DSLR wheres best to look?

[zimbo]

Andy I guess this is mostly aimed at you, where is the best place you would recommend to look for DSLRs will be either a NIKON or a CANON? I took a load of photos on Sunday at Knockhill and the pics are not as good as I want them to be using my "DSLR wannabe FUJI", coz I would love to have a DECENT camera for my trip to Catalunya in June for the MOTO GP so I can get some proper pics of all the action seeing as it might my only chance to ever get to see and record a trip to a BIG race like that.

You could say it is a once in a life time opportunity for me, next one would be an F1 GRAND PRIX...

So any thoughts or ideas would be greatfully appreciated, thank you :smilewinkgrin:

[AndyP & Lenore]

Zimbo, Fi (Scottie) swears by a company she's used "up north" somewhere. She says they give excellent impartial advice. No doubt she'll be along soon.

Personally, I use Calumet (http://www.calumetphoto.co.uk) for almost all my camera gear. Closest to you is Edinburgh, and they are in Leith, so they're not even your side of Edinburgh.

Calumet give some excellent advice, they are staffed by photographers who really know their stuff, and to be honest, over Christmas and into the new year when I went daft and spent £3k on new kit they were actually as cheap as anyone, apart from the eBay "shipped from Hong Kong" sellers which I just didn't want to go near for that amount of money.

One thing I would say is that prices have rocketed since new year - especially on lenses. That L lens I was using on Sunday has gone from £1500 when I bought it in January to £2,300 today!!! For some reason the D50 body doesn't seem to have moved much in price.

If you want to know more, geez a call any time mate.

A.

[zimbo]

Personally, I use Calumet (http://www.calumetphoto.co.uk) for almost all my camera gear. Closest to you is Edinburgh, and they are in Leith, so they're not even your side of Edinburgh.

...over Christmas and into the new year when I went daft and spent £3k on new kit.

One thing I would say is that prices have rocketed since new year - especially on lenses. That L lens I was using on Sunday has gone from £1500 when I bought it in January to £2,300 today!!! For some reason the D50 body doesn't seem to have moved much in price.

If you want to know more, geez a call any time mate.

A.

Cheers Andy, know your the man to see and also thought about Allan(Scottie) as well.

Oh and about your shopping frenzy... :thud: :eek: :lol:

[Scottie]

Hi Zimbo,

Allan here, Yes I would recommend Ffordes they are based in Beauly but ship worldwide. To give you some kind of a idea what this outfit is about, If your familiar with Monarch of the Glen or Harry Potter (you know the one with the train going over the bridge) they done all the still shots. They don't advertise this but once you getting talking to the guys you really get to know just how good they are. What I liked about them is they don't push you towards a brand they want to understand what is your after and then they go from there and as a novice that's what you want.

Alan Mercer used them I'm sure he can give you some constructive feed back.

Starting point is knowing what you want to use the camera for.

If you don't have lenses of one brand or another then your pretty much free to start with whatever you want.

Allan.

[Gismo]

Alan Mercer used them I'm sure he can give you some constructive feed backRight then, i was in the same boat as you, didn't know enough to make a good purchase and asked on here and Allan (Scottie's better half :Whistle:) advised Ffordes.

I e-mailed and got a response within an hour, so phoned up and talked for around 20 mins to allow them to get a clue on what i was wanting to do and achieve etc.
So, same as you, i wanted to be able to photograph fast moving objects, ie motorbikes and F1 cars and which was eactly what my camera was based on.

The advice i was given was excellent and the service was even better.
I finally ended up with an Olypmus kit, cheaper than others but ideal for my use.
It came with two lenses which the guy thought just might be on the edge of being able to picture from a certain distance away, but, rather than try to sell me it we agreed that i would try it out first and get another lens if needed, at the all in price if i had bought it all at the same time.
Right enough i needed another lens, so bought it and i will be taking it with me to Barcelona taking up valuable space in the panniers.

Having a few days off i rode up to their place in Inverness to buy a good bag and spent another 40 minutes going over the camera and how to work it better.
They are an excellent outfit and one i would highly recommend, i certainly will never go anywhere else now.

[zimbo]

Allan and Alan thank you very much for the info, I assume these guys have a website that i can go have a nosey around in? Will google it and see what comes up!!

Thanks again all you guys :thumbs up:

[Gismo]

Website Linky (https://secure.ffordes.com/index.htm)

[Gismo]

It really depends on how much you want to spend, but, they have very good offers on the Olympus range, but, Canon and Pentax shouldn't be discounted

[zimbo]

I quite like the look of the NIKON D5000... but it is a little bit pricey, but its early days yet.