[Barbara G.]

When looking at cameras, what influences you the most?

Great reviews?

Word of mouth - information from others?

Features?

What are your most important influences in choosing a camera?

[Wall-E]

When looking at cameras, what influences you the most?

Great reviews?

Word of mouth - information from others?

Features?

What are your most important influences in choosing a camera?

Compatibility with existing equipment. Which means Nikon at this point.
Features. Snapsort.com.
Reviews (Ken Rockwell, ie)
Other forums (since this one is pretty quiet)
Value for price.

[Dean]

Once you have invested in a few lenses then I guess that moving brands is a very big step to take and if you have bought lenses for a cropped sensor camera even upgrading to a full size is an expensive prospect. More pixels was top of my list when upgrading my Canon 350D body. Which model was then based on which features I was prepared to pay what for. Online reviews were a big part of the decision process.

[EdMak]

Only had one lens, Tamron 28/200mm for Minolta film camera, so, purchased a Minolta, replaced with Sony, and found the lens was problematical, focus wise, motor slipping, it was 30 years old. So I bought another Tamron 18/200mm "Proper" digital, £150. Very happy, Went from 6M Pixels, to, 14M, really see no benefit. Law of diminishing Returns, must apply. Ed.

[PhotoPlay]

Yep I agree with above comments. Pixel size matter only when you go for printing billboards. But in my case I never get the chance to go there. Only in Wedding Albums. Now that I've invested a lot on my lens getting a new DsLR is not an option UNLESS its ISO setting can get me go higher without too suffering from noise. A review in it gets my attention. Also customer service support for that brand I also look into.

[Wall-E]

Only had one lens, Tamron 28/200mm for Minolta film camera, so, purchased a Minolta, replaced with Sony, and found the lens was problematical, focus wise, motor slipping, it was 30 years old. So I bought another Tamron 18/200mm "Proper" digital, £150. Very happy, Went from 6M Pixels, to, 14M, really see no benefit. Law of diminishing Returns, must apply. