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Hopefully I'll win this Sony Alpha 300K on eBay. I was looking at the Nikon & Canon DSLR's, but the thing that sells me on the Sony is the fact that I can use my Minolta lenses on this camera. So I will have a nice 75-300 zoom lens as well as a wide angle lens.

Well I won it. I got it for $600. That's about $200 less than if I bought it in store.

I'll pick it up on Friday and hopefully have some pics to share.

Did you make sure you were getting a US model with all accessories included? Not sure about sony, but with some other manufacturers even getting (paid) service for grey market imports can be difficult. Sometimes the savings that you get from ebay dealers ends up being expensive.

Lens compatibility is a huge consideration. Switching is a hassle and the differences between brands are usually pretty minimal.

Whatever you don't borrow someone else's camera with a better viewfinder. My d70 (similar in magnification to your A300) is like a dark tunnel compared to my d200. It's perfectly fine until you become spoiled by something nicer, though.

Why did you buy a D200 mattsteg... how much did that throw you back?

SpotTheCat wrote:

Why did you buy a D200 mattsteg... how much did that throw you back?

$700. Was really starting to miss a lot of what it gives me over the D70 (and that's still absent from the D90 in many/most cases). Better external control accessibility (most particularly a dedicated af-on button), better weather sealing, setting banks, mirror lockup, a bit bigger RAW buffer, and metering with manual lenses (nice bonus but not immediately relevant) were the main things I was looking at it for. The bigger, brighter viewfinder was a bit more of a boost than I was expecting, as was the gain in AF speed with bigger screwdriven glass. The speed boost is nice as well. The bit better sensor is nice. Wasn't counting on more than a minor resolution boost and a tad more DR at base ISO, but it feels more immediately dialed-in than I remember my D70 being. That might just be adobe getting their camera profiles finally sorted out though. The noise character is a tad nicer, but haven't used the D200 in the specific situation where the D70's wasn't to my liking (large "clumpy" noise in defocused tree-green backgrounds). I didn't upgrade for the sensor, though. Features and handling were what I was after.

mattsteg wrote:

SpotTheCat wrote:

Why did you buy a D200 mattsteg... how much did that throw you back?

$700. Was really starting to miss a lot of what it gives me over the D70 (and that's still absent from the D90 in many/most cases). Better external control accessibility (most particularly a dedicated af-on button), better weather sealing, setting banks, mirror lockup, a bit bigger RAW buffer, and metering with manual lenses (nice bonus but not immediately relevant) were the main things I was looking at it for. The bigger, brighter viewfinder was a bit more of a boost than I was expecting, as was the gain in AF speed with bigger screwdriven glass. The speed boost is nice as well. The bit better sensor is nice. Wasn't counting on more than a minor resolution boost and a tad more DR at base ISO, but it feels more immediately dialed-in than I remember my D70 being. That might just be adobe getting their camera profiles finally sorted out though. The noise character is a tad nicer, but haven't used the D200 in the specific situation where the D70's wasn't to my liking (large "clumpy" noise in defocused tree-green backgrounds). I didn't upgrade for the sensor, though. Features and handling were what I was after.

Ahh, you wanted features not in the D90.

BTW if you think the D200's LCD looks good, grab a D3 (or a D90 or D700 at that)
When I saw the LCD on my dad's D3 my eyes nearly popped out.

SpotTheCat wrote:

mattsteg wrote:

SpotTheCat wrote:

Why did you buy a D200 mattsteg... how much did that throw you back?

$700. Was really starting to miss a lot of what it gives me over the D70 (and that's still absent from the D90 in many/most cases). Better external control accessibility (most particularly a dedicated af-on button), better weather sealing, setting banks, mirror lockup, a bit bigger RAW buffer, and metering with manual lenses (nice bonus but not immediately relevant) were the main things I was looking at it for. The bigger, brighter viewfinder was a bit more of a boost than I was expecting, as was the gain in AF speed with bigger screwdriven glass. The speed boost is nice as well. The bit better sensor is nice. Wasn't counting on more than a minor resolution boost and a tad more DR at base ISO, but it feels more immediately dialed-in than I remember my D70 being. That might just be adobe getting their camera profiles finally sorted out though. The noise character is a tad nicer, but haven't used the D200 in the specific situation where the D70's wasn't to my liking (large "clumpy" noise in defocused tree-green backgrounds). I didn't upgrade for the sensor, though. Features and handling were what I was after.

Ahh, you wanted features not in the D90.

BTW if you think the D200's LCD looks good, grab a D3 (or a D90 or D700 at that)
When I saw the LCD on my dad's D3 my eyes nearly popped out.

