Metropol

Right, I fancy myself as a bit of an amateur photographer, and I'm looking for a good D-SLR for about £300. At the moment I'm struggling away with my 5mpx camera phone, which yes, is ok, but not great.

Now I know Metropol isn't full of camera "geeks", but I've seen some fabulous photo's posted on here in the past, and any advice you have is going to be better than the info I got from the vegetable in uniform that I encountered in Currys..

Help/comments are much appreciated (:

i'll be honest, you'll struggle to find a 'good' dslr for £300. you might get something end of life, like a canon 350d floating around somewhere, but your budget isn't high enough.

and also, remember that the kit lens you get with budget dslrs are pretty poor - usually only an 18-70mm (or less), so you'll need to get a decent lens, which is going to set you back at least as much again (and that's only going to be for a budget lens, nothing super fast)

if i was you, i'd take a look at bridge cameras (so-called superzooms), for example:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Canon-PowerShot ... 990&sr=1-3

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Nikon-Coolpix-P ... 826&sr=8-1

http://www.amazon.co.uk/DMC-FZ28schwarz ... 909&sr=1-1

the advantage is that these have many of the same manual features you'll find on an entry level dslr, a decent versatile lens (although because of space, weight, cost concerns it's quite 'slow' - you won't be capturing any birds mid flight, etc,) but they come in at your sort of budget. the downside is that you're stuck with that lens. if you stretch to a dslr you'll get something you can keep adding to over time, but out of the box you'll have a lens which probably won't be a great deal better than a high end compact or as versatile as a bridge camera.

i have a canon powershot sx1, which is exactly the same as the sx10 above except that it has hd video. if you're interested i'll post you some images so you can see what you're getting for that money.

Words of advice, if your shots are almighty shit on your phone then don't expect things to get better because you have a shiny proper camera, only thing that goes up sometimes is the megapixel count.

True, just don't expect a SLR to imbue you with the ability to make awesome pictures, the camera is merely a tool.

Some cameras are more tools than others. My Canon Ixus 65 snapshotter for example is completely incapable of taking any photos indoors ever without either blurring them or making them utterly poor.

Thanks for all of your advice guys, and special thanks to Dr Lobster*
I'd heard about so-called "bridge" cameras before, but sort of overlooked them. I've had a play on my uncle's DSLR and got some awesome shots, so I automatically went for one of those. But after taking a look at the cameras you suggested, I think I'll probably go for the Canon SX10.

Would you mind posting a few photos Dr Lobster*? Also, can the screen be used as a viewfinder on the SX10?

And thanks to all of you again, much appreciated.

here's a few pictures i've taken recently. the back screen can be used as a viewfinder (it certainly can on the sx1) . the normal viewfinder is actually very good, i rarely find myself using the flip out screen - the only times i find it really useful is where i'm aligning my camera up somewhere i can't get my head to look at the screen, then it can be tilted up and i can sit comfortably.














i'm really pleased with my sx 1 - as i said previously, the main selling point to me was the versatility of the lens - in super macro mode you the subject can be touching the front element and it still be in focus, whilst at the telephoto end it's equivalent to a 570 mm lens.

there are a couple of compromises to be aware of though, auto focus performance in low light isn't great and there is a little bit of noise - the higher you set the iso, the more you'll see - but as you can see it's not a problem in normal conditions.

I would very much endorse Mr Grindon's suggestion of the Sony Alpha, I have the A200 and love it. It might be worth going for the A200 which is a little cheaper than the A300 so you have some of the budget left to pick up an old Minolta AF zoom lens from eBay.

When you're looking for a new camera, I would always recommend taking a look at Flickr's Camera Finder and seeing some real world pictures that people have taken with the model you are considering.

Here are a few of my pics with the A200

Another thumbs up for Sony Alphas from me, got an A100 a couple of years ago and it's a cracking camera for the price.

Thanks for all your help, I am now the proud owner of a Sony Alpha300.

The Canon was just a bit too much, so the Sony it was in the end. And thank you to all of you who posted photos, hopefully you'll see some of mine soon.

(: