I bought the Sony A230 a month ago, purely because the price was very good from Argos (£259) and the reviews I read of it & people I spoke to said it was a great camera for the beginner. Basically something to get me started & see if I liked shooting with a DSLR. If I caught the bug then I can upgrade as and when. To date I've not been disappointed with it, my only critisim with it is the grip is not to everones liking.
Tried an A230, D3000 and a D5000 today in a camera shop. The A230 felt like a toy compared to the Nikons!! The Nikons felt solid, good grip.
You should have tried the Pentax K-X as it is the best camera in its class. Also £417 delivered for a new Pentax K-X kit with an 18-55MM lens,4GB SD card, case and a two year warranty is an excellent offer. SRS Microsystems are a good retailer which have been around for a long time and are a offical Pentax dealership.
Last edited by CAT-THE-FIFTH; 08-06-2010 at 06:22 PM.
Not the best write up in mags compared to the D3000 and D5000
I also would certainly take a K-x over a D3000, D5000 is a bit closer.
Btw did you try a Sony A450/A500/A550 as they are somewhat larger than the A230/A330/A380 series (which are supposedly just about to be replaced anyway)?
I presume this is the same mag that told you to avoid second hand DLSRs?Originally Posted by lazer
The K-x stomps all over the D3000 in every category, unless you already have a large Nikon lens collection, in which case you'd be considering something a little higher up the food chain anyway.
But if you like how the D3000 controls, then go for it - it's still a good camera. And the presence of a better camera doesn't suddenly make your camera start taking worse photos!
Looking at magazine reviews, the D3000 gets a higher overall percentage rating than the Pentax.I presume this is the same mag that told you to avoid second hand DLSRs?
The K-x stomps all over the D3000 in every category, unless you already have a large Nikon lens collection, in which case you'd be considering something a little higher up the food chain anyway.
But if you like how the D3000 controls, then go for it - it's still a good camera. And the presence of a better camera doesn't suddenly make your camera start taking worse photos!
Digital Camera magazine gave the Pentax K-x, 84% and the D3000, 87% this month in a review they done. They said that the Pentax images were not as good as the Nikon D3000 and the Pentax had metering errors.
The D5000 had 95% in the review!
Even the A230 was noted as having much better image quality than the Pentax!!
Ah well if its got 3 percentage points more, it must be true.
These things are hard to break down into sensible metrics at the best of times, what it comes down to is which one is best for you, your budget and what your hoping to do with it.
I think there are some very valid complaints about the quality of the on camera RAW development vrs what you could achieve in lightroom, this is true accross the whole of the pentax consumer range (said as a Pentax owner, who is happy as one!), however in many ways the image quality is better due to the sensor shift shake reduction, if your not trying to do on camera processing for production.
My point is its not absolute.
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Bizarre. I'll have to see if I can find a copy to have a browse through - seems at odds with the likes of DPReview et al.
I suppose each reviewer has their own idea on things so one mans meat is anoth mans poison.
Thing is, all the magazines do reviews and that review % fluctuates between them all.
That particular mag put it 3% above the Pentax. If it was 3% below the Pentax you would have commented 'TOLD YOU SO!'
No I would say its not significant and too crude.That particular mag put it 3% above the Pentax. If it was 3% below the Pentax you would have commented 'TOLD YOU SO!'
For a start off its not just '50%' or '60%' or whatever, it fits somewhere on a scale. This is not a normally distributed set of reviews either, with mean of 50%.
Now it is also looking at implied context which is been disregarded, that is its 84% good for what exactly? Good for the money? a good holiday camera?
All I'm saying is its over generalisation, even if it was just pure picture quality of kit lens and sensor, looking at the data straight from the DSP, you could argue that one has faster slew time on one end of the gaumet whilst one has faster slew time at the other end..... Which is the most significant depends a lot on the context.
This is why a lot of reviews, and this isn't just camera hardware add points for bells and whilstles I don't care about and 90% of the world shouldn't. The classic was monitors with built in speakers around the 2000s, reviewers would give them an extra 10% for that. Yet I knew no one who used those pokey tiny speakers.......
I digress. Try the cameras in the flesh, get the one that feels best for your budget and what your wanting to do with it.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Sony have just announced the A290 and A390, which might be worth keeping an eye on:
http://www.dpreview.com/news/1006/10...nya390a290.asp
Also many reviews sites and magazines have a preference for certain brands. Sadly,fanboism does exist even for photographic equipment reviewers.
For instance DPReview always slates Sony cameras where as they seem to gloss over similar faults in Nikon and Canon cameras.
Indeed peoples evaluation of shake reduction is a classic.
In short there are plenty of circumstances where in body sensor shift is better than lens stabilisation, and vice versa, but all to often people think the two are mutually exclusive, sure they can't be used together, but its no reason why you can't switch depending on what is best suited to which scenario.
But plenty of the review sites will choose to criticise in body systemswhen almost all can be switched off, most with a nice easy to use mechanical switch (because long exposures.... you know)
Yet they then seem to go praise cannon for not bothering at allthis kind of fanboyism is most tiresome.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
& with a sensor shake equipped body you can have the choice now that Sigma & Tamron are releasing Pentax, Sony etc. mount versions of their OS equipped lenses - with a Canon or Nikon you can't add sensor shake at a later date!
Bottom line is that there isn't a bad current production DSLR & for the average user there isn't one system that doesn't offer enough lens options (it's really only when you get into low volume specialist lenses that availability can become a problem & most often people are choosing the lens first & then the body to fit it rather than the other way around)
When comparing equivalent levels where they do vary most is in ergonomics & user interface & the camera that you are most likely to use is the one that feels most natural to you.
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