Deciding on a new camera

Morten Bock — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 01:22:19 +0100

For a while now, I have been thinking of changing my camera system. As I know that a lot of you out there on the different social networks who are into photography, I thought i would gather a small blogpost with my thoughts, and see if any of you would enlighten me with your inputs :-)

Why change?

My current camera system is an Olympus E-520 with the standard 14-42mm and 40-150mm lenses. My main issue with this equipment is that it does not seem to perform too well under indoor and other low light conditions. This seems to be confirmed by the review ad dpreview.com. So instead of spending meoney on new lenses for this system, I thought I would try to do a complete swap to improve the performance.

The candidate

The items that I am looking at currently are the following, which fall within the total budget of about DKK 7.500.

Canon EOS 600D
Price DKK ~4.700
http://www.dpreview.com/products/canon/slrs/canon_eos600d

I want to stay at the entry level houses for now, and i looked at the 500D, 550D and 600D. I would be tempted to go with the 500D which is available at a bargain price currently, but I really would like to get the flip-out screen that comes with the 600D, and which I have been missing quite a few times on my current Olympus.

Canon 18-135mm f3.5-5.6
Price DKK ~2.200
http://www.dpreview.com/products/canon/lenses/canon_18-135_3p5-5p6_is

Canon 18-200mm f3.5-5.6
Price DKK ~3.500
http://www.dpreview.com/products/canon/lenses/canon_18-200_3p5-5p6_is

I want an all purpose lens for a certain degree of flexiility when travelling. With my current system, I seem to be changing lens constantly, where these two lenses would each covere the combined range of the Olympus lenses. I am considering the 135mm lens because it should give a better quality image, but still maintain a fair amount of flexibility and at a lower price.

Canon 50mm F1.8
Price DKK ~800
http://www.dpreview.com/products/canon/lenses/canon_50_1p8_ii

At this price I really like the idea of a fixed fast lens, and this one seems to have gotten a lot of nice reviews. it should be able to handle the low light scenarios really well, and should provide some interresting options for depth of field experiments.

Feedback

That concludes my findings so far. I would love to get your feedback and experiences with this or similar equipment, and any other advice you might offer in the search for my new kit :-)