Guide to dSLR

I've learned a lot posting in LYN Photography section. This is short guide to buy dSLR.

I would categorized 3 types of dSLR in the market currently:
1) Beginner
2) Semi-pro
3) Pro

Beginner have two types of category which is beginner normal and beginner newbie:
1) Beginner normal :- Sony A200/A300/A350, Nikon D50/D70/D80, Canon 350D/400D/450D, Olympus E510/E520, Pentax K100D/K200D
2) Beginner newbie :- Nikon D40/D40x/D60, Olympus E410/E420

The best buy for those who just want to take up photography is always the beginner normal model. Beginner newbie model have a lot of weaknesses that I normally won't advice to buy since the price between them is very little.

Next up is those who have the money to jump straight to semi-pro model. This has a lot of feature and might not be user friendly:
Semi pro dSLR : Sony A700, Canon 30D/40D, Nikon D200/D300, Pentax K10D/K20D, Olympus E3

My personal preference during middle of June 2008 is Canon 40D based on price/performance ratio.

Next up is the pro dSLR which the price is unreacheable for most of us which I will not talk about. There's a bridge between semi-pro and pro camera that is Canon 5D. This is Full Frame camera which have better noise per ISO ratio. But still the price is quite expensive (RM7000 ~ USD2000).

Almost all camera come with kit. But if you're concern about the quality, then you better buy body first and then buy the lens separately. Some of the kit lens is quite good. Olympus kit lens is one of them.

Anyway, my recommendation for useless lens is those with constant aperture. Meaning, even after zoom, you have same aperture. Before I continue, I would like to state that there's 3 types of lens that you can categorized:
1) Normal zoom lens - aperture smaller as you zoom
2) Constant aperture zoom lens
3) Prime lens - cannot zoom

The best quality will be prime lens. And they are cheaper too if you take price/aperture ratio. However, you lose the convenience of zoom. You have to walk around to get the perfect framing. Prime lens will have the biggest aperture of them all and suitable to take portrait photo. And most people buy 50mm f/1.4. Canon people love to buy 85mm f/1.8 or 135 f/2 which is cheap.

Constant aperture hit the sweet spot of big aperture and can zoom. But there's two aperture size normally come with this. That is f/2.8 and f/4. Of course f/2.8 is the best since you have the convenience to use it indoor. f/2.8 will let more light into the camera which is important in taking a better picture.

Normal zoom lens is very slow and small in aperture size. This is very cheap and normally supplied as kit lens.

I would recommend this lenses to anyone who want to have full complete photography gear that is good for everything and cheap:
1) Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8
2) Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8
3) Sigma 70-200mm f/2.8 HSM II Macro

All the brand above is third party lens. This is cheaper a lot than the branded one. And some of them is even better than the branded Canon/Nikon/etc, for example Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 which is sharper than the Nikon version of it.