 9609"]that is very kind of you, I wouldn't have thought the were anything special. My cycling pictures are mostly from my compact which is a Canon Ixus 850is which must be coming up to 10 year old and still works well

My Bird shots are with a Canon SX40 which is a 'bridge camera'? too big to fit in my pocket but has a long lens and takes reasonable quality, does not have that sharpness of the big SLRs but at less than £300 it does OK

[/QUOTE]
F1.4

 

[skudupnorth]

Just got a nice Nikon D5300 for my Birthday and love it ! Thankfully I kept all my old lenses which used with the F.3 I still own so I have a full range to play with on the new tech including my 500mm mirror lens. I have to do that thing called focusing and use the manual setting which a lot of "photographers" find strange. It is just good to take photos again without the disappointment of waiting weeks for your films to be developed and then to find they were rubbish !

 

[Grant Fondo]

How awesome is it to take 100s of pics and not worry about channg film every 24/36 shots (under 35s this makes no sense but bear with me)...is it a bonus or is each shot less important/ thought about?

 

[raleighnut]

The old eastern european cameras did a job of work. The tech was always a generation behind what was in the west / japan, but they were decent, if a bit on the heavy / clunky side. The ones that I picked up (1970s vintage) have the heft of a house brick LOL... I also have a couple of more recent (!) bayonet mount Praktikas from the mid-to-late 80s, but no glass.

I started off with Praktika, nice kit but then after a natter with a couple of guys at Youngs Cameras in Leicester (sadly gone now) about the relative merits of Nikon, Canon, Olympus etc. I ended up (on their advice) going Pentax. Long story short my kit got nicked (insured though) but I replaced it with similar and thanks to me being good friends with them I managed to replace my Tamron SP Adaptall2 90mm F 2.5 with a NOS one they'd had for years that as they said "Well we've never tried to sell it, we knew someone would come in searching for one to replace theirs at some point" (it had been superceded by the autofocus F 2.8 version) and they even had the dedicated extension tube that converts it to a true 1:1 Macro lens.

 

[marzjennings]

The Nikon D3300 should do you fine and I'd buy new not second hand as I find with new digital cameras a warranty is essential. The new D3400 just came out, but it doesn't seem much of an upgrade.

I've always had Canon and really liked them, but switched to Nikon because I needed a new all-in-one bridge camera for travel. The wife shoots professionally with Nikon, but has a Sony for a compact and Hasselblad for film. She's has prefered the metering of Nikon their glass over Canon.

You'll need a tripod for landscapes, I picked up 3 legged thing last month, fantastic tripod, but you can find great second hand tripods.

And lenses, again you can find great glass for cheap if you look around. Plus you can always rent if you need something special or rent to find out what sort of lense you need to buy.

Get the biggest memory card you can, so you don't have to bother switching cards or worrying about taking too many photos.

Make sure you have ton's of space on your pc or a decent cloud storage solution.

Never just take one photograph of anything. You're not wasting film, so click away and pick the best one when you get home.

 

[ufkacbln]

How awesome is it to take 100s of pics and not worry about channg film every 24/36 shots (under 35s this makes no sense but bear with me)...is it a bonus or is each shot less important/ thought about?

Both?

I take as much care over "important shots" as I used to with film

However for shots of wildlife, or moving objects people, then a burst of images enables shots that would be missed if you were trying to catch one frame

There is also the possibility of HDR and other techniques, which can be trialled with no worry about cost or running out of film

Finally I take more photos.

I was at the famous Skogafoss in Iceland and whereas I would have taken perhaps a dozen film photos, but with time lapse, HDR, long exposures to blur. the waterfall, I actually took about 200 photos. I kept about half of those, but a lot of the ones I do have are ones that I would never have attempted, or "wasted" film on