Which brand is the best in dSLR camera?

There are many DSLR cameras in the market.
You may check Samsung NX10, one of the cameras displayed in CES 2010.


Samsung announced the NX10 interchangeable lens camera. The compact NX10 is armed with a large 14.6 megapixel APS-C CMOS sensor along with a 3.0 inch AMOLED monitor, pop-up flash, and an electronic viewfinder.

Samsung will make an 18-55mm OIS, 50-200mm OIS, and a 30mm pancake lens available with the launch of the NX10.

The use of a 3.0 inch AMOLED monitor, a technology that should make the display brighter and easier to use in direct sunlight. Compared to a traditional LCD, the AMOLED technology should consume less power and put up faster refresh times.

Samsung has included 720p HD video capture capability in the NX10. It will record HD videos in H.264 codec.

Unfortunately, NX10 will be available this Spring.
If you need a camera right away, you may just ignore my recommendation.
If you are interested in NX10, following is the link you may refer to:

http://www.digitalcamerareview.com/default.asp?newsID=4207
http://www.digitalcamerareview.com/default.asp?newsID=4188

In addition to NX10 info, the following link is a video clip of the preview of NX10 explained by WDC editor, Nigel Atherton. http://www.whatdigitalcamera.com/news/437690/video-samsung-nx10-hands-on-preview.html

The 24-105mm f/4L IS lens is very good but it does not have much wide angle (on an APS-C size body) or tele.

You can consider getting a cheaper body like Canon xsi with the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS and EF 70-200mm f/4L for similar package price. The 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens has excellent quality and has better low light performance than the 24-105mm f/4L IS lens, with shallower depth of field. And the 200mm will give you a more useful range for sports and wild life than 105mm. The Canon XSI is slower than the 50D, and ISO tops at 1600 rather than 3200. But I will rather get a lens with f/2.8 than to have ISO 3200. Having more lenses will increase your photo capabilities more than having a more expensive body.

This is just a suggestion about what you can buy if you pick a less expensive body, and to illustrate the reasoning. The Canon 50D is an excellent camera and the 24-105mm f/4L IS lens is also very good.

I had this debate with someone in a past forum post, and I gave information for 10 of the top pro and consumer lens from Nikon and Canon. They were not lighter or smaller and the other person couldn't find any lens that supported his theory that Nikon was lighter and/or smaller. This seems to be a myth that has been spread across the web, without any base in reality.

You won't find reviews stating that Nikon lens are optically superior to Canon or vice versa. This has been another myth spread throughout the forums on the internet.

Finally I am planning to go for Canon 7D (body only) but confused to buy which a lens which will solve my purpose. Again I am not a professional photographer but want a good lens which will give me good quality photo in a day to day life. Please suggest which ZOOM lens is fit best for my purpose.

If you really want to buy a mid or high end SLR, you should already be at least semi-serious about photography. Otherwise, you won't get as much out of your purchase as you should. If you're just looking for something to take snapshots of friends, then do yourself a favor and either get a high-end compact or maybe a low-end SLR.

Now, let's assume you are at least semi-serious about photography? What type of art do you like to produce? Sweeping landscapes? Portraits? Sports shots? Birds/wildlife? Gritty street/personal shots? Architecture? Macro/closeups? All of them have different answers for what type of lenses are best for you.

In general, you can pick lenses that are mediocre for a lot of tasks, or ones that can do fewer tasks but do those really well.

For any particular photograph, there are two properties for a lens: focal length and aperture. A smaller focal length is wider-angle, and a larger focal length is narrow-angle. Small focal lengths also amplify perspective, while large focal length make the image seem flatter. 50mm has the same level of perspective as the human eye. A zoom lens can select from a range of focal lengths.

Aperture is the amount of light the lens lets in. A small (wide) aperture like 1.8 or 2.0 lets in more light but has less of the image in focus. A high (narrow) aperture like 8 or 10 lets in very little light but has most of the image in focus. Either your camera chooses the aperture for you or you choose it from the controls on the camera. Lenses are rated by the widest/smallest aperture they allow. A minimum aperture of 4 is good, and a minimum aperture of 2.8 is better because it gives you more flexibility.

If you're really into wide-angle landscapes, you really want a lens that can do well under 30mm (full frame sensor) or 17mm (crop sensor). In the Canon world, the good lens for that is 16-35/2.8L. It also works well in confined spaces and low light, like wedding receptions. But, the perspective distortion from 16mm makes people look funny, so you have to be further away.

If you want to do people/street photography, you want 50mm-100mm. Though I've also been able to get a lot of good outdoor reception shots from across a gathering with 100-200mm. The advantage there is there's no camera nearby so people relax. Image stabilization also helps here, since you might have to react faster and move around a lot.

If you want sports or wildlife photography, you want 300mm or greater. Be aware that a high end 400mm lens is more than your entire budget.

