gonna buy a new camera, got £700 to spend.
i want the easiest to use to best pic quality ratio one.

one that fits, ton. For £700 you;ll get a reasonabe SLR, you actuallly need to hold them in your hands to see what fits – smaller camerass might be great for people with small hands, but the controls may be too closely spaced for someone with larger hands and vice versa

Couple of things to look at
EOS 500D Lens Kit (EF-S 18-55 IS) £519.99 – this does HD video
Nikon D90 + 18-105 VR lens £759.05 – not well up on Nikon specs, but the lens has an excellent spread

Check here for those prices and others
http://www.camerapricebuster.co.uk/

I use canon – unlike bikes, you tend to buy one brand and stick with it, as the lenses are more of an investment. If anything, get a cheaper body and a more expensive lens.

How about the new Canon G11?

Most of the benefits of a DSLR but about half the size and no worry about what lens to stick on.

I have a D90 and would recommend it unreservedly but I'm sure the Canon is brilliant too – I don't think you'll ever go wrong with either.

What do your mates have? there might be an opportunity to borrow lenses if you buy the same brand as them.

Oh and buy yourself a prime lens for brilliant low light/fast shutter speed performance.

First dibs.

If your interested ton I have a professional photographer (good) friend who sells all her kit 1yr after using it. Shes abit of a new-techo ho' and must have the latest updates/kit etc. She must go through 10k of kit a year!

Ton,

if I had £700 to spend on a new camera which would give me excellent quality results, be portable enough to carry on bike rides, flexible enough to have interchangeable lenses and have most of the functionality of an SLR, I'd be pretty excited about the Olympus Pen E-P1…

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/olympusep1/

Or a slightly cheaper option, with lens packages for your £700, Panasonic Lumix GF1

http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/PanasonicGF1/

Aye – if you do buy one of these and change your mind after a week, I'll be wanting first refusal…

😉

Fights and struggles with stuartie_c – hey back in line Mister!

If he goes with my suggestion hora, I feel I have the moral high ground on this one…

The Panasonic is a better camera than the Olympus PEN, if I was in the market I would probably go for one at the moment for mountain biking (though I have just found I can fit my 5D in my Camelbak with the 28=135 attached, so that is good!)

you have £700 to spend? and have NO idea what to get? surely not???

this can't be your first camera…

why??

thanks for the info boys, gonna have a word with deejay on sunday about a camera, and i might even ask barnes for some advice……….when he stops sulking with me.

Ton, please excuse my rudeness but how much do you earn and can i do you job please? 😉

Nikon D60 (about£300-£350) and get yourself a decent zoom lens (Nikon or Sigma) and a flash (if you plan to take shots in woods) and bikes/people zooming along or in the air….a complete package to achieve your photo objectives.

Look at Ametuer Photographer website (and loads of other really good and infomrative sites) to learn how to put everything into practice………Robert is your mother's brother !!

tails, this is a insurance thing, for a broken camcorder on our holiday…

Id second the G11 ive got a DSLR and despite its excellent picture quality im far less likely to take it out for a ride with me than i would have done my old G5, Ive found the the DSLR far to bulky to be convenient for me.

Get a cheap body and spend your money on a decent lens. It's the lens much more than the camera that makes the difference to image quality.

tails, this is a insurance thing, for a broken camcorder on our holiday…

ahhh nightmare. hope you didn't lose to many memories/images/videos

oh and to answer your question I'd ask barnes or just buy canon.

Hi Ton – I take photos for a living – so take what I say with that in mind.

For your budget youre very very close to getting a Canon 5D Mk1 used. That gets you a full frame sensor and some great flash control. But it will be used, and although much doesnt go wrong with them…… etc.

A full frame sensor means less DOF which is great for bike shots.

I gotta say though – I carry £30k worth of gear with me on my day job but bring a po*y wee panasonic out on my mtb. Not really to do with the money (I'm insured to hell) but to bring a decent camera, lens, tripod and flash means I dont have any room for water, tubes etc. But I mtb to get away from my job – you may be different!

Do you want SLR or compact.

