Suggestions Wanted & Appreciated

[Johnny5]

I have up to 2000 dollars I have saved for a dslr and gear. I have done alot of research and talked to alot of people as well. I am an amateur yes but I love taking pictures.The Camera I have now is a Fugi Fine pix s1000. I like but I know there is more potential within myself to learn photography and experience all it captures in itself. I am looking more at Cannon now do to my research. I take pictures of EVERYTHING, wildlife-sports-people-flowers-bugs-You name I like to shoot it...So please could you help out... I thank you sincerely...---If you choose to tell me of another dslr that would be ok too

[Johnny5]

can someone help me please

[inkista]

Well, if you like to shoot EVERYTHING (including sports), then, I'd definitely recommend looking at Canon or Nikon as your system of choice, since they have the widest selections of bodies and lenses right now.

What you will probably want to do is figure out whether you want to go with an entry level camera and save money for lenses, or go with a better feature set and a prosumer body instead. If you wanted to go full-frame, I think your budget might be too small for that right now, unless you wanted to pick up a used Canon 5D (classic, i.e., not a Mark II).

The one thing to understand is that within the same generation, the entry level and prosumer body will share the same sensor/processor, so the image quality will be pretty much identical between the two choices. What's different is the ergonomics and usability features of the higher end cameras. And that the camera body is the most disposable part of the system.

Your lenses are going to be the permanent purchase. So make sure that the lenses you'll want for what you want to shoot exist in the lineup you're looking at, and that you've budgeted for them. This is where shooting everything is probably going to drive you nuts--because dSLR lenses are special purpose tools. While you can probably shoot sports and wildlife with the same lens, you're likely to use a different lens for landscapes, and possibly another one for portraits, and yet another one for bugs and flowers. Price out the lenses on Amazon. You'll start to see that what you spend on the body is just the beginning of what can become a purchase stream...

dSLRs are camera systems. The analogy I tend to make is that a P&S camera is like a swiss army knife. It's small, cheap, self-contained and pretty useful for whole bunch of stuff. A dSLR is like a big red toolbox. Big, heavy, expensive, and you still have to buy the tools to fill it, but you'll have better tools for a specific task.

My advice: hang on to your P&S camera for things that will be harder to get right away: a supertelephoto and macro lens are likely to not be your first purchases. Keep your Fuji for those at first. I'd also recommend reading this primer on lenses:

How to Choose the Best Digital SLR Lens

On the Canon side of the fence, I'd recommend looking at at least the xxxD level and above. The XS is probably not going to help much with the sports shooting, as its autofocus system is not as good as the higher level cameras.

On the Nikon side of the fence, I'd say look at least at a D70/D80/D90, because of the focus motor issue (lower-end cameras, such as the D3100 and D5000 need an AF-S lens to autofocus; they won't autofocus with AF lenses).

To get a sense of the model tiers and history, here are timelines:
Canon
Nikon

[OsmosisStudios]

Inkista is, as always, right on the money.

As an aside, Johnny5, you posted 3 hours apart in the middle of the day (for North America). You need to be a little more patient.