Best dSLR for High School Photography Class???

Our school is finally going digital. The cost of maintaining a darkroom and repairing Pentax K1000 SLRs is just too much.

So my question is, if i needed 10 - 20 camera's for a brand new program and i wanted to stay around $500 per camera, what would you recommend?

I'm ok starting from scratch, we don't have mane lenses for our K1000s.

Thanks in advance.

Brian

B. Buonomo said:

Our school is finally going digital. The cost of maintaining a darkroom and repairing Pentax K1000 SLRs is just too much.

So my question is, if i needed 10 - 20 camera's for a brand new program and i wanted to stay around $500 per camera, what would you recommend?

Click to expand...

Wow! This should start a stampede...every Tom, ****, and Harry will want you to pick the camera they happen to have.

B. Buonomo said:

I'm ok starting from scratch, we don't have mane lenses for our K1000s.

Click to expand...

Do you need/want "full" manual controls for your curriculum?

Have you considered seeking partial "sponsorship" from the various manufacturers?

--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
'I'm from Texas. We have meat in our vegetables.'
Trenton Doyle Hancock

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?ci=6222&N=4294538181&Ns=p_PRICE_2 |0

Canon , Nikon , Sony, Pentax and Oly now all have a $500 level body either with stabilization built in (Sony, Pentax, Oly) or with a cheap kit lens with IS/VR (Canon & Nikon)

Hate to say it, but if the focus of the class is teaching students how to use the tools of the tradem this means teaching them to use the gear THEY WILL BE USING.

Sales numbers point you to Canon & Nikon who are probably 75% of the market if not 80-85.

Sony , Pentax & Oly are fighting for the rest.

Maybe split the deal 1/2 Canon and 1/2 Nikon so your students can try both and develop a feel for each and choose the one they will ultimately buy for themselves.

My personal first thought is to get the cheapest camera and lenses you can because they are going to get abused. Alternatively pay the extra cost and buy camera bodies and lenses built like tanks.

Beyond that just about any DSLR will work for a high school class. Most entry level DSLRs are going to give you respectable studio and medium to bright light shots. You will see them suffer at high ISO and low light, but even there you can use the experience to teach them how to use PHOTOSHOP and plug-ins to improve things.

Definitely shop around for an educational discount. Software vendors almost all give one. Ditto for computer hardware manufacturers. I know camera manufacturers and distributors gave discounts in the past, but I am not current on their educational deals.

Shop around and see who will give you the best deal and support. Stick with 1 type of camera otherwise who is going to get what, maintenance, repairs, etc? In your case I think it's worth checking out quality of repair and after sales service. Any digital camera you get has a lot more features than the K1000 which means a lot more can and will need servicing.

Like a hammer to a carpenter, a good school should teach the students how and when to use a tool, regardless of tool, and not be dependent on a particular tool. Photography is photography, composition, shutter, aperture, processing, lighting, etc. The tool has changed but the work is still the same.

B. Buonomo said:

Our school is finally going digital. The cost of maintaining a darkroom and repairing Pentax K1000 SLRs is just too much.

So my question is, if i needed 10 - 20 camera's for a brand new program and i wanted to stay around $500 per camera, what would you recommend?

I'm ok starting from scratch, we don't have mane lenses for our K1000s.

Thanks in advance.

Brian

Click to expand...

Hi

Normally I would suggest trying and buying what feels right but in your case I would just see what kind of deal you can get.

My suggestion is if all are similar in price that you maybe go with the new pentax K-x, it has a spec that is very nice and you would be able to use your reamaining Pentax lenses.

Just for fun you could get some in Red, White, Blue as well as black...some of the kids might like that.

Of course if you get a good deal from someone, take that.

Hey Ned, if you see this make them a deal!

neil

Woever offers the best price for 15 bodies, and several lenses, wins.

Make is really immaterial...

--



The world's best Vulcan, XH558, after 14 years on the ground, lives again.
http://www.tvoc.co.uk
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandfish_imagining/

Tim the Grey said:

Woever offers the best price for 15 bodies, and several lenses, wins.

Make is really immaterial...

Click to expand...

Seriously. DSLRs are a commodity item... call around, get the best deal possible (with at least one lens per camera, maybe a couple two-lens telephoto kits thrown in as well) and call it a day.

--
-CW

よしよし、今日も生きのいい魂が手に入ったな

Just point out that most learner drivers want EXACTLY the same car the learned to drive in, when they come to buy a car.

It's a comfort zone thing I guess.

Another thought is to see if a manufacturer will sponsor the kit, and do a deal that way?

--



The world's best Vulcan, XH558, after 14 years on the ground, lives again.
http://www.tvoc.co.uk
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sandfish_imagining/

One forgotten feature that could make quite a difference in a teaching environment is DOF preview, I haven't researched which cameras have it and which ones don't but I would if I were in your shoes.

If the condiction of the lens from the Pentax slrs are ok then I would go with Pentax. And if they are manual even better for teaching the basics.
--
Dave
Life is all about pushing

There are no dSLRs that are full manual only controls like the k1000.

