P&S > DSLR Transition

CabanSail

We have had a lot of posts from people who have started off in photography with a Digital Point & Shoot type of camera & then look to getting some kind of DSLR. I am sure quite a few of those who post here have made that transition. Personally I cut my teeth on a fully manual SLR camera, had a brief daliance with a couple of P&S's as an entry to the digital world, before getting back into DSLR's

What would be interesting to find out from those who started with a P&S & have since moved onto a DSLR is what things you thought were the "must have" features but have changed opinion after getting into using your DSLR. You can add what you know now which you wished you had known then.

Basically, what would an older and wiser YOU have advised a younger & more naive YOU back then?

Slidinginfinity

Spend less on the camera body and more on the lenses.

duffarama

I did so much reading of reviews that I knew exactly what I wanted as my first camera and what I'd want following from that.

Dust free sensors, great OOC Jpegs, sharp lenses and a small camera body.

What I didn't expect was that a DSLR would lead me to falling in love with SLR's and film rangefinders, so I'd possibly tell me of 3 years ago to focus on film instead.

sheesh

When i got a bit more serious about photography my list was something like

Ability to shoot raw
some kind of software to edit raw (with the camera - important if you are buying secondhand)

spot metering

good high iso capability - look at sample shots in dpreview.com

I knew that for my first dslr (which i still have) that I would be buying into a system so I looked at the prices of second hand lenses and their availability

I did not buy the latest model so I save some money on it being older

I had narrowed it down to Canon or Nikon as they had the highest number of users and therefore more second hand lenses available

I discounted pentax and sony at the time because I thought that getting lenses for them might be a problem (I since learned that Sony A-series is still compatible with the konica minolta lenses) In Fairness lenses like the 50mm 1.8 from sony were quite dear at the time.

then it was a toss up price wise between the Nikon D40 or D60 and canon 400D

the nikon d60 was out but kind of pricey (to me) The d40 had a 6mp sensor which I felt was too small.
the canon 450D had been launched and the prices of the Canon 400D were coming down.

I eventually gave up on spot metering and picked the canon 400d as as a comprmise of price and mega pixels.

looking back maybe the D40 might have been a better choice as the high iso performance of nikons is supposed be better as I do some gig shots.

I am mostly happy happy with my choice though for the most part anything wrong with my shots have been down to my failings as a photographer .

Kintarō Hattori

Well way back in the day (2005) I was going to Poland for the first time with my lovely lady and wanted a camera. As I work in an electronics shop I settled on the Sony DSC-P200 as I was getting a pretty decent discount and it had been getting fairly good reviews. I didn't know much about photography then as I never really had a camera apart from a basic 35mm automatic when I was kid and which I didn't have much interest in.

The camera was a decent enough compact but after a while I knew I wanted more control over the pictures I was taking. I didn't feel I was taking 'real' images with a P+S and the lack of manual focus was really quite irritating sometimes. I wanted to take nice portraits, better landscape photos and so on and the compact just really didn't cut the mustard.

I thought migrating to a bridge camera would be a fairly logical step but it was a waste of money really. Using a DMC-FX18 manual focus was via a joystick, sort of, which was almost as bad the P+S. It was a competent camera but it wasn't a large enough step up.

I can't remember whether I posted looking for information or whether someone simply mentioned it but someone here mentioned that Argos were doing a Pentax K100D Super with the 18-55mm lens for €350 which was nothing short of a bargain at the time. I fortunately had a colleage who wanted to buy the FZ18 and I had to put very little towards the K100D.

I've never looked back since. It's all about control control control. Were I to advise a younger self I'd tell myself to save the moola and buy a DSLR. It'll give you the handiness of a P+S while at the same time giving you complete freedom to try what you want.

Promac

My advice to the younger me:

Read the feckin manual and don't mess around with the settings too much until you know what you're doing.

I don't know how many shots I messed up because I didn't know how to work the camera.

bandit197

^^+1

I would have advised a younger me to know your camera inside out and learn to shoot manual as soon as possible. You will open up a whole new world by using that M mode.

Freddie59

Han an Olympus P&S from 2000-2004. Then bought a Fuji s5000 bridge camera (absolutely superb camera), before buying a 450D in 2008 (now have a 40D).

(What I thought to be) A must have was Live View. Never used the bloody thing on the Canons (only twice) and use the camera in full manual mode now.

Would have liked to know a little bit more about lenses and their functions(I still only know a little) at the time.

.Longshanks.

Freddie59 wrote: »

Han an Olympus P&S from 2000-2004. Then bought a Fuji s5000 bridge camera (absolutely superb camera), before buying a 450D in 2008 (now have a 40D).

(What I thought to be) A must have was Live View. Never used the bloody thing on the Canons (only twice) and use the camera in full manual mode now.

Would have liked to know a little bit more about lenses and their functions(I still only know a little) at the time.

I find live view invaluable when trying to manually focus on a fixed subject at night so for that reason i would recommend it.

My advice to me would have been forget about the 5x or whatever magnification you are used to when using P&S camera's. Keep the kit lens until you get used to it and discover what kinda shots you feel your missing out on and then buy another lens

That and read as many thread on this site as possible - priceless free info and advice!

duffarama

I think live view is great when using a tripod and quite handy for macro at times