30d for $275

[justalive]

So I'm a coming into photography and I wanted a good dslr for a good price and then use extra money to buy lenses. I found a deal for a Canon 30d for $275 (body only) with 8k-9k actuations. I was going to buy a nice lense for it. Is this a good deal? or should I get something else?

[dlambert]

That's a fine camera to start with. I just traded up from a 30D to a 40D. One of the things I appreciate about the x0D line is that you can trade up and reuse lenses (obviously), batteries, flash cards, etc., so you'll have a good upgrade path if you go this route.

FYI, as far as I know, there's no reliable way to get an actuation count on the 30D short of having a Canon tech get it for you. You can't really rely on the image number, if that's what you're going off of, because that number can be reset and/or roll over. Nevertheless, the shutter mechanism is rated for 100,000 actuations, I believe.

Good luck!

[justalive]

Thank you. Now the obvious question is what lenses should I get? I want to mainly use this camera for portrait photography. I was looking at the 50mm 1.8 prime lense. Your thoughts?

[dlambert]

You can't beat it for the price. The 50mm lens is somewhere around 80mm-equivalent, which works well for portraits. There are lenses with better bokeh, but not for $100.

[Syntaxxor]

For portraits I'd look more for zoom lenses; or maybe a longer prime lens. the 50mm 1.8 is a fine lens, but I've found it more useful for still-life and other creative photography, especially since you want to get as close as possible to your subjects to really create fine bokeh. (The closer you are to the subject, and the further the background, the more round the 5bladed bohek will become)