S3 or original Rebel?

I honestly don't think you can compare the two.. especially if you put good glass infront of the rebel.

I've had the 300D now for several years and love it! My first lens was the nifty 50 and 75-300IS then the 28-135IS. After really getting to know my Rebel and getting into birding I got the 100-400L and love it! For landscapes I bought the 24-105L and have some really nice shots. Next lens I want is the 10-22 and I will be set. Untill I go Macro

For what you can do with the Rebel now and in the future its the best buy IMO!!
Get the battery grip. When you get lens you will need it. Much easier to handle then!

I also have a G2 and use the Rebel 99.9% of the time. When I break out the G2 I usually give it to the kids to shoot while I am shooting with the Rebel. Its amazing to see what the kids see through thier eyes I would love to give the kids the G2 and upgrade to a nice pocket size camera. When I go snow boarding I bring the G2 in my pocket but its a very tight fit. I do bring my Rebel in my backpack and have had no problems, takes a beating and keeps shooting. I had to send it in once when the shutter button stoped working, good thing for the battery grip, but after that no problems. Total shots taken to date are well over 10,000 and going strong.

Shots taking with the Rebel. 100-400L It's all about the glass

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^Sweet stuff. In the end, if you have the option definitely get the SLR over the P&S.

Check it out!

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=450177

I just got my new (used) Tamron 75-300 LD lens (got it for $80 on this forum). That should be similar in zoom (11x?) can't wait for some better weather to test it out.

so you could get:

Rebel- $250
Tamron 28-80 $50
Sigma 70-300 non-APO or Tamron 75-300 LD for under $100

=$400... slightly more than an S3.

see, that's the problem with the DSLR/SLR scene for those of us on the verge of making the jump. Assuming one doesn't care too much about the weight, which most do sometime.... The price for lenses is quite significant. The JPEG version out of the camera of the S3 and the rebels (except for being larger) are similar. Granted the low light remark. If I start the DSLR, I have to satrt planning for repeat investments over aperiod of years so as to maximize the system including flash, lenses, and body. I think I read here one time - If you are not ready to put down about $3G (overall) then go for P&S - and that fits my assessment, if not $5G.

^I think you're reading too much into it if you think you have to do that.

ceriltheblade wrote in post #4894989
see, that's the problem with the DSLR/SLR scene for those of us on the verge of making the jump. Assuming one doesn't care too much about the weight, which most do sometime.... The price for lenses is quite significant. The JPEG version out of the camera of the S3 and the rebels (except for being larger) are similar. Granted the low light remark. If I start the DSLR, I have to satrt planning for repeat investments over aperiod of years so as to maximize the system including flash, lenses, and body. I think I read here one time - If you are not ready to put down about $3G (overall) then go for P&S - and that fits my assessment, if not $5G.

That all depends on what a person wants to do with an SLR. I bought a Rebel XTi after I got tired of having no real control of DOF, and not being able to get what I wanted in low light. But make no mistake about it, for my shooting purposes I do not, or will not have three or five thousand dollars invested in the camera. As for the advanced compacts (and some of the not so advanced ones) I love the results that can be obtained with them. Not so many years ago, there was no camera for the average comsummer that would take such great pictures for such a small price.

Gary

The S3 is close to the ceiling for P&S cameras. There isn't much more you can do with them, no further you can go. So, you buy an S3 and you're done. From then on you just snap pictures. You end up with low light noise and lack of true wide angle and some chromatic abberation (purple fringing) in shots here and there and some blown highlights, but that is just life with a P&S.

A Rebel XT is the bottom of the line of a whole different class of camera. It is just a starting point. Low light noise performance is much better. The kit lens gives you more wide angle than the P&S can get. You have a far wider choice of glass that can take you way beyond P&S both in terms of quality and price. Of course, nobody is twisting your arm. You can stay with the kit lens and just take photos. You'll enjoy lower noise, true wide angle and better optical performance.

Ultimately the question comes down to what you want the camera to do. A camera is just a tool. A P&S camera is capable of some truly wonderful images provided the person operating the camera knows what they're doing and how to get those images. I believe most P&S owners do not know what they're doing and consequently get nothing more than poor snapshots out of their camera. Give them a DSLR and they continue to get poor snapshots.

If you're of a mind to learn and grow, get the DSLR with the simple kit lens and start your journey (i.e. invest time in learning!). If you just want to keep taking pics the way you always have then don't waste your money on more camera than you'll use or appreciate.

ceriltheblade wrote in post #4894989
.... The price for lenses is quite significant.

Yes, it is. So is the difference in quality. Think about it this way. An inexpensive (i.e. compromised) lens for DSLR is $250 and a lens that is built to deliver quality images will run you $500 to $1500. If a lens costs $500, then what does that say about the lens you're getting on a $180 P&S camera?

I assume you're referring to megapixels here. There is so much more to image quality than megapixels. True, under daylight conditions, both cameras will give you very similar images but they will quickly separate when lighting conditions are anything but perfect.

Well, not really. I suppose you could make the case for that. I started a year ago with an $800 ceiling for my DLSR purchase. To date I've spent over $4000. BUT, I'm getting images that I could not dream of getting with a P&S (see http://darwinphoto.zen​folio.net) and I have equipment that gets out of my way & doesn't limit me in my photography. I'm taking stuff that I can sell vs. stuff that I have to give away. Within 3-5 years I have a chance of earning enough to pay for my $4000 investment.

