I am going to be purchasing whole new gear in the next few days....I will be focusing on photojournalism, band, concert, and natural light portraits. I have been shooting Olympus and love it, unfortunately the fact that there is not a lot of options lens-wise, I have decided to go with a Canon and or Nikon as my new gear.
However I have not decided, and I am currently working with a $3500 budget. I also want to be able to get 1 good prime lens and maybe two more good fast lenses and a flash, battery grip, and a memory card.
Since i don't have much experience with either Nikon or Canon (and I have seen all the back and forth between Canon and Nikon users), I would like to see what packages you more experienced shooters would go with. What would you buy with the budget I have?
I only know Nikon so obviously you'll need to hear from Canon owners, but from my experience there's some good fast primes that should work well in the situations you mentioned. Also, I feel Nikon's current lineup can produce very good pictures at very high ISOs (the D300, D700, and the D3) so you really can't go wrong with any of those bodies. I own the D300 and love it... but the D700 and D3 definitely has better high iso images. Thankfully the D300 can be purchased used on the buy/sell board for a really good price that is well under your budget.
As for Nikon lenses to go with the D300, you'll definitely want the 50 f/1.4 lens (super fast, super sharp, ~$300). For super wide lenses I own a Tokina 11-16 f/2.8 ($500) and love it... but there's a number of great wide lenses, but since you're shooting indoors there's less to choose from with the fast f/2.8. If you don't need something that wide then consider blowing a huge chunk of your budget on the 28-70 f/2.8 lens ($1000+) or if you want to save money go for the nikon 17-55 f/2.8 or I hear the Tamron 17-50 f/2.8 is a very good lens.
And don't forget about the Nikon 70-200mm f/2.8 lens - the zoom range might be longer than you need but it's a very good lens... also great are its alternatives, the 2-ring design 80-200mm f/2.8 lens (~$600 used) or the 80-200mm afs 2.8 lens (If you can find it, try to get it for $800-900 used otherwise if it's too high go for the 70-200 lens)
Also you'll probably need a flash.. the sb-600 is a good flash and you can get them used probably on the buy/sell board.
Hi,
I shoot Canon and am very happy with my setup.If I was starting from scatch today though I would be happy to follow Fusions advice.Last year Canon had the strongest lineup---This year Nikon is ahead---They are both great brands with excellent lens catalogues but this year I would go with Nikon.
Cheers.
