Here is our proposal: to forget for a moment all the data acquired, brands, models, doubts, focussing on two key questions:

a. “What do I do with my new digital SLR?”
b. “How much can I spend on the carmera, targets and accessories that I need?”

The final choice is obviously personal. My suggestions here are answers to common questions that beset those who are struggling with the fateful purchase ..

At the bottom part is a list of digital SLRs, divided by budget, which we believe deserve special attention.

1. Budget: How much can I spend?
Who has problems can buy anything, even a reflex that may never be able to make 100%.

If money is short we have great freedom to maneuver, but do not worry, we can also buy a digital SLR can give us great satisfaction. So much to say? No, it’s the truth.

We will have to give up something? It is useless to hide it, but often these are theoretical waivers, they will not affect, or will impact marginally on our work as photographers.

Even the cheapest SLR will appear marvelous when compared to a compact, versatile, fast, easy to grip and able to produce better pictures.

2. Resolution: How many megapixel?
We address this immediately that, for many, is the rock more challenging. A 6-megapixel sensor is more than adequate for the needs of most amateur photographers.

Possible? And way: with 6 million pixels (3000 x 2000 pixels), we can print our photos in a magazine, the highest quality (300 dots / inch) in size 20 x 25 cm. If, however, printing at home with an inkjet printer, 6 megapixel us get to size 30 x 40 cm, with no appreciable loss of quality.

That’s why 6 megapixel is sufficient, even for professional shots, unless you want to print giant, or giant enlargements of portions of the image (crop), always with a high quality.

A sensor with 10-12 megapixel, then, is sufficient to publish the photo on a “double” (two pages of a magazine side by side).

So why the manufacturers insist on megapixel? And ‘marketing to ask: megapixel are a great way to pomuovere the new machines.

Other qualities – dynamic range, color reproduction, noise reduction in images – are included by enthusiast,  the general public.

3. Which category: Consumer, Semi-Professional or Professional?
“The camera is certainly more expensive than the best!”: Another myth to dispel. True, the machine that costs a little more, generally, it has one, but it is said that all beginners, amateurs, professionals, we need this “something”. In some cases the camera dear as fire can be a bad choice: too heavy, too bulky, too difficult with all those commands.

A professional camera is a tool to daily use, often in difficult conditions. Must be able to withstand abuse and weather, has a shutter secured hundreds of thousands of shots, taken at supersonic speed. Who uses the camera to work, rightly, does not want to stay … walk.

But who takes it out of the closet from time to time (or the safe and I think a friend …), not photograph below the flood or top all Eeverest may disregarding tropicalisation. Who does not need to “freeze” a hummingbird in flight, find that a reflex is capable of 3 pictures per second is already fast.

Professional cameras have an autofocus better, but it has a price. As the puck better, the body balanced with telephoto lenses … But not all photographers take on a 600 mm light as well as a viewfinder so you always infinitely better and more practical than those fitted (unfortunately not always) on compact cameras.

And attention: a professional camera is exploited only coupled to optical equally professional. Economic ones canceled out the advantages of the sensor.

That’s why so many professionals are “satisfied” of a semi-professional SLR, a little less robust but terribly practical and, last but not least, less expensive.

The so-called semi-professional groups are an excellent choice for the avid photographer.

We found the prices at the time of publishing the piece on the site. There may be more advantageous offer on the individual model by clicking the link below:

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Consumer SLR Camera

Canon EOS Rebel XTi / 400D	Canon EOS Rebel XSi / 450D	Canon EOS Rebel T1i / 500D
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Semi-Professional SLR Camera

Canon EOS 40D	Canon EOS 50D	Nikon D700
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4. Format: Four Thirds, APS-C, Full Frame?
The sensors of digital SLR cameras are not all equal, acteristics for resolution (we talked to step 2) and format. The so-called full frame and the greatest. Equivalent, more or less the size of 35mm film (24 x 36 mm). Has a conversion ratio of 1:1 for the optics. This means that a 50 mm mounted on a Full Frame SLR actually behaves like a 50 mm.

The APS-C, today the most widely used for digital SLR cameras, is smaller than the Full Frame. Has a conversion factor of 1.5:1 or 1.6:1 (the first for the machines Nikon, the second for the Canon). It means that a 50 mm equivalent on these reflex, respectively, a 75-80 mm.

Four Thirds format, created by the will of Olympus and Panasonic, is about half the full frame and includes a conversion of optical equal to 2:1. The 50 mm in this case becomes a 100 mm, i.e. an “transformed” by a so-called “normal” to a medium telephoto, good for portraits.

