Help again-am I ready for a DSLR?

W

WDWfreak07

Member
Hello everyone! I do not post much on this board but I do read the threads here alot, and I want to start another thread of my own again. Some of you may remember my point and shoot or DSLR thread that I started, where I ended up getting the ultrazoom Canon SX110.

Well I have had the camera since Christmas and I am starting to think about getting a DSLR again. I am going to talk to my parents about getting an entry level DSLR to start using in addition to my point and shoot. My mom just thinks that I will not want to carry around or "lug around" as she puts it a DSLR compared to my point and shoot. I wanted to get your advice again about going to get a DSLR. I have attatched some of, what I think, are my best pics that I have taken with my Canon SX110. Please give me your advice as to if I should keep pushing what my Canon can do (I have CHDK for it, it allows the camera to do a TON of stuff that it couldnt do normally-extremely long shutter speeds, auto bracketing, motion detection, etc.)

I do not know if I really want a DSLR or if it just some phase, it is hard for me to tell. I am mostly happy with the my SX110 and the CHDK with it, so once again I would like some help about getting a DSLR or not. In my last thread, someone said that they sold their photos in order to make enough money to buy a DSLR. Does anyone know where I could possibly look into that?

Thank you very much everyone! Below are some pics from my SX110.
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Did you read Craig and my article? ; It may give you a few suggestions.

Anyway, the smallest dSLR is about twice the weight of your current camera without a lens. ; My dSLR weighs 4x as much without a lens. ; The lens is where the majority of the weight would be.

Unfortunately in order to match the same focal length of lens, you're looking at a lens that will cost as much as the camera body and probably weigh just as much. ; (i.e. an 18-200 lens with image stablization) ; So I'm not sure where the weight will factor into your equation.

The real question is what do you want to do with your photography? ; Or where do you want to go?

I started with Disc and 110, tried MF 35mm, and then started using APS. ; My first AF SLR was Nikon's Pronea 6i, which I quickly outgrew as I was ready to start shooting slides and doing more with my photography. ; So it's important to choose a platform that will met your needs in the future. ; Each one has their own advantages.

Some of the bigger websites out there, like smugmug and Zenfolio will, for an annual fee, host your pictures and allow you to sell prints of it. ; Zenfolio can work with their preferred vendor so you don't have to do anything - they just take a bigger cut.
 
a d/slr will give you two advantages that you cannot get from a point and shoot: ; MUCH lower noise and much faster processing and shooting speed. ; if you think you can handle the increased size (and can afford it) i would recommend a d/slr hands down. ; you really should check out the article by craig and roger... lots of good info inthere and lots of good links you can click thru to get more information. ; good luck!
 
I did read the article and I liked it alot, it was quite helpful. I am just stuck as to if I really want a DSLR, it would be great but I am not sure where I want to go in photography. I enjoy taking photos alot and now I want to be able to sell photos to raise money for cancer research because my cousin just lost her battle with cancer.

I think a DSLR is the way to go but as seen in my last thread, it is very hard for me to choose one if I had to.

I appreciate the help so far.
 
I would say that as long as you are still enjoying photography, learning and experimenting, and not feeling limited with what you have, stay with what you have for now. ; Only if you're constantly bumping into the limits of your current camera - where more than 15-20% of your current shots are pushing the ISO limits, burst speed limits, focus speed limits, and dynamic range limits of your camera - would I think you should worry about an upgrade to a DSLR.

To be real honest, there's still a ton more to learn with your current camera - room to improve and expand your photography. ; I look at it this way...if you have a compact sports car with a 4-cylinder engine that can go 110MPH, but are tempted to get that big 8-cylinder sports car that can go 178MPH...will you really be using the extra ability if you only drive 65MPH?
 
I feel that I have pushed my camera very far, I have done HDR stuff with it, auto bracketing, pushed the shutter and aperture even further with CHDK, I have never really played with ISO though.

I am not sure if I did get a DSLR if I would still use the point and shoot, sorry to everyone that I need so much help with this.
 
"zackiedawg" said:
To be real honest, there's still a ton more to learn with your current camera - room to improve and expand your photography. ; I look at it this way...if you have a compact sports car with a 4-cylinder engine that can go 110MPH, but are tempted to get that big 8-cylinder sports car that can go 178MPH...will you really be using the extra ability if you only drive 65MPH?
Click to expand...

Interesting analogy Justin. ; While normally I would agree with it 100%, the modern crop of P&S have gone too far in one direction than what they used to. ; IMHO the noise from them are just too much to bear when the older 6mp cameras could shine with the new chips, and even process images faster, but the MP war took center stage; although it's slowing down recently.

In the old days I would say take your P&S out and shoot slide film just to see what you would do, since you can't 100% see what you were doing with film when you shot negatives (since unless you developed it yourself you were at the whim of the processor and how they printed the pictures) but you could with slides. ; I once shot a whole roll of slides on Splash Mountain with my Stylus Epic P&S (fixed 2.8 lens!). ;

They're also made these cameras with such tight restrictions on apertures (thanks to diffraction) that you can't experiment too much anymore. ; Yeah, there are the upper end P&S, but even they have fallen to the MP problem. ; (See Tim's notes on his new toy)

So I would change your analogy a bit because yeah, the 4 cylinder may go up to 110 mph, but beyond 20 mph the ride may get bumpy.
 
i'm going to side with justin here, and this from a person who upgraded more times in dslr bodies than all my film years put together

I would say that as long as you are still enjoying photography, learning and experimenting, and not feeling limited with what you have, stay with what you have for now.
Click to expand...

if you have this much doubt about the dslr you haven't reached the p&s limit yet, of your particular gear, but i would not upgrade to any fancier p&s,if photography really hits some kind of creative spot, then you will know it's the necessary time
 
OK, thanks for the advice guys. I enjoy pushing my SX110 but I do feel there is a lot of noise in some pictures. Even with CHDK the camera can shoot RAW which is great but its VERY slow, and I may be upgrading to a DSLR just because my parents said they want me to start taking pictures of family because they regret not having alot of pictures of me in my teen years, haha. I guess that is not really a reason to upgrade to a DSLR but they want better pictures of my brother at Field Day and sports stuff and my camera can take pictures for that but not as well as a DSLR.

Could I post some pictures from my SX110 that involve CHDK pushing the camera as far as it will go, to see what you guys think?

Thanks alot.
 
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