Want a completely new setup (im a beginner and need help )

Hey guys, well I am 13 years old and just got into photography. Preferably animals, anyways, I have a Canon Powershot S5 IS. Which is this...

http://seedars.com/sho​p/images/s5is-01.jpg

Right now besides that..all I have is a tripod so I am pretty bare. I am looking to get an exterior flash and another lens to add on to it. Can someone please give me a link to a good **cheap** lens to put on it, as well as the adapters and everything else you need to put on it. Also if anyone has an exterior flash that is compatible with it **cheap**. PLEASE HELP!!

Wubblelvr wrote in post #5328355
...good **cheap** lens...

Sorry bud, but those words don't really go together. Unfortunately in this life, at least in most things, you need to pay a bit more for quality.

The lens you get also depends on the camera you get--so I'd start there first. Your lens is also arguably even more critical than your actual camera as far as image quality goes. Bottom line: if you really want to get a set-up that you're going to have and use for a while, don't settle for a "good **cheap**" lens. Start saving your allowance! GL

You've got a pretty wide-ranging lens on the S5 already. Why not hold off on that until you see what you photograph most. It'd be silly to get a wide angle auxiliary lens and find out you want to photograph birds, or a telephoto and shoot landscapes. A good flash from a name brand, to match your camera isn't going to be cheap. Best I can suggest is make sure anything you look at is E-TTL compatible and can be exchanged if it doesn't work.

The Canon 380EX flash will work with this camera and can be found on ebay for less than $100. The flash will not be of much use for animal pictures though. I have the Canon 1.5 teleconverter lens for my s2 but use it very rarely. The camera's 12x zoom is plenty for most shots.

If you are just starting get a copy of Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson. It will be a great help to learn what settings to use for different shots. Take lots of pictures and have fun.

Dale

Hi - I have an S5 IS camera and I think it is very good. It has a 12x optical zoom as you know and with optical stabilization you can get some really cool pix of wildlife including birds if you're into that. I have had really good luck with a predecessor of this camera, an S1 IS which had 10x optical zoom and some problems with chromatic aberration. I haven't had a chance to take a lot of pix with this one yet since spring is just happening to us now. I think it is a really good camera; don't let some of the comments above discourage you. It is about my 6th camera and I wanted this one because it gets pretty good quality with a minimum of fuss. I have a DSLR but if I want to go birding and record what I see, it is as good as it gets, I say. Far better than a few years ago when people used to have to take a Coolpix camera and affix a monocular to the front lens and hope, and indeed got some decent pix of birds. Good luck and don't let the naysayers get you down. I guess you know that by now.

photography and cheap are antipole

you might ask your parent to pay for an Xti, then you could find a little job and pay them per week.

But, remember.... like everything in life, as excited as you can get, after 2 weeks of using it you'll be 'bored' always to something. Youll want a new lenses etc.

But remember young man, here's some words of wisdom:

Appreciate what you have, because, buying new things change your mood, but humans adapt really quickly...

So that means, you'll always want something better to fill your hunger, to fill your desire... your battle will be to resist your hunger... over time. It is the hardest battle of all.

Be wise, my friend. Calculate if something is really going to benefits you. The price you pay for something is more than the price you see. The cost means money, the true price will be the impact on your life...

Wubblelvr wrote in post #5328355
Can someone please give me a link to a good **cheap** lens to put on it, as well as the adapters and everything else you need to put on it.

As most everyone is saying, you may not "need" any lenses (actually they aren't lenses, they're converters, because you still use the S5 lens). Note that adding a teleconverter makes your S5 slower (needs more light for the same exposure).

The S5 already has pretty good reach. Look in the manual under "Safety Zoom" or "Digital Teleconverter". There are ways to give your S5 more zoom without a lot of extra cost.

Cr4zYH3aD wrote in post #5340341
photography and cheap are antipole....

It doesn’t have to be. Photography is like golf, it’s so easy that anyone can do it. Some can rent house clubs and shoot par while others have graphite shaft laser etched titanium clubs being pulled around the course in a cart as expensive as a car and the only way the can make a double boogie is by using their one mulligan a hole.

yeah, but quality means more cash on the table.