Great Deal (Part 2): Lenses

One of the main draws of using single lens reflex cameras is that the vast majority of them were designed to have interchangeable lenses. Over their existence, the array of these lenses has been astounding, not just in terms of varied focal lengths, but types as well. However, they all still required a person to focus the image which could be difficult at times. By the late 70's, manufactures were seriously developing a number of systems that would autofocus the lens. These ranged from the Konica C35 "point and shoot" to the Polaroid SX-70 that used a variation of sonar! In 1981 Pentax was the first "out the gate" with a system for 35mm SLRs which used a built-in IR rangefinder fitted to an adapted ME, and called it the ME-F. Nikon followed in 1983 with the F3AF, but this, like the Pentax was a lens based system, slow, bulky and just not very workable.
In 1985 though, Minolta came out with an "integrated" system where the electronics and mechanism were largely in the body of the camera. This was the Maxxum 7000 (Dynax in some markets), and it completely changed the SLR industry. Nikon followed quickly with its own body integrated system and in 1992 Canon brought out a lens motorized system on a new mount called the EOS.
At that point, the changeover to autofocus for SLRs was pretty much complete. So for most manufacturers, there have been autofocus lenses in the market for the better part of 25 years. That adds up to a lot of glass floating around out there in the used market. For the first 15 of those 25 years, it was autofocus lenses made for 35mm film cameras. The bulk of digital camera makers made their sensor sizes right around APS-C with gives the equivalent focal length about a 50% boost. Of course, this is a double edge sword in that it's great on the long end of things, but is a wide angle killer on the other end! All those 80-200mm zooms are suddenly now 120-300mm, but then those 28mm lenses are basically 42mm "normal" lens!
Then how do you take advantage of all that old glass out there? Well, you start with the new! The best deal in the market is the kit zoom that most camera are packaged! Every single camera maker has an inexpensive, yet eminently competent lens that they often include as a starter for their basic offerings. Overwhelmingly, they tend to be 18-55mm, but on occasion you'll come across one that's 18-70mm. That's equivalent to about a 28-82mm or 28-105mm, and it's a good starting point. True, these things typically aren't optically stellar, and their build quality is; shall we say....utilitarian? However, they are commonly thrown in to the deal, and even if you have to buy one, you can't beat the price since they usually sell for less than $100.
OK, let's just say that you're able to score a really good deal and are able to land one of these kit zooms along with your $200-300, 6 Mp camera. Where do you go from here? To me, a great first purchase would be either a 55-200mm or a 70-300mm, so let's examine them.
The 55-200mm (or there-abouts) is a common focal length that manufacturers like to sell as a matching "first upgrade" lens. Virtually all major manufacturers have them and they are even sold at Wal-mart if that tells you anything. On the used market, they can often be found not much above $100 since they typically sold for less than $200-250 new. The APS-C conversion puts them at a 35mm eq. of 300mm on the long end which makes for a pretty nice soccer lens. They are generally also very compact and designed to have the same filter ring size as the kit zoom. So between the two lenses and a camera, you can go from an eq. of 28mm out to 300mm for less than $400.
However, when you delve into the older "non-digital" glass, that's when sharp-eyed buyers can get really nice deals. We'll start with the 70-300mm zoom, which were very common back 20-25 years ago. They were not only made by the OEMs, but by virtually every third-party lens company as well. On top of that, they were commonly rebranded by importers such as Promaster, Vivitar as well the Ritz camera store chain as their house brand, Quantaray. The Tamron 70-300/f4.5-5.6 was so common that it could be considered a generic of the type. I've seen them sell for less than $50, but more typically between $60 and $80. This is a lens that will give an equivilent zoom range that begins at 105mm and goes out to a whopping 450mm!
While those sound great and in fact are excellent deals, there's another often overlooked lens that can put a budding photographer in another class. And that's the old "normal" lens. REALLY!!! 25 years ago, camera manufacturers were still in the old 35mm mindset and along with that was the old "normal" lens standby that was virtually thrown in to every deal. So there's a lot of 50mm/f1.8s floating around out there and if you are OK to do you own focusing you can get them even cheaper than the $100 it'll costs to buy one of the autofocus versions.
Beyond, this there's a whole world of manual focus lenses that nobody wants (as long as you stay away from collector's lenses). They also have the tendency to perform better than anyone has the right to expect given the price since the smaller sensor'd cameras only use the middle of the glass and thus eliminating the age-old bugaboo of budget glass....edge performance. We're talking about lenses going back to the '60s! Sure, you'll have to manually focus, check to make sure that it'll mount on your camera w/o damage, and maybe even calculate exposure manually, but then what's that compared to what you can find out there for a few dollars. The literally thousands of 400/500mm Japanese "pre-set" lens that are available for less than $50. Throw a cheap 2x convertor on these and you have a converted focal length upwards of 1500mm! Take you kid outside and shoot some cool moon-phase pictures. Cut down an old broken gunstock, build a mount and go shoot pictures of wild animals. There are also lots of faster (f2.8) 20/24mm wide-angles that although convert to 30/36mm, are much faster than the kit zooms. They can make great party or indoor "event" photography lenses. For the use of old lenses like these, Nikon and Pentax are probably the most well known, but lots of people use the Sony/Konica-Minolta and even Canon with an adapter since they abandoned their old mount when shifting to auto-focus.
So, lets say that you this sounds interesting and bite on this idea. What do the dollar figures look like? Let's make some middle of the road assumptions and say that you paid $250 for the older DSLR camera with a "kit" lens thrown in, then pick up a 70-300mm zoom for about $75, then a 50mm "normal" for another $100. This all adds up to a pretty complete system for $425 that covers a 35mm converted focal length of 28mm out to 450mm, AND a low light f1.8 lens that the camera sees as 75mm that's perfect for available light portraiture. That's pretty amazing! Especially since that total won't even buy a the lowest-end camera with the kit lens, new from Wal-mart or Target. I've seen compact-sensor, point and shoot cameras that cost this much.

Great Deal: The 6 Megapixel DSLR

In the later half of 2003, a huge shift occurred in the photography world. Although Single Lens Reflex cameras equipped with digital sensors had been around for some time, going all the way back to midway through 1990s. They were unwieldy, expensive and didn't have enough resolution to pose a threat to film. And although the Nikon D1 of 1999 with it's 2.7 Mp sensor was the killer hardware for professional photojournalists, the $5500 price tag barely made a ripple in the consumer market. Then came the Canon Digital Rebel (300D)!
Most of you know that I'm not a Canon shooter, but I'm happy to give credit where credit is due. List priced at $899, this was the camera that kicked down the door that led to the world-wide consumers stampeded....along with the rest of the camera manufacturers that had the where-with-all to build a similar product. Nikon followed with the D70 in January of 2004 and the DSLR rush was on!
So, why then, with those cameras? Let's start from the beginning. Ever since the 1960s, the single lens reflex (more specifically Japanese SLRs) had dominated the photography scene. Virtually all serious photographers bought them, and those that didn't (serious or not) wanted one. When digital came along in the mid-to late 90's, it was obvious that, that was going to be the next big thing in photography, however, the sensors didn't give enough resolution for pictures to not look grainy and "pixelated" when blown up beyond snapshot (4x6) size and there was so much electronic "noise" in the image beyond ISO 400 that they were all but unusable.
However, between 2000 and 2003 a series of technologies converged to form the perfect storm of consumer market-dom! First, noise was conquered in larger APS-C format sensors which was the size first used in market-viable DSLRs. At the same time, manufacturers were able to get enough photo-sites onto them to get resolution up to 6 Mp, thus enabling prints blown up to 11x14 (and beyond) to be virtually indistinguishable from film! The third and main event was the breaking of the $1000 barrier which brought in the flood of consumers which has further driven the costs of production (and price of cameras) down through the magic of economies of scale! You take these advances, cram them into a cheaper to produce plastic body, get rid of a few expensive features; a seminal product is created!
At this stage of the game, everyone from serious amateurs to soccer-moms were snapping them up as fast as Canon and Nikon could build them. This led to pretty much every other manufacturer jumping into the pool. I'm not going to do a timeline here, but suffice to say that between 2003 and 2005, everyone from Pentax, Olympus to Konica/Minolta got something out into the sub-$1000 market-space. What does that mean to us......the frugal propellerheads of the world?
The fact is that to the "Average Joe" who just wants to shoot pictures of their kids growing up, family events and maybe even dabble in some artsy things like shooting the moon or wildflowers, 6 Mp is plenty. And these barrier-breaking cameras are now hitting the used market by the thousands! With entry-level replacements MSRPs at something south of $599, that puts fully functional used DSLRs in the sub-$300 range and I've seen them sell for close to $200 or less!
Think about this. Here's cameras which are all legitimately competent at virtually anything a normal person might ask of it. Give's the user the capability to access a virtually limitless treasury of lenses of every description, quite often for a "song", shoot pictures to your heart's content AND simply delete the non-keepers.....without the costs of film.....ALL AT THE PRICE OF A HALF-DECENT POINT-AND-SHOOT!!! That's just crazy! Is this a great country or what!?!

Which one should you consider? That's contingent on a few factors, the most important being what feels good in your hands and you like the interface the best. It's like the Mac vs. PC question. So here are my recommendations to look at and see what fits you the best:

• Canon Digital Rebel XT (300D) and XTi (350D)
• Nikon D70, D70s, D50, D40
• Olympus E500, E510, E520, E610, E620
• Pentax *ist D, *ist DS
• Konica/Minolta 5D
• Sony A100, A200 (first two models after Sony took over the Konica/Minolta line)

I chose these, because they are all at least 6 Mp, and can routinely be found in the $200-300 price range. All of them are systems that have been around for some time and therefore have sold quite a lot of cameras (with Nikon and Canon being far and away ahead of the others), lenses and other accessories. Some of them, such as Nikon and Pentax still use the same lens mount (with some modifications) going back to their film camera days thus allowing a user access to a huge inventory of glass, both OEM and after-market.
Which brings up the reasons for choosing one manufacturer over another:

• Feature set. Research, research and research. All of these cameras have ridiculously long lists of features, some useful, some not as much. Most have similar ones, others (like the Konica/Minolta sensor-shift), not as much.
• What do you like. Be a pest. If you have friends with any of these cameras, by all means ask them about it and see if you can take a few pictures with them. For instance; you may find that while most reviewers don't care for Canon's grip size/shape, that maybe with small hands, you are fine with it.
• Personal history. Does your dad have a bunch of old gear in a closet that you can have? Maybe there are several old Nikon or Pentax lenses that will work with your "new" camera and put you ahead of the game?
• Cast a wide net. After looking at the other factors, if it doesn't look like one is an overwhelming favorite, then create a list of all the ones that might work and find the best deal among them.
• Other factors. What else might you want to do with it in the future. It could be anything from underwater photography to astro-photography. Understand that the most popular (read common) models such as Canons and Nikons generally have had the most accessories made for them. This could range from something as common as dedicated flash units, to something as esoteric as telescope adapter mounts or macro-photography bellows units.

If you used to use SLRs back in the film days, the decision is a "no brainer". If you haven't and have been shooting pictures with a digital point and shoot, the difference in using a DSLR is astounding, almost indescribable. You'll wonder why it took you so long to do it. No, although $200 isn't inconsequential, the fact of the matter is that for a rather modest investment you can open yourself up to a whole new world.
Next time: how to collect important DSLR accessories, the Frugal Propellerhead way.

The "A" Team

Back in the old (I mean when I was a kid) days, "The A Team" was a highly successful TV show with George Peppard, Dirk Benedict and Mr. T. The show was about a band of "elite" services solders who had been wrongfully convicted of some crime and were now fugitives. This modern day band of Robin Hood wandered about helping people and trying to clear their name typically just one step ahead of "the law" trying to capture them. At the center of the mayhem was the ever present "plan". In fact, arguably, the most famous part of the show would be when toward the end of every episode, after a number of unexpected twists had occurred, but the goal had ultimately been accomplished, Col. John "Hannibal" Smith (George Peppard) would, take the cigar out of his mouth, grin and say: "I love it when a plan comes together"!
Yes, I know there's been a remake, but I'm a cranky old guy, so I'm going with the original....OK!?!

The part the pertains to me is of course the "unplanned" aspects of the situation which add drama, yet ultimately don't get in the way of the plan coming together. What that relates to of course is my previous post about "falling off the wagon" and picking up a Nikon D70s and 18-70mm lens that I had been coveting as an everyday shooter. Of course that was different from the "plastic-fantastic" (Nikon D50) that I wanted as my back-up camera/street-shooter/adverse conditions body.

So, here's what I have or have ended up with to fulfill my plan. A functioning Nikon D70s body (since I'm keeping the lens it came with). These are typically worth in the $150, give or take $25 either way. Cameras, especially in the lower-end/entry-level of the market tend to be worth more when packaged with a lens and ready to take pictures. So, a $125-150 body, plus a $25-35 lens with worth more than the sum of it's $150-185 total. A complete rig generally sells in the $250-300 price range. I know, crazy, right....why can't people just buy their own lens, put it on the camera and save the money? You have to remember the psychology of the buyer in this category. In all likelihood, they are new to either the digital end of the hobby or more typically, not certain they want to invest in the time and energy it takes to master a DSLR. These are intimidating pieces of equipment and to ask one of these folks to go out, research an appropriate lens, and purchase it to go on a body is usually a little too much. They'd much rather pay a $50-75 premium to buy it all put together.

Which brings me back to my situation. I have a camera body that I don't really want, but since I'm keeping the lens, I need a replacement for that. I have $150 invested in it. Going back to the early days of auto-focus, when it began to appear on 35mm film cameras, manufacturers made "kit" lens (both "original equipment" and "after-market") to go on them. This was after the "normal-zoom" revolution when the fixed 50mm "normal" lenses were replaced by either lenses ranging from 35-70mm to 28-80mm. On top of that, most people are unaware that the vast majority of them can be used just fine on modern DSLRs. This is thanks largely to marketing hype of everybody putting the word "digital" on the newer products to convince consumers to purchase the newer models. You add that to the confusion created by the smaller (DX/APS-C) used on most DSLRs; it creates a situation where there are hundreds of these perfectly useable older lenses for sale on eBay at ridiculously low prices. Which explains me picking up a Tamron 28-80mm/f3.5-5.6 for $27.

So, now I'm up to $177 invested. It needed a lens cap, a strap (which I have) and a charger. So I picked up generics of each last week adding $10, making the total now $187. The fact is that I'm a 100% certain that I can get at least that much from selling it locally as a "ready to shoot" package. A more likely price-point would actually be $225, even after discounting for the "hot pixel". So, ultimately, I'll end up not only getting the 18-70mm lens for "free", but making a little profit on the whole she-bang. That'll keep me on track to pick up the D50, "Plastic-Fantastic" at some point in the future.