Help from the camera bods please!

[menthel]

I have got my canon 300d with lens finally, and a 1gb CF card to go with it, but was wondering what would be a good basic setup for everyday photography? Lenses? Flash? Other accessories? Please remember that money is not never ending and I am in no way a pro!

[BlueMagician]

what would be a good basic setup for everyday photography? Lenses? Flash? Other accessories?

IIRC you have the EF-S 18-55 kit zoom lens?

This is a great starter lens for casual shooting, and pretty respectable when stopped down. However, at f4/f5.6 it's not really fast enough for indoor (non-flash) shots. As has been mentioned in another of your posts, the Canon 50mm f/1.8 is a great budget fast prime, which will allow you to experiment with available light indoor photography.

You could also look at the Canon 55-200mmf4.5/5.6II zoom lens, which is not a fantastic quality bit of glass, but will complement what you have and let you experiment with telephoto.

Flash wise, the Canon 420 & 550 EX are good, but only you can decide if the £200+ is worth it to you, given that the built in flash is pretty good.


If I were you, a good start would be to buy:
- a nice kit bag
- a decent protective UV filter for your lens(es)
- a basic tripod, something like £50 worth of Velbon
- some decent RAW file processing software like CaptureOne LE , so you can post-process & get the most out of your shots...

What you've got is a great start - run off a couple thousand shots - and learn what the equipment won't let you do, then you'll start drooling over lenses and other equipment, etc etc..


Regards,
S.

[Rave]

That's good advice- shoot with what you have until you figure out what else you need. For example, there would be no point buying a telephoto lens if you never even use the 55mm end of your current lens.

Rich :¬)

[shiato storm]

right, first thing you have to realise is that it pays to get a good quality lens. don't be suckered into the budget lenses as you'll be sorry later on, also the advantage of getting slightly better lenses means that when you up-grade your camera body thats all you need to worry about and not 'are my lenses good enough??' question...
sigma do very good digital compatible lenses, tamron's are ok, and of course canon's are top notch too...
prime lenses (i.e non-zooms) are much better quality, a 50mm prime for example has a massive apperture, and the glass inside is likely to be way awy better than a zoom.

as for bags, get one that will take a few knocks as well as hold what you need: camera, few lenses, notebook?, filters (not really required for dSLRs as you can add effects in PS later). uv filters maybe useful for protecting the lens, I personally don't do this but of course its up to you.

tripods, see whats out there, check its not too weighty tho cause on a long trek you don't want to be lugging around a dead weight!