Before you think you’re finding a great deal on the newest model, look at the next few older ones in the series. Whether you choose Nikon or Canon, the glass will outlive many many camera bodies. You have to hold and feel them in your hands. Personally, I never really liked the smaller plastic DSLR’s, so I always went with older model prosumer bodies made of magnesium allow (Canon XXD series).  The thumb wheel (not sure what the proper name for it is) makes it so much easier to quickly change the settings.  On the Canon Digital Rebel series camera bodies, there is no wheel.

You have to remember, any older model dslr you can still purchase right now was amazing and mind blowing when it first came out, just a few years ago. Keeping up with the latest and greatest tech doesn’t make you a better photographer. Sure, they are tools – and newer features/technological help tremendously.  What lenses should you get?  That’s a whole other story.  For basic, starter, and cheap lenses… get the 50mm f1.8 (about $80-130 depending on Nikon or Canon).  I only know Canon, because that’s what I use.  There is nothing wrong with Nikon, or Pentac, or Olympus either!  You should try both, and see which button layout you like the most, and feel more comfortable with.  It won’t take long to test them out in a local store, and decide for yourself.  I went with Canon because I had a lot of friends also with Canon, and knew we could easily swap, trade, buy, sell, and/or borrow gear from one another.  I always saw that it was easier to buy used gear that was more readily available if I went with one of the main dslr manufacturers, Nikon or Canon.  Canon glass is a little bit cheaper than Nikon, from what I’ve seen too.  Just a tiny bit.  Another lens that is pretty standard is the 18-55 IS or VR lens.  This will cover a decent wide angle to mid zoom range for landscapes and portraits.  Once you get into the higher end lenses, the costs begin to surpass even the prices of the camera bodies themselves, as it should.  Bodies come and go, but good glass is forever (or at least until you drop it, and it breaks).  Don’t think you can’t make amazing pictures with basic starter and kit lenses.  Just look online, and you’ll see millions of folks already doing so.  I have been using my 18-55 IS lens and 50mm f1.8 lenses for almost 7 years now, and still use them to this day, along with my higher end L lenses.

I hope this post has helped – a final bit of advice, is to read read read the reviews online of whatever you’re interested in buying.  You can save SO much money by buying camera bodies use, and that are at least 3-5 years old.  Usually they depreciate in value down to about 25-40% of their original price, in a short matter of years.  Buy what you can afford, and don’t bite off more than you can chew until you know you are serious about photography.

PS: I’ll be updating our gear list with everything we use here at Arena Creative for our stock imagery, if you are looking for additional recommendations.

Imagine if only you didn’t have to worry about nailing the sharpest focus in-camera?  What if you could actually mess around with the depth of field or focus afterwards, during editing?  LYTRO is a company that promises that this technology is not that far off.  This is revolutionary, for the world of photography.  Many times traditional autofocus systems can fail, or suffer from what we call “user error”.  It happens to the best of us, sometimes.  Click on different areas of the photo above.  Double click on a spot to zoom in.  Isn’t that cool?  If this is the future of photography, then I’m pretty impressed.  What does that mean for general amateurs and snapshot shooters?  There will be just one less thing holding them back from creating technically sound images.   How long before Canon and Nikon jump on board with this type of technology?  It’s probably safe to say that they’re already working on it.  Wait until shaky camera phones with slow, crappy lenses get this technology.  This type of tech can definitely be a game changer someday; noteworthy enough to keep your eye on.

Here are 4 guidelines you should always follow when purchasing used photography equipment:

1. Bring your camera along, and test out the lens you are looking at. Check that the autofocus works properly, and zoom in to pixel peep the results on your camera’s LCD.  You can even bring your laptop along to check the images from the CF card, for further testing.  Make sure that the images look as sharp as they should, and that the zoom and focus ring limits are working according to spec.  Examine the glass carefully for dust, mold, or anything else that could be trapped inside any of the turning rings or glass elements.  It might also be good to bring along a rocket blower or microfiber lens cleaning cloth in case it is a but dirty.  Obviously you are also going to want to look for any nicks or scratches in the glass.  A dust particle or two behind the glass is usually normal, and doesn’t really effect performance in most cases.  A good seller will usually point the flaws out on what they are selling, and let you know whether or not they have seen them to actually affect the performance.

