beginner camera

Squidgy Black

i want to start photography (i'm only 15),
and i'd be doing like local band photoshoots at gigs and stuff, as well as other stuff, but my budget's REALLY tight. would this be good enough to start on?
http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=215429&cat=196

Thecageyone

€50 might seem real cheap, but that's a 3mp compact. PLus it's only £60 on amazon:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/FinePix-S304-Digital-Camera-6xOptical/dp/B00006IJK9

It wouldn't be very good for gigs, those cam's are crap at handling higher ISO levels.

I'm selling a 10mp super zoom fuji [12 x optical] for €100 if you can stretch to that, let me know. It's easily twice as good as the one you're viewing.

5uspect

Most camera's suffer in low light.
A point and shoot type camera in particular since you have very little control.

How tight is "really"?

It might be worth going with an old film camera. You have the added expense of developing but you could get a nice camera learn a lot.

You could get involved with a local photoclub or university photo soc and learn to develop your own film.

There's loads here:
http://www.adverts.ie/showcat.php?cat=198

I know very little about film but there are some experts around these parts that might help out.

Squidgy Black

well at the moment, i've around 60 quid, but i'm hoping to sell off a few bits and pieces so maybe if i'm lucky around 150? yeah i think i might wait a while and get a better one than the original one.

melekalikimaka

for gigs... at a MINIMUM you will need a slr with a half decent lens... 50mm 1.8 ideally... thats circa 300 for set starting out second hand, and point and shoot is going to be useless and most bridge cameras will do almost as bad...

charybdis

If you don't have a lot of money and are genuinely interested in learning about photography, you could do a lot worse than buying an old film camera and a normal prime lens.

You can get some great film cameras for 100-150 Euro, easily better than any similarly-priced digital camera.

Of course, you'll have to pay for film and development but you can do this as money becomes available and won't have the large initial cost of buying a DSLR. As you become more comfortable with photography, you can start developing black and white film at home; it's very easy to do and will significantly reduce the cost of developing your photographs.

I realise this might not be exactly what you had in mind when you thought about getting into photography, but it will teach you a hell of a lot more about photography and light than a cheap digital camera will.

I think this is a project many photographers would like to do, but by the time they realise the value and practicality of it they've already invested too much in other gear for them to comfortably transition to a one-lens film camera setup. I strongly suggest you use your lack of funds to your advantage and follow this advice.

AnCatDubh

stetyrrell wrote: »

well at the moment, i've around 60 quid, but i'm hoping to sell off a few bits and pieces so maybe if i'm lucky around 150? yeah i think i might wait a while and get a better one than the original one.

Make sure to withdraw the offer on adverts asap.

I have that camera (I think pullandbang had it too but sold his) - for me it was the first digital that resembled a real camera that I had. Now its quite a few years old, and the gears on the zoom growl a little as you zoom in and out, but it was fine for getting me going and probably was the camera which fostered a love of photography.

Autofocus on such a camera - including this one and similar types will suffer with slow autofocus - however, if you are clever you can work around this as a limitation by pre-focus / lock / and shoot when the action happens.

My experience of it though is as others have suggested - not great for indoor low light - Gigs would really be pushing it and if there is mixed lighting - strobes, coloured lights, flashing, etc... then it will have real problems as I found it to be too slow to meter, focus, shoot.

Manual mode on it is do-able, but a little limited in the effect.

On the plus side - Outdoor and with good light and it will produce some quite nice shots. Limited by the 3.2Mpixel but that in my experience took me to 8x10's, and A4's without too much bother - however if you need to crop to isolate part of the scene - you don't have much to play with.

All that being said, I still have mine and wouldn't sell it for the world. It only gets an occasional outing now though. Even more modern compact P&S's will suffer big time in low light indoor situations, so you are in a little bit of a bind - this on the basis that you have a genuine interest in taking photography on to at least an enthusiast level.

If you are really interested in getting into photography then i'd save a little more (I know - it probably will seem like it would never come round) and keep an eye out for second hand entry level DSLR. That imho, will be the best place to start given what you've said about wanting to take photography on.

Good luck.

Squidgy Black

http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=214320&cat=196
would something like that be better? i don't think i'd be able to afford processing the film, as i'm quite keen when it comes to taking pictures, so i'll be putting them on a hardrive.

melekalikimaka

stetyrrell wrote: »

http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=214320&cat=196
would something like that be better? i don't think i'd be able to afford processing the film, as i'm quite keen when it comes to taking pictures, so i'll be putting them on a hardrive.

much better, tho look into a 50mm 1.8 and your there.

http://tommorg.keyframephoto.com/image_flash.html

all taken pretty much bar one or two with that set up.

50mm will cost maybe 50 - 90 euro

Squidgy Black

this is turning out to be an expensive hobby.....
any ideas where to get cheap 50mm lenses? none for sale on adverts...

melekalikimaka

stetyrrell wrote: »

this is turning out to be an expensive hobby.....
any ideas where to get cheap 50mm lenses? none for sale on adverts...

they dont come up so often, very popular are rarely sold on... ebay best bet, new circa 70 yos me thinks, prob get a cheap 350d or nikon d70 for 150-200 there too

dave66

stetyrrell wrote: »

this is turning out to be an expensive hobby.....
any ideas where to get cheap 50mm lenses? none for sale on adverts...

Have a look at Ebay, I used minolta for YEARS and then when I went to Digital I got Sony Alpha as it is compatible with Minolta A mount lenses.

I found the Sony A100 to be a great camera, still have it and torn about sell it to fund some purchases of other stuff.

The thing about using Sony is you can pick up Minolta (AKA Konia-Minolta) AF lenses fairly cheap and there are normally a few 50mm lenses on offer. I was surprised with the low light ability, this is one I took with the A100 using a 300mm lens, it was handheld and shot at 1600ISO



I would strongly advise you to go down the route of SLR, whether it's film or digital.

sensibleken

i used to have that exact camera and it is rubbish in low light so all the pictures would be blurry as hell.

i was on a similar budget when i started at 19, i bought an old pentax film slr from a mate for fifty quid. you can get cheap film slrs but you have to factor in the cost of developing them.

what i did when i was rediscovering photography after about 8 years leave was buy a crappy canon point and shoot on sale (i think it was about €170 but i got it for 80) played with that for a while, just to see if i was into it, then saved up and spend a few hundred on a good slr

bullpost

stetyrrell wrote: »

i want to start photography (i'm only 15),
and i'd be doing like local band photoshoots at gigs and stuff, as well as other stuff, but my budget's REALLY tight. would this be good enough to start on?
http://www.adverts.ie/showproduct.php?product=215429&cat=196

One other thing to consider which might help bump up your budget is to sell the idea to your parents that you would become the family photographer, making yourself available at the usual family occasions , if they were to contribute to your budget.
Show them some photos on flickr etc. which are high quality to tempt them. also tell them the benefits of having nice quality prints hanging on their walls in a short time and if you tell them what these would cost to have done professionally they might be impressed (Ita also a prospective career choice or a way of making some money from time to time) - worth a shot?