When was the Four Thirds format ( “Four Thirds” in English) has promised digital SLR and dedicated objective very compact. In reality, though small Olympus E-420, for example, is not that the smallest of competitors from other brands. You save on lenses, that is, in terms of weight and dimensions, but the price to pay is a quality of the pictures with the Four Thirds, falling short of that obtained with the APS-C.

Who chooses the Full Frame does it for two reasons. The first is the conversion factor. Who owns, for example, a 24 mm and wants to continue using it as such, with a Full Frame SLR can do that.

The second reason lies in the size of the pixels. For the same megapixel sensor Full Frame, bigger, offers more space for each pixel, which can therefore be larger and thus able to gather more light. Especially when working with high ISO settings (sensitivity), the Full Frame backend images with less noise and therefore higher quality.

So the advantage is there, but if you photograph tracurabile predominantly in the daytime, outdoors, or with flash, and we will not print photos in poster size.

To sum up: the sensor is currently more widespread, APS-C, that’s fine for beginners, enthusiasts and even for many of the professionals. The conversion factor allows favorable taking along compact telephoto lenses that act as canvases more stringent (eg a 200 mm light turns a bright 300 mm). Wide angles instead give some problems, because one has a 28 mm equivalent focal length equal to that of the normal 35 mm.

5. Brand: Better Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax or Sony?
There are those who persist, even in the era of digital technology (everything changes from day to day, even the ranking of the best SLR) to shout “Canon is better than Nikon”, or the reverse.

Come on, is like saying the BMW is better than Mercedes! Statements are understandable, but by fans. The comparison is best done between individual models, not between brands and keeping in mind the first question, beginning of the article: “What do I do with my new digital SLR?”

All houses have fixed zoom lenses for almost all occasions and needs, but some targets, or special accessories (fisheye, decentralized, super telephoto, flash, viewfinders, etc..) Can not be included in certain kits. Who thinks that will soon need something particular, should look at the outfit before click the new camera.

6. Size: Compact, Medium, Extra Large?
A digital SLR is big and heavy challenges and to better control and proves well balanced even with telephoto lenses. There is a downside, however: you must bring with it a greater weight and is more difficult to find accommodation in a suitcase to the camera.

Our opinion? A lightweight, compact SLR, which we use willingly is much better than a reflex heavy, “professional” who do not use ever.

But do not choose an SLR too small for our hands. Ergonomics is a strictly personal. That is why, before removing the check, you should carve out a quiet moment to walk into a store and try out in person, side by side, the reflex that we have selected: handle, commands, menus, viewfinder. If you can do some shots outside the store, with its own memory card, the better.

7. Stabilizer: Better or embedded in optics?
Some houses have incorporated the stabilizer (compensates for camera shake and reduce the risk of image blur, it is a help when there is little light, it is with moving subjects) in the camera body. Others, such as Canon and Nikon, have preferred to focus on optical stabilized.

With the stabilizer in the body all gliobiettivi are, in fact, stabilized.

8. Lenses and memory cards: I throw everything away?
If you already have some lens can continue to use it on the new digital SLR. Sometimes, however, with strong limitations: manual focus, manual exposure.

Newer digital cameras have sensors that require so many megapixel memory cards capacious and fast. Generally agrees to buy a new rather than recycle the ones we bought for the compact.

9. It’s worth buying the camera kit, with the standard zoom?
The standard zoom are cheap, mainly because they are not that great on the piano. For a beginner, they are best: they offer an excursion sufficient to landscapes and portraits, are light and compact and will be useful anyway (perhaps to travel) even once we have expanded the kit.

Given the price, a standard zoom lens is also convenient for the passionate, often drawn from the objectives of mid-price, made far better, but not always with an optical quality far superior to that of the standard zoom. If you really want something good from the start, better focus on professional lenses.

10. Buying the camera on the Internet?
Better deals online or the store? A visit to a store, in our opinion, it is almost mandatory. Only then can we make physical contact with machines that seem the most suitable for our needs. But then we can buy easily online, after checking the reliability of the seller (toll free, warranty, availability of real goods, any pickup) and the contents of the package.

What SLR Camera: our selection?

Beginner
To spend as little as possible Nikon D40 kit or Sony Alpha A200 kit.
Higher, Nikon D60 kit or Canon EOS Rebel XSi / 450D kit.

Even Video
Nikon D90(695.00 USD, body only).

Semi-professional
And now a good deal the Canon EOS 50D (1,099.00 USD, only the camera body), a real donkey work.
Among the reflex so-called semi-professional, first reference to the excellent Nikon D700 with full frame sensor (2,099 USD, only the camera body) and the competitor Canon EOS 5D Mark II, another full frame 21-megapixel (2,699.00 USD only the camera body).