Whilst the EP-1 is ace the auto focus is slow. The G11 is nice too but I believe it shares the same problem.

£700 will get you a lot of camera these days though but probably waaay too much to spend on a decent compact that will take "nice" pictures with minimal user interaction.

ton, I had a DSLR once, very rarely took it on the bike as it was too big, I would seriously look at the new olympus and panasonic models if your looking to lug it about a bit.

A full frame sensor means less DOF which is great for bike shots.

I also take photos for a living and usually do as you do, that is, I take a daft little Pentax Optio A30 out riding.

I'm struggling with the above quote a little – surely f1.8 on a full frame gives the same DOF as f1.8 on a crop sensor? If anything, the 1.6 crop (on my Nikons) would give shallower depth of field than a full frame sensor?

I'm sticking my neck out a bit here and am prepared to stand corrected….

EDIT: sorry – re advice, I'd second the reccomendation of the Canon G11 – THE best compact on the market – no shutter lag etc etc…

Hi User-Removed – I gotta disagree with you. All with the same field of view – a 120mm f2.8 of a large format camera has a dof of a gnats eyelash, on a medium format an 80mm f2.8 an eye ball, on 35mm a 2.8 50mm = 1/4 face and 35mm on a "compact" dslr – a full head (probably more) and on a compact (tiny sensor) nearly infiniate dof. I dont know the science behind it – that's my experience. I've got all types – its horses for courses for me.

I've got a G10 for biking and a 450D for everything else. The G10 or G11 its not too small and its not too big and they are pretty durable. It takes great photo's on full auto but its also got full manual control if you want to get creative. The flash is powerful, great for shots in the woods, and it can also take a full size flash. The lens is also pretty fast at the wide end for action shots.

There are other point and shoot alternatives, the G10/G11 are slightly bigger and in this case bigger is better.

I hear what you're saying csw, and having used all those formats, agree with what you say.

But…. If you use a 300mm lens on a 35mm camera (say) at 2.8, your DOF is pretty tiny. If you use a 20mm lens on the same camera, at the same apperture, your DOF is massive (comparitively).

So given that a crop sensor 'lengthens' the lens (i.e., your 300mm lens is now a 460mm lens, in essence*), I would expect a shallower DOF with a crop sensor. Does that make any sense? Perhaps the two factors cancel each other out?

Off to ephotozine to pick some geek-brains…

* I know this is a whole 'nother argument and that your lens ain't any longer, the image is just more cropped.

Hmmm I thought DOF was more closely related to aperture than sensor size – kind of off topic though. Assuming you don't need fast autofocus for action shots of people riding I'd get a compact rather than an SLR to carry on the bike – I don't want to lug round a kilo of camera and lenses. be fine for landscapes and distance shots of other riders.

How about 150 on a compact and 550 on a low end SLR with a decent lens.

A good picture is a good picture no matter what it's taken on.

If you're after a compact, the new Canon S90 is supposed to be a beaut. Great spec, high quality and compact.

If it was my money I'd be sorely tempted by the Panasonic GF1.

How are you with cameras do you know your way around them shutter speed aperture iso? If not than take a serious look at a D3000 they have a built in guide for people learning how to use a camera. You can pick them up for about £400 leaving you £300 to spend on another lens.

Or a D5000 as it does video too.

The suggestion to go for a 2nd hand 5D is a tempting one, however realistically if you're going to buy something like that you'd be wanting to spend at least another couple of grand on lenses (although being full-frame the 5D allows you to save a bit of cash on decent wide angle kit and "normal" zooms).

Something like a Nikon D90 + 18-105 VR lens, as suggested earlier would be a good starting point. Also if you're moving up from a point and shoot you'd probably be more than happy with any of the entry level cameras & kit lenses like the 50D mentioned above (even though the kit lenses aren't all that good usually).

Why not look at a video recorder like the VIO POV1. Small light weight and you can pull still shots off the video.

I would certainly make sure you've got money to spend on a good lens rather than blowing it all on a kit lens with an expensive body. A 'faster' lens (wider apperture, lower Fstop) will focus faster and the pictures will likely be sharper.