There is no reason that you can't treat the DSLR like a high quality P&S. Buy it with a kit lens, put it on green box mode and take pics. Just don't stop there. Start learning and growing. You'll be amazed.

I wouldnt shoot down the S3 completely its a great camera that gave me a big start on learning on photography.

It really, depends on the person weather if you are going to learn to use it or just point and shoot. Some people don't even know i have shot with my s3 in my photos.

Then again, low light and noise become a factor and wanting to expand and learn more will lead you into buying a DSLR. So I would suggest learn the basics with an s3 and get good with it until you want to do even more great stuff!

http://www.flickr.com/​photos/dadedesigns

all S3 except the most current ones from the xti that i just got.

Dade Designs wrote in post #4896778
I wouldnt shoot down the S3 completely its a great camera that gave me a big start on learning on photography.

It really, depends on the person weather if you are going to learn to use it or just point and shoot. Some people don't even know i have shot with my s3 in my photos.

Then again, low light and noise become a factor and wanting to expand and learn more will lead you into buying a DSLR. So I would suggest learn the basics with an s3 and get good with it until you want to do even more great stuff!

http://www.flickr.com/​photos/dadedesigns

all S3 except the most current ones from the xti that i just got.

Very good points. Also, the S3 could make for a great backup camera. My last camera was a Sony H5- comperable to a S3, and I miss it sometimes. The XTi is big and the S200 is small with terrible battery life and only 2mp. Superzooms can be very handy. IF you buy an S3, you will learn from it, and it's not like it will become useless if/when you decide to get a DSLR.

I don't mean to shoot down the DSLRs in general or those using them. Firstly.

Next, if you read the evolution of use of DSLR in many users (especially in these forums), you see how much money they put into the glass in front. In almost every forum here, there is speak about the limits of early glass/lenses and how you "need"/ "want"/"desire" the right lens for the right look/pic/capture. I'd be interested to know the average investment that a DSLR owner actually plops down. I doubt my initial assessment is far from the the one I stated earlier.

While I agree that a photo is more a product of the photographer than of the camera per se, the hardware is significant. So if was giving away a 70-200 f2.8 L lens, who here would scoff? But I bet if I was giving away a kit lens.......

In regards to IQ differences between the S3 and the 300d with kit lens, I have seen some sites which compare one to the other on the same picture - and TTYTT I don't see the large difference if lighting is good. I am not speaking of pixel peeping or even just raw data, but rather a picture.

Of course, as in anything, the tool needs to fit the use. There is no doubt in my mind that the rebel is the right tool for certain people for certain objectives (see above first point) and also be assured I have set my piggy bank on "save" for my own DSLR purchase(s).

my 2 cents

Those are good points, but you certainly can put together a Rebel kit with a standard zoom, a cheap telephoto, and a flash for under $1000.

Here's some of the main reasons why I upgraded from superzoom P&S to DSLR:

startup time- My Sony H5 would display "Cybershot" on the screen, and would take a couple seconds for the lens to pop out of the body. The XTi is something like 0.3seconds from when you turn the button on, I can't even get the viewfinder to my eye in that short amount of time! Any SLR will be fast because the lens is not built into the camera.

Battery life- I know the S3 would be better than the H5, because it uses 4x AA batts, the H5 only uses 2! But I'm sure with either camera when you use the flash alot it's not long before you have to change the batts.

Shutter/flash lag- my camera took a long time between shots with the flash. It was HORRIBLE, cause I'd have people waiting to get their picture while I was waiting for the camera. I'm sure the S3 is better in that aspect due to it having more batteries. Also sometimes it would take a while between pictures, the XTi is good for 3fps and the original Rebel isn't far behind, which is great for sports etc.

ISO- the more I ventured into photography the more my P&S let me down. It was able to be set up to ISO1000, but that was absolutely horrible and unusable. Really, ISO400 was as high as you can set a P&S and still be able to have decent results after noise reduction in post processing. I'm usually satisfied enough with ISO1600 on my DSLR that I don't even bother with NR.

Flash- red eye was always a problem with the onboard P&S. I could never get pictures of my cats with it. Many pictures had harsh highlights and just not as nice as an external flash (this is where the S5 IS looks nice).


But when you don't need to use the flash, and are outdoors you can do some really incredible stuff with an H5 or an S3 IS. Some cheap things you can do for great pictures:

closeup "lens" (filter): for $50-100 you can put a cheap piece of glass that works great for macro photography. With a less powerful one like Sony's version, it worked great indoors when I was taking portraits or... pictures of my cats.. lol

CHEAP ZOOM!- 6.0 (W) - 72.0 (T) mm (35 mm film equivalent: 36 - 432 mm)
That's alot of zoom! You have to pay big bucks to get that in a DSLR. Slap a $100 1.7x or 2x teleconverter and you can see crazy distances! I wish I used mine more, off of bridges and stuff when I had it, cause there is so much to see.

Superzooms are alot of fun, they are cheap, and if used under the right conditions can take very good pictures. You will also learn about photography with them, you can't really go wrong. When/if you find a need for a DSLR... prices are always dropping!

i wonder what he ever bought?

Rebl XT with Tokina 12-24 mm f/4! Great for lanscape