2. If you are buying a camera body itself, bring a lens to test it out with, or ask the seller to bring along one of theirs.  Pop in a CF card, and test all of the different modes.  If there is a pop-up flash, make sure it works.  Check how well the auto focus system is, and examine the body of the camera for any visible marks that could suggest that it was dropped.  This high end photography equipment is made to take a beating, and holds up well, but would you want to buy something this expensive that you know bounced off of a concrete sidewalk?  I know I wouldn’t.  Ask if the seller is a smoker or non-smoker.  Once you put the viewfinder to your face, you may be able to tell right off the bat.

3. Don’t go alone.  Use the buddy system.  Meet up at a public location like a coffee house or restaurant with a lot of other people around. You don’t know these people from Adam, so be safe.  Be sure to remember to get a receipt for your own personal records and business expenses, if applicable.

4. Don’t let the seller distract you as you run your tests on the gear, if purchasing locally.  Use your gut instinct, and go with it.  Ask lots of questions, and if something sounds a little fishy, it probably is.  Meeting up with someone definitely does not mean that you are committed to the sale.

5. If you’re shopping over the internet from a long distance seller, ask for them to take sample images at different focal ranges and at different apertures to verify that the lens is performing properly.   This type of thing isn’t usually common for places like ebay, but if the seller genuinely wants your business, and has nothing to hide, they will usually comply

Buying used usually means “as is” without any warranty.  This is a bit riskier, but many times the price savings is so much, that even if you did have to have the item professionally repaired, you might still make out.  Hopefully it doesn’t ever get to that point, though.  If you are careful, you should be able to tell if what you are buying is in proper working order, or not.  I’ve purchased 2 other lenses used, and 2 separate camera bodies – both over the internet, and had great success with them. Most of them were brand spanking new, with very little obvious use or wear, and very well taken care of.  One of the camera bodies, the 20D, smelled of ciggarettes, so the photographer obviously smoked (or worked in smell second hand smoke filled areas a lot). Switching out the camera’s neck strap solved that problem. The 70-200mm f4L and 18-55mm IS were both awesome, and I still use them to this day. I got the 70-200 on ebay using the bing.com cashback, back when it was around. You can’t beat the savings with used, it almost is the same when buying a used car. I almost always buy from hobbyists that realize they’re not that into photography anymore, that need money. Low ball, haggle; do what you gotta do to make sure you’re getting the price you can afford. Don’t be afraid, sometimes people are really eager to sell what they have to make the quick cash.  Money talks, and cash in hand usually speaks volumes to a person that is desperate to sell something fast.  Use common sense and ask for lots of photos of the item if it’s over the internet.  I’d highly reccommend buying locally off of craigslist or other classified site, seeing that the deals to be had are many times better than what you may find on ebay or your favorite photography forums.

Buying new doesn’t always mean you will end up with a lemon free item.  I have probably had more problems with new things, than with buying used items.  If you don’t want to go through all of this, and don’t mind spending the extra cash, take the easier route and buy new.  There is a bit more protection in it, due to the warranty.  Many times, however, used items come complete with factory warranty cards that have not even been filled out yet.  Compare the prices of whatever you are looking to buy, between used and new.  If there is a small difference in price, I would just go with new.  The 50mm f1.8 nifty fifty lens is a perfect example of that.  Used vs new, the difference is almost nothing.

Buyer beware.  Be smart, and happy hunting.

Some of the best places you can get lens recommendations from online are the top photography forums.  Check out the links at the end of this post.  Utilize your fellow photo gearheads on Twitter and Facebook, too.  Talk to your photography buddies, or any professionals you might know.  Ask them their opinions, and learn how they came to the conclusions they made on which lenses best suited their needs.

Try not to EVER rush into a lens purchase.  These aren’t pieces of gear you want to impulse-buy at all.  While you might end up with a great quality lens, you might be buying more than you need.  You’d better do your homework, unless you want to be like a clueless sucker walking into a car dealership, not knowing what the difference is between a Camaro or an Impala even is.  Salesman have one goal – to sell.  They will convince you that you need the best of the best, unless are smart enough to realize what you yourself personally need.  Salesmen could care less about saving you money.  Do auto repair shops try to convince you that you need more than you need?  Yes, almost always.  Do electronics stores try to sell you a warranty on anything you want to buy from them?  Of course, they do.  Don’t be a sucker.  Be an educated consumer, and save yourself some time and money.  It’s a pain to have to sell photography gear after you realize you’ve purchased something you don’t really use very much.

