I just wanna a share with my friends on how and what I considered before buying. As I do not own any slr or dslr before, these are the steps that I took before giving away my $$$.
1. Ask yourself.... How deep is my interest in photography? Do I see myself using a DSLR 10 yrs down the rd? Would I be bothered carrying camera of such size/weight? Would I be bothered carrying a tripod/monopod? Would I be bothered by a black color camera? Am I willing to spending hundreds & thousands of dollars on camera/lenses/bags/filters/etc?
Go to no 2. if you have no concern with most of these questions... If not, go buy a Point & Shoot camera or use handphone camera.
2. Roughly have an idea of what kinda things that you like/want to shoot; eg. scenery(wide angle lenses), sports(telephoto lenses), insects(macro, tele lenses), plants(macro, wide, tele), events(wide, tele, portrait), birds(telephoto), people(wide, portrait, tele), etc...
From the interest that you have, you can narrow down to the type & range of lenses that would suit your interest. Read up if you need to...
3. Choose your lenses that covers your needs & range. Look thru all the different brands of lenses available in the market. Take 'a long time' to look thru. Understand the different type of lenses offered by different makers, compare the image quality produced by the lenses, read up on what ppl say about the lenses, understand why the different in lens prices eventhough they are of the same range. Read up of you need to...
Choose & list down the lens that you WANT. The lens that you WANT will be 'THE' lenses that you will be satisfied with and will not buy anymore. Do up the chosen lens price list for all the brands/makers.
Now look at the Total Price of the lenses of individual brand/maker. Which price range is the one that you're happy to part you $$$ with? Once done, you would have roughly narrowed down your choice or choices of brand/makers.
4. Choose your camera from the brand/makers that you have narrowed down. Choose those that fits your requirement/interest(read point 2 just in case you have forgotten). Read up if you need to...
Hold the camera and see which one feels better in your hand. Do not buy a camera that doesn't feel good in your hand because chances are, you'll not enjoy holding it thus you will not be using it, which equals to a waste of money. List down your camera choices together with it's specs/functions.
Look at the camera prices. Which price range is the one that you're happy to part you $$$ with?
Camera Price, Functions & Ergonomics plays a big part in choosing your first DSLR. At this point, you'll have to 'give & take' these 3 points when choosing your camera body.
***Most of the entry level camera comes with kits lenses. If you're happy to work with these lenses before moving on to your 'WANT' lenses, do look into the quality of the kit lenses.***
5. Camera makers will always have newer bodies every year or few years. The makers are always playing catch up with one another. However, lenses of the same range are rarely renewed every year or even few years. If there are newer lenses, it'll be to cover a range that the current lens lineup doesn't have. Investing in lenses is much more important & worthwhile.
So with all this running thru my mind, I ended up buying my first DSLR.
Body - Olympus E500(1st body, then sold off to a colleague), E-3(current body)
Lenses - Olympus Zuiko 14-45mm f3.5-4.5(sold off together with E500), 40-150mm f3.5-4.5(current), 14-54mm f2.8-3.5(current and was in my WANT list), OM 50mm f1.4(sold), 50-200mm f2.8-3.5(WANT list), 50mm f2(WANT list), 7-14mm f4(WANT list)
Flash - FL-50(current and was in my WANT list)
Disclaimer - This process works well for me but may not be the same with you. I will not be accountable for your huge spending on cameras, lens, flash, monopod, tripod, filters, bags, dry-cabinet, strobes, backdrops, diffusers, batteries, printers, photo papers, memory cards & any other accessories.