Yeah, in the end I wanted to go upmarket more than the advancements of the latest generation of DX cameras appealed to me. Maybe I'll try to target a D700 or its replacement a few years down the road, since the big sensor does enable more than the incremental and feature improvements that DX has come to. The new LCD is certainly breathtaking from what I've heard. The D200's is nice, adequate, and gives me good color histograms, so it'll do just fine.

Hoser wrote:

Hopefully I'll win this Sony Alpha 300K on eBay. I was looking at the Nikon & Canon DSLR's, but the thing that sells me on the Sony is the fact that I can use my Minolta lenses on this camera. So I will have a nice 75-300 zoom lens as well as a wide angle lens.

What wide angle do you have? I have to admit I am rather ignorant in the sony/minolta/pentax/non-nikon or canon camps.

mattsteg wrote:

Did you make sure you were getting a US model with all accessories included? Not sure about sony, but with some other manufacturers even getting (paid) service for grey market imports can be difficult. Sometimes the savings that you get from ebay dealers ends up being expensive.

Lens compatibility is a huge consideration. Switching is a hassle and the differences between brands are usually pretty minimal.

Whatever you don't borrow someone else's camera with a better viewfinder. My d70 (similar in magnification to your A300) is like a dark tunnel compared to my d200. It's perfectly fine until you become spoiled by something nicer, though.

Not sure about the model, but it does come with whatever a "kit" comes with. IIRC that includes the body the 18-70 zoom lens, battery, charger, cables, instruction DVD, neck strap, etc.

SpotTheCat wrote:

What wide angle do you have? I have to admit I am rather ignorant in the sony/minolta/pentax/non-nikon or canon camps.

IIRC it's a Sigma wide angle lens. I'll dig it out of my camera bag when I get a chance and check out the exact specs. I haven't used it in a very long time.

Hmmmm......I can't seem to find it. I don't remember lending it to my dad, but that's the only other place it could be.

I'm all excited to get this new toy.

Stupid 2 hour charging times.

I like this camera (from what I've read of the owners manual anyways). It has enough features for me to play around with, and yet it's easy enough for my wife to use like a P&S.

I'm gonna take some up close shots of some random things around the property, and then tomorrow I'm gonna go here in the morning and take some pictures of the planes.

See here for the first try with the new toy.

Those look pretty good, might want to bump up the EV though; it's a tad on the dark side. How does it "feel"?

mortifiedPenguin wrote:

Those look pretty good, might want to bump up the EV though; it's a tad on the dark side. How does it "feel"?

It feels nice. Not too heavy. I like the live view too.......it's main reason I went with the D300 instead of the D200.

I'm gonna do some reading and get back into understanding about f-stops, aperture/shutter speed settings. I know what they do, but I've forgotten what to set them to for different shots.

I found a macro lens in a box in the closet. It's this one here. I'm still looking for my WA lens though. *scratches head*

Hoser wrote:

I found a macro lens in a box in the closet. It's this one here. I'm still looking for my WA lens though. *scratches head*

Macro? That's a fine lens but it's not a macro, just a traditional fast 50mm prime. Should be a fine match to your camera, although I find 50mm to be a bit of a tweener on APS-C bodies.

mattsteg wrote:

Hoser wrote:

I found a macro lens in a box in the closet. It's this one here. I'm still looking for my WA lens though. *scratches head*

Macro? That's a fine lens but it's not a macro, just a traditional fast 50mm prime. Should be a fine match to your camera, although I find 50mm to be a bit of a tweener on APS-C bodies.

I know it's not a true macro (not at all I guess), but it's the closest thing I have. *shrug*

I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollars on a true macro lens just for the odd picture. I guess this one will have to do.

Hoser wrote:

I know it's not a true macro (not at all I guess), but it's the closest thing I have. *shrug*

http://www.ephotozine.com/article/Konic ... 50mm-f28-D - there is a macro in your mount at the same focal length, for whatever that's worth. It's 2 stops slower (like every "normal" macro I've seen) so it's got its own weaknesses vs what you have.

Hoser wrote:

I'm not going to spend hundreds of dollars on a true macro lens just for the odd picture. I guess this one will have to do.

It's good for far more than macro. The classic normal primes are generally quite sharp and overall nice optically, and that one's the higher one in the K-M lineup (their standard one is f/1.7 I think). Should be nice for low light shooting and useful for portraiture, for starters. Could always slap it onto some extension rings or reverse it for macro too.

Not all macro lenses are hundreds of bucks, either. I got my cheapo phoenix (cosina/vivitar/soligor/probably some other brands too) 100 mm f/3.5 AF macro for maybe 60 or 70 bucks. It works. Optically it's fine. Cheaply made and quite simple, but sharp enough at least.