I am a complete newbie, looking to buy an entry level camera for travelling use. What would be a reasonable price for a Nikon F50? It's about 2 year old, good condition. No extra lenses. Any recommendations on entry level camera? Appreciate your thoughts. Thanks.

-- Joyce Foo (joyfoo@hotmail.com), March 27, 2002

Answers

Joyce, my advice is to buy new since you are a newbie. That way if anything goes wrong, you can always fall back on the warranty. Leave the secondhand purchases to the more seasoned photogs who are more experienced to judge the condition of a used camera.

Also the F50 is a rather old model. It has very limited capabilities for an SLR. My personal opinion is that it's not a good buy for you. You should consider the latest Nikon F55 or F80. There are some promotions out now that package the body with a standard zoom lens. For reliable camera shops, personally I've good experience with the following in the Peninsula area: Cathay Photo - big shop with lots of stock but prices are high Photo Guide - small shop opposite Cathay - good service, prices reasonable Camera Workshop - very small shop, sells 2nd hand & new cameras, usually quite crowded. Prices are negotiable.

I'm not related to any of these shops but just telling you those that I've had good experiences with. Avoid those Lucky Plaza electronics shops.

-- sunil (yatsunil@hotmail.com), March 27, 2002.

another good way to check out second hand price is the do a search in www.ebay.com. Many cameras/lens are bought and sold there everyday. You can use the price as a benchmark. I wanted to go down to the basic when I took up photography and also wanted a camera body that would last me a life time. So I bought a new manual Nikon camera, the FM2. This camera is really loved by everyone who buys it. It is solidly built. And is not battery dependent. Meaning even if your battery (used for metering) dies you can still use this camera. It was introduced in 1982 and up to today it is still being made new... ...of course improvement has been made over the years. Having a manual camera slows you down to think about how you can best compose your shots. It is also an excellent way to understand shutter speed and apertures... ...it would be painful initially because you need to turn the dial for the aperture, shuter speed and also focus manually, but you would appreciate it and not rely on a modern camera's computer which judges the exposure (though I have to say that it is v. good and convenient) . Recently, Nikon introduced the FM3A which is an improvement to the FM2. You can read more about it at the Nikon website.

-- Kong Jin (jinboy@singnet.com.sg), April 10, 2002.

Interested to buy my Nikon Fe10? Its a great camera for beginners all the way to the professional. contact me for details.

-- LioNeL (lionel@ihavepms.com), September 07, 2002.

joyce I like yourself am pretty new to photography and I have purchased a F50 from a friend the camera+flash+case+tripod cost me 120 pounds It's a great camera easy to use not to many advanced features, good manuals are available from amazon for a tenner (my advice get one from a dealer or from a friend who has't used it a lot

-- adrian g (adrian@green999.freeserve.co.uk), September 23, 2002.

Hello, I bought an F50 (just body) today for CDN $250. I could have gotten it with a G-type lense (that means, no apperture ring) for CDN $400 total, but I got a 35-70 F-lense for CDN $170 at another store, and it's much better (has a metal mount). I like the autofocus on this camera and it was second hand, so I got it cheaper. For your first time, I recommend you buy the body brand new because they can be tricky. All in all, this camera is the cheapest auto-focus I believe. If you don't mind manual focus for each shot, go with a new FM10 or F2. (you may want to go for an even cheaper brand such as pentax, minolta or olympus, nikon and canon can cost more, but they're better quality). Have fun!

-- bagelboy (bagelboy9@yahoo.com), February 28, 2003.