Is it worth it??

Hi all am a happy FZ28 owner and beginner this camera has really rekindled my interest in photography. I have spotted a Nikon D50 with Sigma 28-300mm macro, 2gb sd card, battery charger, 2x batteries, polarizing filter, lowepro slingshot bag all advertised locally as in excellent condition and selling for £200 (approx. $316).

Can anyone advise on the above equipment from experience? and what about the price? I really would like a DSLR but have been put off due to pricing especially on lenses and if it turns out that this specific gear is decent then I think I would go for it. Mainly I would use this for portraits and low light shooting i.e. friends wedding etc. will this lens also cover my needs? if not what affordable lenses can I purchase to complement this camera? any tips/advice is greatly appreciated.

Verify the shutter count. And the lens is nothing special without any wide coverage (28 mm is 42 mm).
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Victor
Bucuresti, Romania
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The Nikon 50D with a Nikkor 18-55mm lens sells new for about $1300. If the camera your looking at for less than $400 is in really good shape then it is a very good bargain.

I would suggest you try the camera before buying. Sounds almost too good to be true.
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MEZEUS

MEZEUS said:

The Nikon 50D with a Nikkor 18-55mm lens sells new for about $1300. If the camera your looking at for less than $400 is in really good shape then it is a very good bargain.

I would suggest you try the camera before buying. Sounds almost too good to be true.
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Click to expand...

I believe you're talking about the Canon 50D, which is indeed a good camera. The Nikon D50 is a discontinued lower-level dSLR.

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Leonard Migliore

presuming all is in good working order it's probably a decent deal.

The lens retails about $250 new which makes it fairly low budget even for a superzoom. Read the reviews closely.

http://www.fredmiranda.com/reviews/showproduct.php?product=183

I might steer you into something like a Pentax K2000 new for $400 and any lens you ever put on it is stabilized by the IS in the body.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?O=productlist&A=details&Q=&sku=610948&is=REG&addedTroughType=categoryNavigation

I would spend a little more to get a lot more. Buyer beware when dealing with used and aftermarket.

Dylanr32 said:

Hi all am a happy FZ28 owner and beginner this camera has really rekindled my interest in photography. I have spotted a Nikon D50 with Sigma 28-300mm macro, 2gb sd card, battery charger, 2x batteries, polarizing filter, lowepro slingshot bag all advertised locally as in excellent condition and selling for £200 (approx. $316).

Click to expand...

What is the widest angle Field of View on your FZ28? Baloo says the Sigma is 42mm equivalent at widest. That is not wide enough for a three or four person standing shot at a wedding.

What is the max aperture (smallest f/no) on your FZ? What is it on the Sigma. If both are similar, or the Sigma is worse, you are not getting much advantage in low light shots except for the Nikon being able to give you ISO 400-800 with less grain.

By low light, do you mean you use a tripod? If you use a tripod, ISO improvements may not help as much.

You are probably swapping a small carriable camera for a bigger body and a much bigger, bulkier lens. When I do that, I want the bigger machine to do things my small camera cannot do. Like shoot wider angle. Like have clearly better high ISO or smaller f/no improvements. Faster triggering for motion shots. Otherwise, a competent smaller camera has advantages.

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Ananda
http://anandasim.blogspot.com/
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Dylanr32 said:

Hi all am a happy FZ28 owner and beginner this camera has really rekindled my interest in photography. I have spotted a Nikon D50 with Sigma 28-300mm macro, 2gb sd card, battery charger, 2x batteries, polarizing filter, lowepro slingshot bag all advertised locally as in excellent condition and selling for £200 (approx. $316).

Can anyone advise on the above equipment from experience? and what about the price? I really would like a DSLR but have been put off due to pricing especially on lenses and if it turns out that this specific gear is decent then I think I would go for it. Mainly I would use this for portraits and low light shooting i.e. friends wedding etc. will this lens also cover my needs? if not what affordable lenses can I purchase to complement this camera? any tips/advice is greatly appreciated.

Click to expand...

The 28-300mm Sigma isn't the kind of lens that DSLR owners would immediately think of for portraits or low light shooting since its maximum aperture is relatively small. That said, on a D50 it should produce noticeably better results in these areas than your FZ28 and other P&S cameras. The price is pretty good, though. I purchased a refurbished D50 earlier this year for $400, which is more than refurbished D40, D40x and D60's were selling for. An advantage is that it can autofocus with any of the screw-drive Nikkor lenses that won't AF on the D40, D60, etc. In my opinion, assuming that the D50 is in good condition, is that "£200 (approx. $316)" represents a decent price for the camera alone, and a very good deal for the camera, extra battery, polarizing filter and slingshot bag (I have a Slingshot 200 - nice bag), and whether you like the Sigma 28-300mm or not, consider it a bonus that shouldn't detract from the deal.

If you get this package, use it for a while to see if as-is it's sufficient for your low light shooting. If not, an inexpensive 50mm f/1.8 lens would probably be an ideal, inexpensive lens that could also do double duty for portraits. If you could handle the cost of the more expensive 85mm f/1.8 Nikkor, that would be a nearly ideal portrait lens, and it's far less expensive than the 85mm f/1.4 version. All that would be missing would be a zoom lens that provides coverage of the wide, short focal length range. Nikon's very inexpensive 18-55mm kit lens takes very sharp pictures and would be a good compliment to the 28-300mm Sigma.

First of all thanks for the tips and advice, I have no intentions of getting rid of my FZ28, I just want that extra bit of performance in lower light situations where the FZ28 will struggle compared with a dslr.

To my surprise the seller is one of my co-workers whom I know personally and is a very good photographer, I assume he wants to sell the gear as he purchased a D300 and started a business and probably use the money towards that. Saying this I will check out the camera even though he takes extra care of his gear, only problem is that now I have seen again locally advertised a 1yr old hardly used D300 with 18-200mm and accesories for £800 (approx. $1264) it just gets harder to decide!!!

FZ28, TC-E15ED, RAYNOX DCR 250.

It's not a terrible price, but the lens is junk and will not serve your needs. Perhaps you can resell it.

yes and no.

If i was buying from someone i knew i would bite their hand off. If it was on ebay I would ask myself this. If i got it home and it broke 1 week later, would I be angry. If your answer is no then get it.

Now that's a very decent rig that you can build around.

Well I will have a look at both cameras and get a hands on feel, see how that goes meanwhile I will keep researching online see what will best suit me, so for the meantime I shall happily carry on snapping with my FZ28!!!