floridamet

I'm a not Nikon user. But if you have lenses to tie you into any brand. Look at all the brands. They will give you great pictures

jimmya Loc: Phoenix

I'm a Canon dslr shooter and among others I'm shooting a
t3i right now... an excellent camera. You'll be amazed what a dslr will do for you, especially in situations like the cathedral you mention. Don't forget a tripod of long (time) exposures.

rfrenchIII Loc: Wheatland, CA

I suggest going to your local "camera" store and handling all the cameras on your maybe list and get the one that feels the best (and within your budget). No matter the cost, if your not comfortable with it, you won't like it!

cmc4214 Loc: S.W. Pennsylvania

I would have to agree, when I got my first DSLR (a Nikon D90) it seemed huge, and awkward at first. But once I got used to it, my old point and shoot feels awkward, and I HATE using it (so I rarely do)

amehta Loc: Boston

If someone has only driven sub-compact cars like a Yaris, and decides they need a large pick-up for a landscaping business, they may be deciding between a Ford F-350 and Dodge Ram. Are either going to be comfortable? Not likely. To decide on one or the other because it is more comfortable might not result in the best decision. Similarly, picking a camera based on "feel", with basically no context to evaluate it by, is probably not the best way to decide.

rfrenchIII Loc: Wheatland, CA

It won't be any good in the back of the closet either.

amehta Loc: Boston

True. Perhaps I give people more credit for adaptability than most. :-)
I also don't think holding a camera for five minutes in a store is enough to know if the camera will sit in the back of the closet.

rfrenchIII Loc: Wheatland, CA

You have many options outlined in the comments. Satisfy yourself, look at the controls, LCD screen (does it swivel), availability of various lenses and attachments etc. Get what you feel will satisfy your needs (only you know what that is).

sloscheider Loc: Minnesota

This is essentially what I was going to post - St3v3M makes a very good point.

marcomarks Loc: Ft. Myers, FL

Personally, I don't like the idea of refurb for cameras. On the other hand I typically don't buy new cars because used ones a couple years old with low miles are far cheaper and last just as long for me. You just can't know where a refurb has been, typically aren't told how many shutter clicks have occurred on it, and can't be sure the body wasn't dropped and jarred hard although it may have landed on a surface that didn't damage the exterior.

The word refurb also doesn't guarantee anything was done to the inside of the camera. Sometimes refurb is a term used for just checking the camera out to assure it works (maybe with an intermittent problem that wasn't caught during that bench test), re-boxing it in a new factory box, putting new instruction manuals and paperwork in the box, and sealing it up. I want a camera straight out of the original box and brand new with a brand new manufacturer's warranty. I'm just like that about almost everything. When we're talking about $800 for a new camera kit versus, let's say, $600 for a refurb, I'll take the $200 hit to have brand new.

As for the seeing what's in your mind, I think you're hoping for something that isn't going to happen with any camera. Film had limitations as to what it could record and for 30 years I was never satisfied with most of what came out of my cameras. I didn't buy cheap 35mm cameras either. My last one was a Nikon F3HP which was top of the line at that time. The F4 and F5 came out after that I believe but I had jumped ship to digital by then.

Some days the sun and sky were just right, the angle of the sun at the time of day was just right, the subject was positioned in front of a background that was just the right brightness, the planets and moons of our galaxy lined up just right, I got all the camera settings just right, I had the perfect filter on the lens, and I didn't have any handshake at a quite high shutter speed so - BINGO! - success. But most times not everything lined up perfectly and I wouldn't know whether I had succeeded or not until a week or more later when I got the processing done. My "getting what I saw with my mind" rate was usually 10% or so of what I shot. To be honest, sometimes that 10% was partially not what my mind saw but better because every factor involved worked together better than I expected.

The digital camera world is different in that you have instant gratification of seeing what you shot on a mediocre LCD screen to assure it's not a complete failure on your part and you can shoot as many times as you like to get it close to right before leaving. But it's still not exactly what you took a photo of because digital photography has inherent limitations just like film had it's own inherent limitations. Different limitations because it's electronics instead of chemical emulsions on a plastic sheet - but limitations none the less.

The G12, from what I've read, was excellent for real estate photography work (which I'm in) and a company that makes auto-bracketing circuitry for shooting interiors in HDR was taking the G12 camera body apart and adding their circuit board inside and a button on the outside until the prices on the T2i and then T3i became more comfortable and the G12 was on it's way out. So that tells me that a G12 can take photos that are every bit as good as a Canon T-series dSLR.

What's in your mind won't likely be what any camera, dSLR or not, records anyway. The camera tries as hard as it can to "document" reality but it has weaknesses. Its electronic reality is different than your mind's reality, if that makes any sense.

When I see an old church of sandstone with red clay pots sitting by the front doors that are a dark wood with beautiful grain that is most visible when you're close to the door, my mind absorbs as much as it can. The apertures of my eyeballs change to fit what part of the scene I want to look at. It's a crisp cool day and I'm wearing a sweatshirt, the building has a faded orange tile roof and a stone drive way surrounded by various Fall colored trees. My mind romanticizes the scene and sees, smells, and feels "in technicolor" as the saying goes. I go away with my mind recalling a wonderful enhanced memory that becomes more enhanced as time passes. But my camera tries to document the reality of the situation in a fraction of a second as well as it can with no sentimental enhancement. Some cameras do better with reds, some do better with greens, some do better with clarity, some do better with contrast, and on and on. so their ability to document reality varies from unit to unit, brand to brand, model to model, lens to lens, etc.