I might suggest a pentax dSLR so you can re-use your manual film lenses, BUT the optical viewfinders of entry level dSLRs are much smaller than the viewfinder of the k1000 that manual focusing with them for beginners would be a disaster.

First off. Your profile says you are in Long Island, NY. If you have not already done so, RIGHT NOW go to http://www.photoplusexpo.com and register for the expo next weekend (Oct. 22-24) there is a vip code for a free expo pass, but I believe it's a violation of dpreivew.com's forum rules to post it here. If you need it send me an email and I'll give it to you.

The Expo is a great opportunity to meet with representatives for each camera company. Nearly all companies have sales reps that focus on educational sales. If these cameras are going to be used by a photo department for students, they may give ENORMOUS discounts, or in the case of Nikon they may offer a reasonable leasing option. Go to each booth at the expo, explain your situation that you need 20 cameras for an education program and they'll tell you "oh you should talk to Bob..." and either get the person you need to talk to or at the very least give you their card. If you can go on Thursday or Friday, I would recommend it because on Saturday the booths are swamped with people who are going to buy a point-and-shoot but want to play with the D3s or what have you and it's harder to get someone's attention. I work for a very large university, know a lot of people in the industry, and last year my department spent well over $100,000 on equipment and I still have to fight to get the time of day on Saturday.

As far as which camera? I'd hit up Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Sony, and Sigma and see if any are doing educational programs. If you have time talk to Leica, MAC Group, Hasselblad, and the others as in the past they have given scholarships and maybe one camera or something, but I wouldn't hold your breath in this economy.

Even if you can't make it to the Expo I'd make a lot of calls and place a lot of emails.

Canon, Nikon, Olympus, and to a lesser extent Sony, Pentax, and Sigma actively try to get high school and college photography programs to use their cameras because they know if the students use their cameras in school they'll get used to the camera and that's what they buy when they are out in the real world.

Any one of those camera system would be good and I've seen people in this thread talking about how you should get IS/VR or the best ISO and while it's cool to have, it's one more thing to deal with so I think it's a wash. You want the students to be able to focus on Exposure, Focus, White Balance, and Composition.

I wouldn't worry about which camera to get as much as what camera you can get the best deal on. Any dSLR today will work from the SD15 to the D3s. Talk to the companies and see what's the best offer. Yes, if Olympus gives you the best offer you'll have to spend a little time learning their menu system so you can teach the students, but it's not a big deal and the students shouldn't be spending too much time in the menu system too much anyway, they should be taking photos.

But I would definitely go to the Expo, even if every company is crying broke from the economy and says they can't give you anything, at least you can play with each camera system and see which you feel it the most intuitive and least intrusive to the act of photographing. To me the camera should be as transparent as possible.
--
~Kurt

"Our school is finally going digital. The cost of maintaining a darkroom and repairing Pentax K1000 SLRs is just too much."

Digital cameras break too, and won't be any cheaper to repair them if they can be repaired at all. And it shouldn't cost any more to maintain a darkroom compared to maintaing computer work stations, upgrading software, and keeping inject printers supplied with ink and paper. Students can be trained to maintain the darkroom as part of their photography lessons.

More importantly, students will miss something essential when they "finally" go digital – the concrete lessons inherent in working in a darkroom. Not just the chemistry side of things (which has less relevance in the digital realm), but the physics side of working with an enlarger, which will always have relevance in any photographic medium. To work in a darkroom is like being inside a camera and seeing it's inner workings. There you really get so see the image come in to focus as you move the lens in and out; the image darken when you stop down the lens, as well as many other associated optical effects like flare, corner sharpness, the relationship of aperture and exposure time – all before your very eyes and in real time.

With digital, all that fundamental stuff is an abstraction, buried in a bewildering and complex electronic menu.

RedFox88 said:

There are no dSLRs that are full manual only controls like the k1000.

I might suggest a pentax dSLR so you can re-use your manual film lenses, BUT the optical viewfinders of entry level dSLRs are much smaller than the viewfinder of the k1000 that manual focusing with them for beginners would be a disaster.

Click to expand...

Actually out of all the manufactuers, I believe Pentax is the most friendly to legacy glass and generally using manual stuff.

For example all legacy glass will have focus confirmation, image stabalization will also work. And with manual aperture, only having one dial you still maintain full manual exposure control as well.

You're right about the ability to see focus on the smaller viewfinders, but that's the same with all APS-C cameras, less so with semi-pro models like the D300, but that's a different price class.

--
Cloverdale, B.C., Canada
Olympus e-510 L1
http://www.joesiv.com

wwick said:

"Our school is finally going digital. The cost of maintaining a darkroom and repairing Pentax K1000 SLRs is just too much."

Digital cameras break too, and won't be any cheaper to repair them if they can be repaired at all. And it shouldn't cost any more to maintain a darkroom compared to maintaing computer work stations, upgrading software, and keeping inject printers supplied with ink and paper. Students can be trained to maintain the darkroom as part of their photography lessons.

