Ask the instructor of the class the requirements that the camera must have.

Some places still require a film camera.

Personally I dislike cannons, they are not the easiest cameras to handle and usually they have strange things going on with the shutter speed, often a fraction of a second delay but it’s really irritating when you want to capture something instantly that changes within a couple of seconds! Not too big a problem though.

Nikon D40 is the best DSLR you can probably buy under the £500 bracket. Buy a 18-200 lens if you can, it’ll keep you going for years. Really – unless you’re a pro, taking photos for a living, you won’t need anything more!

You need to see the syllabus of the classes, some require a film camera as they have a darkroom component, but more and more these days are going strait to digital.

Any DSLR is really the way to go as you will ‘grow’ into your camera as your knowledge and experience build up.

Any make will do there’s nothing to choose between them (except price) just go with what you can afford and get the best deal you can. A lot of “professional” people will say you must get a Canon or a Nikon, I use Pentax K10D, a much cheaper system, and sell my pictures quite happily with no complaints from customers. You could try the Samsung GX10 and save even more.

Don’t necessarily go looking for a lot of pixels, a lot of pixels are nice as they enable you to crop without loosing too much quality, but a 6 Mp camera will print ‘natively’ (one pixel from the sensor = 1 pixel on the print) to A4 size, 10Mp will print at A3+ and, of course, you can interpolate a lot higher than that and still keep quality.

Chris

First off, you are NOT looking for a “professional” camera! You will want a “pro-sumer” DSLR. A true professional camera costs many thousands of dollars for the body only, and would be way overkill for you starting out. Ok… now that we have terms out of the way…

The Canon Rebel XTi is a nice camera. Here is where you can purchase the camera and kit:

Another good choice is the Nikon D40. Less megapixels than the Canon, but that is almost meaningless for your needs. Here is a terrific buy on a used D40 and kit, and you do NOT have to worry about buying used from B-H:

Either one of those will be a great start for you.

My best to you,

steve

We use the Canon Rebel XTi at the Art Institute. It’s a great camera for a beginner and price has dropped a lot recently. I’ve had mine for about 2 years now and I am still perfectly happy with it! )

get an SLR camera, comes in digital and film(depending on your needs/wants) if you go digital, anything over 8 mp should be fine. brand doesnt really matter, i prefer kodak or cannon though. you can look on best buys website and look at cameras and it has an option to search for SLR’s.
the digital SLR’s can get very expensive, the film SLR’s are not so bad. but they are the best for photography.