A520 Powershot - Question about lenses

[laurennn]

Hey everyone. This is my first post here. To start off, I'm definitely a beginner at this, so bare with me haha. I have two questions though. One sort of leads to the other.

I've had a Canon Powershot A520 for about a year and a half. I've been wanting to upgrade to a better, more advanced camera for about a year. I just discovered a few nights ago that my camera has the option of adding on different lenses.

My first question is, should I keep my A520 and buy different lenses to play around with? Or would that be wasting money and should I just upgrade to a different camera first since I know photography is something I won't lose interest in, and I might as well upgrade now before investing in mine?

My second question would be if I decide to get more lenses for my A520, which ones are compatible and which would you recommend? I've been looking up that info and so far I've found:

Wide Converter WC-DC52
Tele Converter TC-DC52A
Conversion Lens Adapter LA-DC52F
52mm Close-up Lens 250D

All I know is I need a converter for a lens to work with my camera, but besides that I'm pretty much in the dark :confused:

Any help would be soo much appreciated. Thanks for reading this :]
-Lauren

[Jon]

Depends on what you're looking at upgrading to. Most of Canon's PowerShot line have roughly the same zoom range that your A520 has, and most will also accept the same auxiliary lenses (although they'll generally need a different adapter) so the auxiliary lenses won't go to waste if you choose this route. A wide adapter will generally be less satisfactory than a telephoto for image quality, starting to show light falloff and barrel distortion as you get to the widest end. However if the camera alone won't take the broad vistas you may want, your options are that or shooting a panorama (not hard, but does require more post-processing than getting it all in one shot). If the camera doesn't get you close enough to your subject, you could go with a tele converter or you could just upgrade to a different camera with a greater zoom range. If telephoto reach is what you want, I'd take the camera upgrade route.

If you're contemplating making the move to a DSLR, however, I'd strongly recommend that you just do it, since you'll be wanting to buy different lenses for that. Anything more you put into the A520 will just be money that's not available for the SLR lenses.

A closeup lens (Unless you're not interested in a DSLR, I'd get a 58 mm diameter one and a step-up 52->58 mm ring) will migrate easily to almost anything as long as it fits your lens' filter threads (which is why I suggested getting a 58 mm - it fits many EOS lenses). That's something that'd work regardless of what you do, but you'd still need the dedicated adapter to hold it in place.

[whuband]

Lauren I think that you will find that your A520 is more than an adequate camera to learn with. Since you recently found out that you can purchase lenses for your camera, I bet there might be a few more tricks about that camera waiting to be discovered. Without a doubt the SLR is certainly more versatile as a photographic tool. However owning one is a commitment to the cost of the camera and acquiring lenses as well as the hassle of carrying a larger camera and maybe a bag of accessories. I worked for a newspaper and when I quit, I stopped taking photos. I was tired of carrying a lot of equipment. When the digital point and shoot cameras were introduced, I bought one and photography became fun again. I think you will find that there are many times that you will carry a pocket camera when you would have left the SLR at home.This is my opinion which I'm sure is not shared by everyone, but I can get the quality photos that I desire from a point and shoot. The most important thing is to learn to be a good photographer and be satisfied with your work regardless of the camera you carry.