Olympus e510 or Nikon D60

[billy01]

Gday. I am just about to step up to a dslr after using a fuji s3500 and more recently a s5800. I love digital photography and am starting to think about making a bit of money from my passion. I have already done a wedding and some portrait work.

I can get either camera for approx $1100-$1400. the selling points for me are the 10mp and shake reduction in both cameras. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated

[Usuqa]

i think the shake reduction on the nikon bodys is on the actual lens, while its ment to be better it meens you have to paymore if u want a new lens to keep the shake reduction.

Olympus, pentax/samsung, sony bodys all have image reduction in the body which works with all lens.

Buying ur first dslr is a hard one .. its a system your buying into so theres alot of factors. For me i went with a samsung gx10 because of its features.

[mattdm]

Pentax is a particularly good choice if you're primarily interested in portraits or landscape -- they don't have the super FPS needed for machine-gun press-and-pray sports shooting, but provide an outstanding value for the areas mentioned.

Remember that your primary expense is going to be lenses. If you're not thinking that way now, quick, revise your thinking. :) My personal suggestion would be to find someone who is looking to offload a relatively new Pentax K10D to raise cash to buy an uber-new 14-megapixel K20D -- there's probably going to be some pretty good deals along those lines coming up soon. Or, look at the K100D Super, which is a decent entry-level camera with the best performance of any 6 megapixel sensor. (Easily good for prints up to 20×13.)

Get one of those, body only without the kit lens, and pick up some nice lenses (16-45mm f/4 zoom for landscapes + 70mm f/2.4 Limited for portraits), and if you've got money left, the Metz 48 AF-1 flash to provide some light. This will be a really economical combination that gives you superb image quality -- and with top-notch lenses like that, you won't grow out 'of em when you eventually get a better camera body.

The Olympus camera is really nice, and their kit lens is supposed to be one of the best, but take a look at the price of nice 4/3rds system glass. Ouch.

And you won't go wrong with Nikon, don't get me wrong. Or Canon, for that matter.

[Saralonde]

One factor that you need to consider is the availablity of lenses for the camera you buy. You are not just buying a camera but a system. If you plan on expanding your lens collection in the future, look to see what is available and the price they will be. The big 2 (Nikon and Canon) offer more and at lower prices. This is not to say other cameras are not as good. In fact the Olympus rates very high. Just be aware of what you may want at a later date.

[billy01]

Great help, thanks guys! i am leaning towards the D60. i can get it with 2 vr nikkor lenses. one is 18-55mm, the other is 55-200.

Noob question; what does vr stand for?
being from p&s land with my 10x optical zoom s5800, what is the equivalent in mm of lenses in relation to optical zoom?

[RexK_Cozumel]

VR is vibration reduction. check out the tamron website if you want to see the zoom factor on the different mm lenses.

[glyphon]

VR is vibration reduction. its the same as IS (image stabilization), just nikon's name for it.

[glyphon]

on a zoom lens (a lens that has a variable focal length), the magnification is just the longer focal length divided by the shorter focal length. so a 50mm-200mm lens would be a 4x lens, but that's not really all that useful of information, which is why slr lenses typically aren't marketed that way, like P&S cameras are. the imporant info is the actual focal length. 200mm is a telephoto lens.

this site has a good set of photos showing the differences in focal lengths
http://www.paragon-press.com/lens/lenchart.htm

[billy01]

thanks glyphon. i see you use an e510. Are you happy with it?

[glyphon]

i'm very happy with it. in body IS was a major consideration in my choosing the e510 over some of the other cameras I was looking at. also, the kit lenses that are available with this camera considered to be very good lenses.