New DSLR camera

[pangster]

My original plan was to pick up my new camera in Hong Kong (as I usually do for a lot of my big gadget purchases! ) - but that plan has kind of went to the wall because when I was in Manchester Airport yesterday - I noticed Dixons Travel had the Canon 600D with 18-55mm lens kit on sale at £582.50!!

I came home and checked the prices in Hong Kong and they were roughly (give or take the same) - so I called up today and reserved one!! - pick it up next Wednesday as I honestly don't think I can get any cheaper elsewhere (I've been checking religiously over the last few weeks!) - it's an absolutely cracking deal IMO!!!

Amazon, John Lewis and most other high street retailers still have this for around the £750-£799 mark and the cheapest online retailer (Bestcamera's have it at £699 (excluding shipping) and the dearest online retailer is PIXMania £776 (excluding shipping)):

http://www.camerapricebuster.co.uk/prod2178.html

The benefit now is that I'll be able to have a proper play with it before going to Hong Kong so might even manage to take some semi decent shots when I'm over! as well as eventually be able to get some decent pics of my car.

Thought I'd mention it in case anyone was looking for a new DSLR!

[NeRo]

That's a brilliant price for that camera

Are you just buying the camera on spec without having held one?
I've always held a camera before buying - I like one with a metal body with some weight to it.
It should also feel comfortable in the hand - some of the cheaper cameras are smaller in size and you don't get a good grip

(p.s. as per usual you've gone for the wrong thing, you should have got a Nikon )

[pangster]

That's a brilliant price for that camera

Are you just buying the camera on spec without having held one?
I've always held a camera before buying - I like one with a metal body with some weight to it.
It should also feel comfortable in the hand - some of the cheaper cameras are smaller in size and you don't get a good grip

(p.s. as per usual you've gone for the wrong thing, you should have got a Nikon )

I know it's good isn't it!!.. I had to check TWICE that it wasn't the price for the body only - even then it still would have been a decent price!..

I've had a play with most of Canon's current range and it was a toss up between the 600D and 60D.. but I just couldn't justify the extra £300 or so for the 60D.. I want something that I can grow and develop with and felt it was time to make the move to a DSLR. Although no doubt I'll still use my trusty Panasonic TZ-3 for point and click efforts. I've also started learning more in Photoshop and Lightroom - 2 of the recent photo's I've retouched in Lightroom from HK back in 2008 are below:





Originals can be found here: http://s429.photobucket.com/albums/qq19 ... OTOGRAPHY/

I might get round to getting some decent pics of my car now!

Neil - I also noticed that you have a Flickr account - what are the benefits of this over Photobucket (if any??) or are they much a muchness? and is there any good photography forums that you'd recommend??

[NeRo]

The basic Flickr account has limitations (no of pictures and sets), therefore I have upgraded to a Pro Account ($25/year) which has no limitations

Flickr has numerous groups - some are camera based e.g. Nikon, Nikon D70/s, some are subject based e.g. BMW Z3, BMW Roadsters etc
There are also social groups e.g. Edinburgh Meetups
You can join and contribute to as many groups as you want to

The other thing for me is that with Flickr, the is a load of web developer stuff - for instance, I can link my Flickr to say my gallery on my Camera Club's website and show some of my latest pictures

For magazines, I have a subscription to Digital Camera Magazine - their website and forum can be found here
- I don't bother much with the forum because I spend more time on the Flickr groups

[NeRo]

Latest version of Digital Camera

Plus, there’s an in-depth test of the best SLRs for landscapes, a comprehensive review of the new Canon EOS 600D and much more!

[pangster]

great stuff!! - thanks for the info and the heads up on the mag review.. I'll grab myself a copy - although it's a bit late now in any case! LOL!

[pangster]

took the new camera out for the first field test yesterday - went to Cammo Estate and the best pic I took was probably this one of Cammo Tower:



Very happy with the new camera!

[pangster]

Been playing around with some of the features on the camera and discovered it has a built in tilt shift feature, which I thought was pretty cool: