Canon 350d or 400d DSLR

Will be buying my first DSLR in the next week or so and thinking of the Canon EOS 400D. Does anyone have any advice? What's a good lens to have for all round photography mainly landscapes, nature shots and some portraiture? What on board memory does the 400 have? What gig memory would you recommend? A lot of ?'s I know but want to get first purchase right

The 400D is a good camera,, as a walk about lens, good for portraits, landscape would be the f4 70 – 200mm L lens which can be bought for £348 at the moment. Alternatively, consider the EF 28 – 135mm. The camera comes with no onboard memory, I’d recommend shooting in RAW mode at all times and go for no less than 2 x 4gb cards £29.70

Alistair

I agree with your comment Alistair, but if Maureen is a beginner, she may not have a clue as to what you are referring to when you mention RAW. Unless of course you know something I dont.

Hi Ian,

Maureen has a distinct advantage over you and I, she is a she and there is a slim chance that she may read the manual

Alistair

Hi Maureen,
What sort of portraiture are you proposing. If you are considering studio shots, I feel a starting focal length of 70mm may be too much. An ideal focal length would be around 50mm, so for this type of work I would reccomend the canon 35 - 80mm f.4 - 5.6 at around £180.00.
Regards....Phil

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Regards....Phil

If it moves shoot it. If it doesn't move, still shoot it.

Thank you all for your help and advice. I am a beginner and not sure what shooting in RAW means as Ian so thoughfully pointed out
I would be glad of an explanation that doesn't sound too technical
Alistair I do intend reading the manual and getting as much advice from people like yourselves between now and when my new camera finally arrives. I also have a few tutorials that I've gleaned from the Canon website and been given by other helpful folk

Sorry Phil didn't mean to leave you out. I wont be doing a great deal of portrait work probably just pics of my children

for portrait stuff i highly suggest you go out and get the 50mm f1.8 at an almighty £70

cracking lens!

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Camera - 5D and 350D
Site - uptherighttree.co.uk

RAW is a method of saving the image in the camera where exactly what the camera sees is saved. This gives great flexibility when you come to edit your images (yep you’ll also need editing software, Photoshop CS3 is the big boy while Photoshop Elements is his cut down but capable little bother).

The alternative to RAW is to shoot in jpeg which creates a small size file which can be saved quicker the trouble with jpeg, is that it throws away some of the pixels and makes decisions about how the image will look, decisions that most photographers feel are best left to them.

Alistair

Thanks for that explanation Alistair. I have Photoshop CS3 and have had a go at editing some of my stuff already. Can't wait to get my 400

Thnaks for the advice on the lenses Phil