So, if your camera gives you extreme clarity, colors without any obvious lack, excellent focus, enough resolution for the print sizes you like, and good exposures - that's what you're looking for mostly out of your handheld "tool." Your eyeballs see with what is essentially two 50mm lens side by side on a full-frame 35mm film camera so a 20mm wide angle lens isn't really providing reality. A wide angle lens is only providing a somewhat fish-eyed version of reality. It may be an excellent view, and the fisheye effect may be minimal, but it's not what your eyes and brain saw when looking at it before putting a viewfinder up to one eye.

We see in 3D but the camera sees in 2D. It's a simulation of what we saw, at best, but that's the disadvantage of still cameras. Overcoming that 2D limitation is what panorama photographers try to achieve by stitching together a 180 degree scene. The old ViewMaster slides tried to overcome 2D with a double camera rig recording from two lenses that were the same distance apart as two eyeballs would be on your face.

One time I shot a whole vacation with video while my x-wife shot most stills on slide film so we could have a moving version with sound that seemed more like the experience of being there plus stills just to be safe in case video didn't work out. That was neat but it still wasn't what "our minds" saw while there in 3D.

In my opinion, to get the output of your camera "tool" and be closer to what your mind sees, you need to be proficient with post editing. The best known film photographers who produced what their minds saw were proficient with darkroom techniques that were the predecessors of digital post editing, so it only stands to reason that you need to work hard on your post editing skills to make your photos "pop" as your mind saw the scene when you were there. You imply you're weak in this editing area when you said you couldn't stitch two photos to create a wide angle. That's not a hard process so that tells me you don't do a lot of post editing currently.

In other words, to overcome the limitations of the digital format in general, I believe you need to use another "tool" which is learning and using post editing software. When editing you can look at the photo and say to yourself, "I just know those red clay jars had richer color than that!" (and they probably did if your camera isn't good with reds), select them with the mouse, and increase the color saturation. You can look at a window that is too bright and washed out, select it, and reduce the "gamma" level control so detail outside the window is restored. You can shoot for HDR with an auto-bracketed set, put those into HDR processing software to combine them, and tone map the finished photo into what your mind saw at the location - or into a wonderful work of art that is far beyond reality. Yes, editing software can be used to "cheat" or even insert a palm tree sticking out of the snow in Alaska, but that's not what you are looking for.

You say you're not looking for magazine cover quality, but let's be honest - your mind sees in magazine cover quality and if you could achieve that you will have produced what's in your mind. Every magazine cover is also created with post editing software like Photoshop to achieve what's in the editor's mind.

My conclusion is that I'd spend $79 on Corel Paintshop Pro X6 and spend a couple months learning it BIG TIME by practicing on what I've already shot before I'd spend many hundreds on a dSLR - if the camera I already have is excellent.

If you're intent on getting another dSLR, it's just a debate between loyalists of one brand versus another. Every dSLR is so good today that they all exceed film cameras by far. There's nothing wrong with Canon. There's nothing wrong with Nikon. I use Sony myself. Sony makes the sensors for most camera companies except Canon.

There are also other brands that are very capable of equal quality. I really like the Panasonic G series of cameras, for example. But if my alternatives were only Nikon or Canon, I'd likely go with Nikon. I have friends who have both and I think the Canons "feel" boxy and clunky to me while the Nikons "feel" like a well-designed Italian sports car. Likely the output of them are very similar but you need to use what feels good to you and works the way you want to work.

Entry level Nikon is the D3200 kit with a lens, but I'd probably strive to get the D5200 kit which isn't much more expensive. Check out Costco for excellent pricing. They both have zoom lenses that start at 18mm which is about equivalent to a 24mm on a 35mm film camera so you'll have wide angle available immediately.

Know in advance that you'll be spending a lot on several lenses to create a "system" of wide angle through long telephoto focal lengths and you'll be switching lens regularly, cleaning the sensor because it gets slightly dirty when the lenses are off, etc.

Hope any of that helps in your adventure into the dSLR world... or not.

cntry Loc: Colorado

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Colorado Springs...Sony A65 w/Tamron 17-50mm f2.8

azted Loc: Las Vegas, NV.

The image quality is paramount. I once switched from Sony to Nikon,and I noticed that I did not feel as emotionally attached to my photos. There is a certain life that the Sony image processing and lenses brings to your work. I recently switched back to Sony, and am happy again. I hope my experience is helpful to you.

amehta Loc: Boston

The Sony RX-10 sensor is 4x larger than the Nikon, and the lens is definitely better, 2-stops faster at the long end and very likely has better contrast. Of course, there's also a bit of a price difference. :-)

cntry Loc: Colorado

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

craggycrossers Loc: Robin Hood Country, UK

You're not (quite) by yourself Anand ! I, too, am a believer in "you can get used to using anything after a short learning period". Far better to go for the best that fits your main purchasing criteria and you can afford at the time, then learn it and practise using it. Surprising how quickly humans can form new habits !

As far as "mirrorless" is involved ....... I suggest the OP learns about what's currently available before making any kind of decisions. There are lots and lots and lots and lots of opinions here from camera enthusiasts about "what's great for THEM". Great knowledge (unbiased) from a well-seasoned pro here about all the mirrorless camera systems ........

http://www.sansmirror.com/