When I realized I needed a longer zange telephoto zoom lens, my initial goal was to pick up something basic and cheap.  My first 70-300 was garbage, made by Tamron under the name of Quantarray.  I picked it up second hand on craigslist for a whopping $55 and was actually impressed with the performance of it for the price, when I first got it.  As I went on, I began to realize that the thing had more purple fringing (CA / chromatic aberation) than any lens I had ever owned.  It would have suited a hobbyist just fine, or someone that didn’t care as much about good quality images.  It was capable of producing quality images, but the amount of mistakes you had to fix in post processing basically made it not even worth shooting with.  Now I have an L series 70-200 f4 (non-IS) I bought on ebay, along with a bing.com cashback rebate. There are always rebates and deals online, if you are internet savvy enough you should be able to find them.  When you zoom the aperture is fixed – I love it. Instead of the aperture changing from f3.5 to f5.6 throughout the zoom range, the L series Canon lens has a fixed aperture.  The ultrasonic auto focus is amazingly fast, and way more accurate than a lit lens. The quality of the images are unmatched compared to my older low end lenses, and the CA is so low that it’s just about non-existant. You definitely get what you pay for, when buying glass. Some kit glass is amazing, just having a few limitations. You just need to learn the limitations and invest your dollars wisely, according to the type of photography you do the most.

Uh, oh… I’m about to drop the “U word”.  USED!  Compare prices between new and used for everything you’re interested in buying, when it comes to photo gear.  Every piece of photographic equipment I have everpurchased was previously used.  With the exception of my nifty fifty, which is just about the same price new or used at around $80 USD.  I was the second owner on the rest of my gear, about 75% of it was used only briefly.  Seeing that photography is the type of hobby that many take up only to soon realize they dumped a bunch of money into something they either stink at, or just can’t afford, then that means there are a lot of regretful buyers out there trying to find a way to unload their expensive gear.  My first camera was a second body for a wedding photographer which was lightly used, and in mint condition.  My most recent camera body had just 4000 clicks on the shutter when I bought it, and not a scratch or nick on the exterior.  Both of those purchases saved me enough to buy another camera lens brand new, if I wanted to.

Once you get familiar with some of the more popular pro lenses, so many out there that will make you drool.  There are just way too many good lenses to buy, and never enough money.  If I bought what I “wanted” I could easily blow $10,000-$15,000 or more on glass.  If I bought what I really needed, well then I probably already have what I “need” for the type of work that I do.  What you’ve got to respect about Canon lenses is that genuine Canon glass hardly ever depreciates; L series lenses, especially.  My friend just sold his 70-200 f2.8 I about a month ago for what he bought it for, back 6 years ago.  Amazingly low depreciation.  Glass is always a good investment, and sometimes it helps to borrow or rent before you drop a ton of money. Low end Canon kit lenses like the 18-55 IS and the 55-250 IS, for example, have definitely depreciated in the used market over the past few years.  The 50mm f1.8 (the cheapest decent quality prime lens you buy) always seems to stay pretty solid around $80 new or used.

When you stick to buying glass that is made by your camera manufacturer (ie: Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax) you generally don’t have to worry about older lenses not working with the newer Camera bodies that come out. I’ve heard that some older off brand lenses will stop working with updated Canon or Nikon cameras. Who needs the hassle of having to replace gear that they know works, but doesn’t work with their new upgraded body? Not that there aren’t some good quality off brand lenses, but usually when you stick to your manufacturer, it will turn out better in the long run.

Great sites for lens reviews and research:

Canon POTN Forums and Fred Miranda Forums are definitely my favorite places to talk gear and to read reviews online.
(these are also great places to buy or sell used photography equipment)

Canon POTN Forums
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/

Fred Miranda Forums
http://www.fredmiranda.com/reviews/

Imaging-Resource
http://www.imaging-resource.com

DPreview
http://dpreview.com/

Lens Hero
http://www.lenshero.com

Lenshero is a pretty helpful type of site that helps “suggest” what type of lens you are looking for, according to your needs.  It allows you to enter in the lenses you already own, as well.  Remember that the site is set up in a way to drive affiliate sales to Amazon.com products, similarly to many other online review sites.  That doesn’t mean you can’t make your purchases elsewhere.

