Girlfriend is looking for a 2nd-hand DSLR

If you are in no rush and own an iPhone or similar with the eBay app, have a thorough scan through and 'watch' a load of them that look good to you.

I did that and got an absolutely mint contrition Canon 400D for £120 (body only). If she doesn't really know what she wants it for then I'd suggest also buying a 50mm 1.8 lens, its about £70 brand new. Although it is a prime lens and you have no zoom, it is a fantastic lens and image quality is amazing. This type of lens also makes you get up close to the object and if she is taking pics of flowers and stuff then it will be great for her to learn about depth of field etc.

I posted up some pics in this section the other day at brand hatch British super bikes with my 400D but with a lens that costs £500 ish. But you can still see what it's capable of.

Couldn't recommend it enough as a beginner lens.

Originally Posted by mister c

I bought a Canon EOS300d with 2 lenses for £200 & get photos like the one below. It's only 6mp, but, like has been said before, it's quality of lens, not how many pixels.

This. A 6 megapixel DSLR is absolutely fine for most purposes.

Originally Posted by Stuuk1

I did that and got an absolutely mint contrition Canon 400D for £120 (body only). If she doesn't really know what she wants it for then I'd suggest also buying a 50mm 1.8 lens, its about £70 brand new. Although it is a prime lens and you have no zoom, it is a fantastic lens and image quality is amazing. This type of lens also makes you get up close to the object and if she is taking pics of flowers and stuff then it will be great for her to learn about depth of field etc.

They're not known as "nifty fifty's" for nothing. Every DSLR owner should have a 50mm 1.8 prime in their camera bag. You'll get photos with it that no compact camera would every be able to take.

Originally Posted by Bluepete

At that price, you'll be lucky. Try for a Nikon D40 or D60 with the 18-55vr lens.

I'd take a D50 or D70 over a D40/D60 any time. The D50 has features from higher-end cameras, such as the top status LCD and a/f motor, which are missing on all of the other low-end Nikon DSLR's.

Agreed always have a prime lens, I use mine the most out of all of them. Love it.

[Paul the 6th]

Probably teaching quite a few people how to suck eggs but for those who aren't 100%, the higher the megapixel's, the larger the actual physical dimensions of the picture will be..

i.e. a 3 megapixel photograph will print on a piece of a4 without any trouble/pixellation but try and print the same picture at the size of an A0 poster and it will go all blurry. If you have a 16 megapixel camera, you could print the image to fit on a wall and it would still look crisp.

If the majority of your prints are destined for facebook/flickr/screen display (72 dpi unless using a HD display) then anything around 8mp will be more than adequate should you ever want to print your images at poster size. As has been said it's the quality of the optics which determine how amazing your images come out, there's the aperture & depth of field, focus speed (canon ultrasonic lenses etc.) and all the rest of it.

Oh and in terms of Canon lenses, there's the EF lenses (from film SLR's) and then EF-S which work with the Digital-SLR's; the nice thing is that the older EF lenses are forwards compatible with Digital bodies (just make sure you read up on the 1.6 crop factor before buying to make sure you're happy with the final zooming capability)

[Littlepeahead]

This place is good - there is one near me and also a store in London and they have this on sale. Great little camera, basic lens. All you need to add is a memory card.

http://www.cameraworld.co.uk/ViewPro...UBCAT_CODE=278

[andrewsmith]

Anyone wanting D40's MPB have got them for £150

[maviczap]

MPB? With lens or without?

[andrewsmith]

Body only, still good value as a used 18-55 lens is £70

http://www.mpbphotographic.co.uk/use...ameras/?page=1

[maviczap]

Originally Posted by andrewsmith

Body only, still good value as a used 18-55 lens is £70

http://www.mpbphotographic.co.uk/use...ameras/?page=1

Cool

I might get a Cannon body and use my old Cannon lens at those prices

[jambo]

I'd agree with the majority of the above.

Canon anything from the 300/350/400/450/500 (or 1000/1100) etc range will do you fine (I've had my 400d for years and it's done me very, very well).

Nikon I know less about, but some of the smaller bodies (like the D40/D60) don't have an auto focus motor in the body. This isn't a major issue but means you need to be aware of which Nikon lenses have AF motors in the lens and which don't.

Then I'd recommend a cheap zoom (18-55 kit) to see what sort of photography she wants to do. I've ended up realising that none of the type of photography I like to do at the moment requires a long zoom lens, so i haven't got one.

I do, however, love a shallow depth of field, and shooting in low light, to which end my main lenses at present are a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8, and a Canon 50mm f/1.8 Mk II.

If a bunch of people you know already have Canon, or Nikon gear, factor this in, I mean it. I've borrowed (and lent out) £100's worth of gear among friends. If someone has a macro lens they can lend you for a week you can find out if that's something you'll use a lot or not, ditto a fast telephoto, wide angle, or top-end flash.

Jambo