Good price for new camera for beginner, with manual mode

[jedmag]

a friend of mine is about to take a photography class and needs a good digital camera that has manual modes on it for shutter speeds and aperature and all that good stuff. she can't spend a whole lot on it, so what is all of your opinions on a nice priced manual-ready digital camera?

thanks in advance.

-jed

[[email protected]]

jedmag,

Depends on her price range, really.

Something like a Canon Powershot A610 would be a good buy.

If she can afford an entry level DSLR, that would be even better.

Maybe she shouldtry to loana camera, finish up her lessons, and at that point she might have a better idea of what she'd like to own.

-- Terry

[E.T]

What kind price range we are talking about?
Also is she intending to go considerably further into photography than framing and pressing shutter?
Because problem of compacts is that even if they have possibility for manual settings using those would be quite hard because everything is done using menus.

Also if camera is supposed to be used for a longer time there would be other things to consider: Is it for general photography or will it be used lot for photographing animals. Because in first case real wide angle is much more useful than long tele.



[email protected] wrote:

If she can afford an entry level DSLR, that would be even better.

At least that's what camera makers want people to think...

Lenses with large zoom ranges usually have slow maximum apertures such as F3.5-F6.3, which at the telephoto end, is much slower than the A2's F3.5 at 200mm (300mm with accessory lens). This is important when considering the need for high ISO settings. A similar shutter speed at F3.5 with ISO 200 and at F6.3 with ISO 800 would produce the same exposure. Therefore, a DSLR with a single lens can't easily match the range, aperture speed and convenience of a non-SLR camera....

High ISO settings are used to achieve higher shutter speeds either to freeze action or prevent camera shake in hand-help photography. The Konica-Minolta A2 has an Anti-Shake system which reduces camera shake. It turns out that the anti-shake system works exceptionally well. So well that in cases where ISO 1600 does not allow a sufficiently fast shutter speed for hand-held photography with the 20D, the A2 managed to produce quite sharp and noise-free pictures using only ISO 200.
http://www.neocamera.com/feature_dslr.html


Also you have to remember that DSLRs have only "post-preview", there's no way to know what exposure looks before taking photo.

[mtclimber]

You gave no budget at all, so for the sake of thoroughness, I will addressthe least expensive portion of the market. For around $(US) 150 you could use either the Kodak Z730 or the Canon A-510 each have full manual controls.

mt