The lighting in these indoor rinks is dim, so you’re going to want to use your fastest glass and up your iso.  I had to shoot through the glass, because shooting from the upper stands meant shooting through a net (to guard spectators from getaway hockey pucks).

I got a couple handfuls of shots from the box/bench area where there is no glass, but I didn’t want to keep getting in the way of the players.  Thankfully I didn’t get nailed by any stray pucks

I was monopodding it, with the Canon 70-200 f4 L lens trying to not go any higher than ISO 400 or 800.  Seeing that I was shooting with a 20D, I can’t really push it much further without the quality suffering.  My goal was also to nail a couple of panning style shots, which was still pretty challenging.  Later in the day, I switched to my nifty fifty and shot f1.8 ISO 200 handheld, with some decent results.   If you’re going to shoot hockey games like this without strobes, I can see needing really fast primes, and preferably with some reach.  50 mm isn’t going to really cut it.

Overall, I shot probably 500-600 frames, culled and deleted at least 200 right off the bat due to technical problems, or just because I was bursting so much (like you have to do with sports photography) and only have about 20 or so “keepers” that I like.  Half the time I didn’t realize I didn’t have my autofocus set to servo, not that the 20D has too great of a servo mode, anyway.  What a mess.  That’s a big fail, for me – but you can’t win them all I guess I sure did catch a lot of “abstract blurs” – haha.

- the AF is superior to the 5d2, more focus points, better servo mode than the 5d mkii

- it has pop-up flash (comes in handy once in a great while for fill or to trigger strobes) will mount EF-S lenses (I only own one, the rest in my kit are EF mount because I have been planning on going full frame for a while now).

- it has wireless flash controls built in, if you own other Canon speedlights (I don’t have any yet – only Alien Bees B800′s)

- dual digic 4 processors (5d2 only has one)

- shoots video same as the 5d2

- very low noise up to iso 800, where the 5d2 then takes over

- a few more bells and whistles that the 5d2 doesn’t have like on-screen leveling

All of that is fine and dandy, but when it comes down to pixel peeping, I’ve been seeing a lot of softness from the 7D in the samples online.  Not just studio stuff – real world conditions.

This review scares me a little. http://darwinwiggett.wordpress.com/2009/11/11/the-canon-7d/
I think we have to wait until Adobe updates ACR and Lightroom more the handle the Raw conversion a bit better, in order to come to the proper conclusions. Right now the 7D is looking softer than everything, at 100% native resolution. Sure, you can sharpen, but if there’s a little ISO 200 or 400 noise that low noise camera suddenly turns into worse noise than ISO 1600.

The 7D also out-resolves the glass you mount to it, much more than a 5d2.  That means softer images, seeing that the glass can’t provide enough.  There is a great explanation of what that means in this thread http://submit.shutterstock.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=73591 by my friend David Rehner.

In the end, either camera bodies are a world of a difference over my old 20D or 40D.  I’m going to wait and see more reviews at least until Spring of 2010 before I start whipping out my credit card. I’m waiting until I am absolutely 100% sure about this.  I think I just might have to rent one of each for a week to do my own tests.  I’m in the same boat as many other photographers, with the 20D, 30D, or 40D.  No doubt the 7D is better in more than one way, but if I can make my daily photo editing a few steps easier by spending the extra grand on the 5d2 I think it might be worth it.  Downsizing is fine, unless you want to utilize the maximum resolution that you possibly can, in order to make the most money from your images.  If I’m going to drop even $1700 on a camera, it had better produce good enough sharpness and clarity at 100% at the fullest resolution.  If not, I might as well spend the extra cash on the full frame.

We’ve all heard the rave reviews about this full frame wonder – theCanon 5d mk2.  Here are some links I’ve collected with some impressivesamples to show you how well it performs.  I’ll add more here once Ifind samples that allow you to see the high resolution original imageand zoom in to view it at 100%.

ISO 1600:

http://www.usa.canon.com/dlc/controller?act=GetArticleAct&articleID=2128

dpreview.com Samples:

http://www.dpreview.com/gallery/canoneos5dmarkii_samples/

More Canon samples:

http://web.canon.jp/imaging/eosd/eos5dm2/eos5dm2_sample-e.html