Cameras?

The Canon's are great cameras. My husband and I are professional photographers and have used almost all the different canons. A previous poster was mistaken in regards to lenses, you can use brands besides Canon's. We've used Sigma and others..so just an FYI. We like the feel of the Canon over the Nikon. The Nikon's feel a bit cheap. Right now we use the Canon 1D. It's great, but we've used the Rebel, the 30D...they are all great. Good luck.

My husband is a professional photographer. He bought me a canon Rebel digital to play with. It is easy to use and to learn on. But I am wanting to sell it to buy a nikon. With the canon digital you have to buy lenses for that specific camera. With nikon any lens from any nikon camera will work on it. It's cheaper for us in the long run, because as long as I stay with the nikon brand I won't have to keep buying lenses when I upgrade cameras. Just something for you to think about.

I used to work at Ritz Camera (before it was Wolf) and I am definitely partial to Nikon. They are very durable and very good cameras. I have dropped mine, swung it around and banged it on stuff; once I accidentaly dropped it so that it swung down under the car and onto the street and slid a little. After all of that it barely had a scratch on it. Nikons are definitely the best camera you can buy.
Have Fun!
S.

Hi C.,

I have a couple "big girl cameras", but I am a professional photographer. Like the PP said, if you are not planning on shooting in manual, go for something that you have to think less with. If I had to buy a point and shoot that would allow enlargements and would be great for a serious hobbyist, I would look into the Fuji line of digi cams.

I have an Oly Evolt E330 and a "really big" Canon. Both are awesome, but you should consider if you are going further with this than a hobby, because lenses are VERY expensive.

So I suppose I would recommend the Canon if you weren't interested in looking further at the Fuji. (Fuji has INCREDIBLE color, image stabilization, lots of megapixels, and they are easy to shoot with (almost fool-proof) in program mode.)

Try them before you buy them.

Hope that helps. :)

I would just make sure that it has that stabilization control. Specially with kids they always move when you are about to take the picture. That way with that option no matter if they are jumping your picture will always come out good and not blurry. I have a Cannon PowerShot SD900 Digital Elph and I love it.

I would go check out wolf camera. They have really good prices, a lot of the people that help you there are professional photographers and will help you find the best for you and your needs, as well as if you buy a camera there you get to take free photography lessons from the professional photographers as well as bring a friend if you like. They also go on photo excursions to practice what you learn. I do photogrpahy as a side business and still found the classes very helpful as they help you learn how to work your new camera to the max as those awners manuals can be pretty confusing, exp if you dont know all the camera/photography "lingo".

I second the Fuji line of digitals. I have a FinePix and it's THEE BEST CAMERA. It takes super clear pics (that I print from home) and it's VERY simple to use. Really, point and shoot and that's it. It does have the advanced settings (like Macro etc...), but to get great pictures you don't really need them with that camera. For the money (around $400), it really is the best deal. My hubby did a ton of research on Consumer Reports and Cnet (www.Cnet.com) and it was highly rated on both sites for the money. Send me a note and I would be happy to share some pics with you that I've taken with this great camera. I've had it for 2 years and not a single issue with it. It doesn't miss a beat either, so you can get those candid shots without the camera having to wait an hour between snaps! It also takes video with sound too!! I LOVE IT and I'm a 'Photographer' Mama too!!! :)

If you relaly aren't going to work in the manual mode - ther eis no reason to buy one of the big dog cameras that really emphasizes personalization of the photos in the manual mode -- your best bet would be to buy a truly digital camera. There are a LOT Of good ones out there -- just be sure you buy as good of a card as you can afford.... Unless you're going to blow them up beyond an 8x10, there's no need to get anything bigger than a 7 megapixel either....

:)

Good luck

I looooooooooooooooove my Nikon D80. But it is still in backorder in the USA if you want to have a nice lens (we have Nikkor 18-200). It is perfect, buy it at Ritz-Wolff, and take the free classes. It is not cheap, the body only is a 1000 dollars (comes with a simple lens.) And you must be planning on doing more than only using "auto" otherwhise go with a cheaper and simpeler one.
We prefer this one much better than the Rebel Canon. This one feels so much better in your hand. But it's very personal

GOod luck!!!!!!! Happy "shooting"!

I.

I LOVE the rebel, any of them are good. I have two, one is digital and one is not. The take great pics. It is a good company to buy from, too. I got mine at Best Buy and got the extended warrenty plan and it comes in handy. My sil dropped my camera, without the lense attatched, in the sand at the beach. They cleaned it for free! I also got money back on their reward thing. It was cool. Dont' know if I helped or not. I haven't heard of that one camera, the Evolt, but I haven't done much research on Olympus. My daughter and I have both taken photogra;hy classes at TCC and UTA and the Canon is the one that they recommended.

T.

I bought a Nikon D40 about a month ago and so far I love it. The picture quality is excellent. It was worth every penny.