More importantly, students will miss something essential when they "finally" go digital – the concrete lessons inherent in working in a darkroom. Not just the chemistry side of things (which has less relevance in the digital realm), but the physics side of working with an enlarger, which will always have relevance in any photographic medium. To work in a darkroom is like being inside a camera and seeing it's inner workings. There you really get so see the image come in to focus as you move the lens in and out; the image darken when you stop down the lens, as well as many other associated optical effects like flare, corner sharpness, the relationship of aperture and exposure time – all before your very eyes and in real time.

With digital, all that fundamental stuff is an abstraction, buried in a bewildering and complex electronic menu.

Click to expand...

The advice and suggestions are meant to be helpful but there are perhaps other important things to consider. The basics of photography can be taught/learned using either Digital or film/darkroom functions, however; why concentrate on a "past methods basis of teaching" since darkrooms are almost extinct as compared to 25 to 40 years ago. That could be compared to teaching Computer Programming using the early version of Basic Programming Language -- which is completely outdated now for MANY years. I am not discussing Film vs Digital, instead; I am suggesting to teach "CURRENT" technology and methods.

The basics can be taught using Digital Cameras. It is the method of teaching that outlines the difference.

I had Color and B/W Darkrooms that were both nicely equipped for many years (1951 to 1979). Most of my Darkroom equipment is now "resting". I enjoyed the "wet darkrooms" but like the Digital processing somewhat better.
--
Vernon...

since this is for a digital camera class i imagine that at least the basics of pp are covered. There is one free RAW conversion software that has a good reputation is RAWTherapy

http://www.rawtherapee.com/

Wow, the back and forth on this is something.

Personally, I'd stick with one brand-easier to get them started if you can go through the functions en masse. Don't worry about the whole "they need to be familiar with the brand they're going to use". Most DSLR's are 95 percent the same, and, because the functions differ between models even within the same brand, they'll likely have to learn some new functions regardless. Not to mention you might get a better deal by going with one brand.

As to which brand, I'd just go see what you can get for your money. It will be nice to use some of the Pentax lenses, but I wouldn't make it a deal maker/breaker.

If you do limit them to manual focus and/or manual control, remember that you can review the image data to see what they did...that's what my daughters advanced class teachers do.

Jim Dean

Brian, after two days, you still haven't started to participate in your thread. Generally, w/o direction threads like yours wander badly (as I predicted) off topic. You need to give answers to the basic question, which is about your curriculum.

chuxter said:

B. Buonomo said:

Our school is finally going digital. The cost of maintaining a darkroom and repairing Pentax K1000 SLRs is just too much.

So my question is, if i needed 10 - 20 camera's for a brand new program and i wanted to stay around $500 per camera, what would you recommend?

Click to expand...

Wow! This should start a stampede...every Tom, ****, and Harry will want you to pick the camera they happen to have.

chuxter said:

I'm ok starting from scratch, we don't have mane lenses for our K1000s.

Click to expand...

Do you need/want "full" manual controls for your curriculum?

Have you considered seeking partial "sponsorship" from the various manufacturers?

--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
'I'm from Texas. We have meat in our vegetables.'
Trenton Doyle Hancock

Click to expand...

--
Charlie Davis
Nikon 5700, Sony R1, Nikon D300
HomePage: http://www.1derful.info
'I'm from Texas. We have meat in our vegetables.'
Trenton Doyle Hancock

I would go with the Pentax K2000, which is very inexpensive today, under $500 with lenses, mainly because it allows you to supplement the program with teachable experiences with legacy glass.

Start with the auto-everything kit lenses. After the kids have the basics down, put the 50mm lenses from the K1000D on the camera for assignments where they learn nuances about manual focus, DOF, and crop factor. Pentax cameras have audiible/visual focus aids for legacy lenses so this is not impossible. These cameras have decent ISO, but still will teach/illustrate limitations of low light shooting. You could even teach a session about sensor dust and demonstrate how to clean them.

If you have old flash units, don't use them with any camera until you know if they are compatible. Some old strobes will fry some new cameras.

The "stick with the same user interface", so better a Nikon and Canon, is a fallacy. Kids switch from different cell fones and MP3 player menus all the time. You could do this with any camera brand though. So that's my last commercial for Pentax. I doubt that any manufacturer is willing to donate/discount for schools at a time when they are laying off account reps, but who knows.

There will also be an investment in photosoftware that replaces your wet darkroom, if you had one. This is where Adobe may be able to give your school some help beyond the normal academic discount. I'd suggest Elements.

You won't be able to get any DSLR with video for $500 til next year, but tink about it. You may feel video does not belong in the curriculum, but the kids are doing it already with cell phones and web cams. Add it as a second class and build some more job security for the Arts department in these tough times.

Or why teach DSLRs? Get a bunch of Canon G11's. RaW and manual control.

One prediction. Your repair costs will go up. You can drop a K1000, get it wet, roll its lenses down the hallway and it will probably survive. Not so with a modern DSLR.