[Macsen]

Hello all, I am about to take the plunge and buy my first dslr camera, I have around £300-400 to play with and from what I can gather the 450d is the best available for that sort of cash.

Now what I want to know is...how easy is the camera to use? bearing in mind that my camera up to now has been a kodak easyshare point n' shoot.
I have very little knowledge of how everything works and dont really enjoy reading the manuals, I prefer to find things out by trial and error. How easy is it to upload photos from the camera to the pc and what is the software like?
I will mainly be using it for landscape/wildlife and action shots of my lurchers.

Any advice and/or oppinions will be greatly appreciated, cheers.

[MuttleMcTuttle]

The camera is quite easy to use. Although it's got lots of knobs and buttons to fiddle with, if you just set it on auto or one of the preset modes, it'll more or less do the job for you. :)

However, you will get much more from it if you take the time to look through the manual and learn how the camera functions and what effects the different settings, like ISO, aperture, and shutter speed, will have on your pics. Plus it'll have featured like continuous focussing and shutter, which you'll need to know how to set.

With Dslrs a lot depends on the lens, and you'll probably find you need two to get the best from the camera. A wide 18-55 or something for the landscapes, and a 70-300 or similar for the lurchers and wildlife. Be careful when changing lenses though, to avoid getting a lot of dust inside the camera. Don't leave the camera laying around without a lens or bodycap on.

Uploading to the PC is easy. It will come with software, but to upload pics to the PC you don't even need that if you have XP or newer OS, but you do have to alter one of the camera settings for that... ptp or something, sorry can't remember exactly.

Hope this helps.

[Macsen]

Thanks for the reply, Do I have to buy a seperate lens for it straight away, or is the one it comes with ok?

[chook]

The kit len's arnt bad but dont let in a lot of light,
so in low light settings there crap,

with dslr's its not about the camera realy, the lens is more important,
as the len's will be with you for life, the camera body can be changed,
so a decent lens is a must, for a first lens your better getting a 55-200mm
untill you get used to it all, then you can go for bigger lens if you need to
with the 450d tbh theres not much difference between that and the 350d,
the 350d you can pick up quite cheap now a days, and ive seen some good results
from them, if i was buying again - i would go for the 350d and the money saved spent it on decent len's,
insted of jumping in and buying the 450d lol.

http://www.canon.co...._350D/index.asp

oh and i dont use the software or the camera at all to upload the pictures,
i just remove the card and use a usb card reader, paste the pictures in to the folder i want
and then use either painshop pro 9 or picasa if i need to, its easer that way.

[Macsen]

Cheers, very informative reply, much appreciated, will check out the 350d...any other decent cameras/lenses out there in this price range?
What would you guys recommend? :good:

[swanseajack]

Macsen, on Oct 6 2009, 07:39 AM, said:

Cheers, very informative reply, much appreciated, will check out the 350d...any other decent cameras/lenses out there in this price range?
What would you guys recommend? :good:

I've had the 350d since they came out,(lil win on the horses sorted that out for me...) I must say I've hammered it, dropped it a few times :blink: been buried on digs, trampled by hounds, out in all sorts of weather etc etc, even had a pint spilled over it... and it's still going strong, does need sensor cleaned at the moment though !!!

As for ease of use, switch it to the green box auto and click on !!! mega easy !!! use a card reader to upload to puter...

450d my godson has one, as for a few technical differences which I wouldn't notice and it has a built in sensor cleaner, I cant see much difference.........

Good Luck !!!