Camera People, Help Me

[Jacoby]

What's a morals?

I was actually planning on going to Circuit City or Best Buy, because I know the big ones we have here display all their cameras. This way I won't feel bad not buying in store, because it's unlike a specialty shop. If I were to go into a camera store and hang out for 2 hours and leave empty handed, I would be an asshole. And I would deserve verbal abuse from someone like Brad's old boss.

But yeah, I will most likely go to the store and test them out, and then come home and do some online searching for deals.

I've never bought anything off ebay, but I've searched and they have some good deals. I think I'd have to sign up for a PayPal account to buy on ebay, though, right?

[acliff]

you don't necessarily have to, some dealers on the bay accept credit card and debit card payments directly, as well as bank transfers and cheques.
Paypal does make it alot easier and arguably safer than wiring someone money directly for used items.

I used to work in a Sony Centre and people used to come in ask for advice and leave all the time. Nothing we could really do, and even at the time I couldn't blame them when you could buy it cheaper on the net. For some things, the net was cheaper than my staff discount price!
I do believe in rewarding staff for exceptional service however, so if its marginally more expensive than the net, I'll buy things in store.

Hasslebrad, why don't you buy a pentax DSLR and buy some old pentax glass and start snapping?

[hasselbrad]

Originally Posted by acliff

you don't necessarily have to, some dealers on the bay accept credit card and debit card payments directly, as well as bank transfers and cheques.
Paypal does make it alot easier and arguably safer than wiring someone money directly for used items.

I used to work in a Sony Centre and people used to come in ask for advice and leave all the time. Nothing we could really do, and even at the time I couldn't blame them when you could buy it cheaper on the net. For some things, the net was cheaper than my staff discount price!
I do believe in rewarding staff for exceptional service however, so if its marginally more expensive than the net, I'll buy things in store.

Hasslebrad, why don't you buy a pentax DSLR and buy some old pentax glass and start snapping?

Mainly because I just dropped another $2,000 toward the debt I was left with after the divorce. Just another $15,000 to go!

I did take the Hasselblads out a while ago and shoot a little. I just haven't managed to find a place I trust to develop 120 around here.

[Jacoby]

Dropped by Circuit City today and played around with all models that Cliff mentioned, save the Pentax one. I think Best Buy might carry it, though, so I will be going there to mess with that one soon.

But I really did like the feeling of the Canon XT. It's small, but not too small, I found a comfortable positioning with my hands and like the way it felt. I prefer the larger models, like the Olympus E510 felt great in my hands, probably my favorite feeling. But right now I'm pretty excited about the Canon deal. Plus I found this accessory kit on amazon that I will probably buy.


$189.99


comes with Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III Lens + Spare NB-2LH Battery for Canon + High Speed USB 2.0 CompactFlash (CF) Card Reader + Deluxe Photo/Video 57" Tripod + Deluxe SLR System Camera Bag/Case

[Jacoby]

So I settled on getting the Nikon D40. I read all about it, all the Nikon vs Canon and it seemed to lean toward Canon a very little bit. But I made the decision because the D40 feels great in my hand and I think Cliff was definitely correct with the ergonomic importance. (SAT word)

I'm shooting on default settings right now (which is terrible, I know) but I haven't really had a good chance to read over the manual and play with it yet, but I intend to as soon as possible.

Anyway, here are a few shots for you to check out. Make sure to click the image and check it out at a better resolution.

[acliff]

Congrats on your new purchase, you'll enjoy it, and as its a small SLR, hopefully you shouldn't find it too cumbersome to take around everywhere.

Glance at the manual, go on www.photo.net and have a look at the photography guide there to get some inspiration.
And then change the white balance settings in the camera, and see what colours you can get indoors.

[Jacoby]

Originally Posted by acliff

Congrats on your new purchase, you'll enjoy it, and as its a small SLR, hopefully you shouldn't find it too cumbersome to take around everywhere.

Glance at the manual, go on www.photo.net and have a look at the photography guide there to get some inspiration.
And then change the white balance settings in the camera, and see what colours you can get indoors.

Yeah, I take it pretty much everywhere I go. The only place I feel uncomfortable with it is in coffee shops when my friends and I end up there. I swear, the coffee drinkers are so judgmental.

I'll check out the photo.net website for sure! Thanks. And I've been looking through the manual and learned a lot about the features and manual settings. Haven't been able to play with much but the exposure at the moment but I'm interested to see what I can do.