You could also get the lens second hand, they hold their value better than the bodies do.

And once you've got the camera, play with it a bit and then go on Seb Rogers' course, it's brilliant.

Just because you have £700 to spend, doesn't mean you HAVE TO spend £700…..

Personally, I'd only recommend an SLR if –

a) You're planning to get seriously into photography
and/or
b) You've reached the limits of a decent compact

because

c) An SLR is a pain in the butt to carry around
and
d) They need commitment to learn how to use them

IMO, it's pointless buying one, then just leaving it on auto. I'm no great snapper, but mine is rarely on auto these days. And if you do enjoy it, it's like bikes, you find yourself needing more kit, which makes c & d above worse! 😉

If a & b don't apply, get a really nice compact. 🙂

For your budget youre very very close to getting a Canon 5D Mk1 used. That gets you a full frame sensor and some great flash control. But it will be used, and although much doesnt go wrong with them…… etc.

Surely if he's planning to use it in a filthy environment (MTBing), and doesn't have much experience with SLRs, one (in)famous for dust on its sensor with no easy way of cleaning it possibly isn't the best option….

FWIW, I'd go for the G11, or maybe a 2nd hand G9 off ebay and a second hand low-mid dSLR and decent lens. If he wants to get into photography, simply spending £70 on a 'nifty fifty' as well as the kit lens would do wonders…

(But then that starts to exacerbate PP's points c & d)

You can indeed buy a used 5D for that kind of money but, as other shave said, the best camera is one that you carry with you on every ride and a whacking great SLR like that is just asking to be left behind.

I'd go for a smaller lightweight SLR like a Canon 500D or a decent compact – Powershot G11 or something similar (I'm not really up on compacts), unless you really are very serious about your photgraphy and you feel you've reached the limits of compacts.
I was using a 350D for years with an upgraded lens and had loads fo shots published off that – you don't always need the latest greatest kit to get some great pics.

If you're going to be doing riding with it size and weight should be considered. As some people have already said the micro four-thirds cameras (olympus ep-1 or panasonic gf1 in particular) are very small and light indeed. The new Canon G11 is similarly priced to these (ep1/gf1) but I can't see it offering enough over these or the older G10 which is being sold off far cheaper.

Also consider an olympus E420 with pancake lens. That's a very small DSLR albeit with a fixed focal. But a relatively cheap option.

Depth of field (DOF) does decrease with an increase in sensor size. However, this is purely because you have to get closer to the subject in order to fill the frame.

Whatever you do, don't blow it on the body and scrimp on the lens.

PeterPoddy / Zokes / Crazy Legs – I agree with you: if its for bringing it on a mtb – then a compact is the best (so long as you bring it with you). I'm not "up" on current models so I cant recommend a particular one. For me any DSLR on a bike is a bit of a pain due to their shape (with a lens sticking out) as much as anything.

The new Canon G11 is similarly priced to these (ep1/gf1) but I can't see it offering enough over these or the older G10 which is being sold off far cheaper.

Purportedly the G11 has much less noise, and therefore is much more usable at high ISO than the G10. I can't vouch for this, but as my 5DMk2 is hardly mountain bike friendly, I'm casually looking for a high-end compact myself at present. It's probably a result of Canon trying to squeeze less MPx onto the tiny sensor.

Purportedly the G11 has much less noise

Mainly due to much less megapixels. The 14MP G10 is now 10MP in the G11.
Incidently, the EP-1 can shoot well to an ISO of 3200.

I'll add to the Canon G-series praise. They're fantastic cameras – well built, take good pics, give lots of control if you want it and crucially are small enough to actually carry with you always. It's no good seeing a stunning view and not being able to get a shot because you left the huge SLR at home!

DSLRs are great – IF you do photography for the sake of photography. They just dominate everything otherwise – you have to plan your packing around carrying this lump of camera and lens(es) and flash around with you. Which is exactly why I sold mine – it was ace on a NZ holiday where it lived in the boot and I could grab shots from the side of the road. Once home, it didn't get a lot of use. My G9 goes just about everywhere though.