The kit lens for a 7D is a 24-105/4L IS. I have that lens, and it's very good for portraits and street photography and good for landscapes. I actually have that lens on my 5D most of the time, with a crop body and a 70-200/4 for mild telephoto shots and some primes for lower-light shots. I don't do sports or wildlife photography, or I'd want a still longer lens for that.

For most general-purpose people shots, the 24-105 that comes with the 7D works very well. Since the 7D is full frame, that's wider (with less distortion) than the 17-88 mentioned before on a crop body.

To make it very short...Pentax K-7. I just purchased one at xmas time. It is terrific. Also shoots 720P in HD. You can't miss.

I own a Canon 7D and you have to use the 1.6 crop factor to figure the lens equivalent MM factor. I also own the 17-55MM F2.8 IS lens and the 24-105MM F4.0L lens and other than the 24-105MM having less flare (probably more related to the wider angle of 17MM than the lens itself). In real world use I see very little difference in photos made with either lens, however the lens that is mounted most often for everyday use is the 17-55MM. I also have a number of telephoto lenses including the 70-200MM F2.8 IS L but for your budget range I would recommend the 70-300MM F4-5.6 IS USM. This is probably the best buy of any Canon lens. The only drawback to this lens for me is the realitavely slow focus speed (relative to the 17-55MM and L lenses) but I have a very high success rate with this lens. I have one other comment related to the "which camera question". If you are interested in taking pictures in low-lite situations then you might want to consider going with Nikon cameras since this seems to be only real advantage it has over Canon, at least for non-professional photographers.

buying the 7d isnt neccasary and its a lot harder to use then any of the rebel series. I have a rebel xti and it doesnt limit me. and since your not profesonal you defintly dont need the 7d. Remember its the photographer not the camera. i would suggest getting one from craigslist or ebay because this is your first camera.

You don't necessarily need the pro models for multiple flash/strobe control. Canon and Nikon both have remote transmitter that can control several groups of flashes and allow setting different ratio for each group. But this usually requires the transmitter and the flash units to have direct line of sight, works better indoors than outdoors. If you want something better, then you can consider the Pocket Wizard.

I use the Alien Bees strobes at home, with the Cyber Commander remote system that has built-in flash metering and remote programming of the strobes.

All these accessories do not require a pro model, can work with most Canon and Nikon D-SLRs. I don't know about the other manufacturers, but there are other third party remote triggering systems that can work with them.

But obviously the pro model has a lot more capabilities (better AF, metering, wireless data transmission, rugged build, fast performance, vast custom functions, etc) and can do high speed flash synch that the lower end models cannot dream of.

This is just using the examples to illustrate how to pick a system from a photographer's point of view, rather than just reading specs and reviews without thinking about what you need. I don't mean to direct comments to anyone's particular choice.

I'm going to use the examples above Pentax K7 vs Canon 7D. Both are good cameras. However if the budget is around $2000, then the Pentax may make more sense. Let's say I want to shoot low light actions, family photos, portraits and travel photos.

For Pentax K7, it has built-in antishake technology, and cost about $1122 with stand 18-55mm lens. I can add the Pentax 70-200mm f/2.8 lens for $730 and a AF 540 external flash for $384. The total will come out $2236. This will be a pretty good setup and quite flexible, able to do low light sports, great portraits, group photos, etc.

For Canon 7D, it costs $1699 and with the $799 15-85mm lens, it comes out almost $2500. The Pentax system above will definitely outperform the Canon 7D with 15-85mm lens in every category of photography that I listed I want to do above.

This is not to say that Pentax is better. Sure the Canon 7D can outperform the Pentax. But I will have to add the EF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS $2000, and the Canon 430ex flash $280 (or the 580ex $470). The Canon 7D will come out $4780. If your budget is generous and you don't mind spending more than twice the Pentax system, then you can get some better performance but it won't be twice the performance of the Pentax system. Nikon by the way costs about the same as Canon.

This is what I mean by knowing what you need and setting a budget. You should always try to get everything you need and stay close to the budget. That does not mean that you cannot take your time to build your system. It may take you a couple of years to build the Canon or Nikon system, but you will end up spending twice the amount at the end. And you may miss quite a lot of photo opportunities during the intervening two years.

Can someone please let me know which lens I shoud pick up for both indoor and outdoor shooting. Is Canon EF-S 15-85mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM or EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS USM.

I am planning to by canon 7d body. Please help.

17-55 F2.8 IS. The larger aperture makes it a better indoor lens, without having to use the flash.

EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS is my favorite zoom lens, excellent for both indoor and outdoor photos, a EF-S lens with L class quality. I use this lens the most on my older 30D body. For sports, I use the EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS, another excellent lens for indoor/outdoor shooting, and is my second most used lens on the 30D.

One thing you should know about the EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 IS lens is that it is not sealed like the L class lenses, so you may see some dust inside the lens after a while. But this does not show up in the photos and does not affect image quality. However it does make me question Canon why don't they just seal the lens and charge a little more, since customers already pay $1000 for this lens, and I'm sure most of us will not mind paying a little more for the seal.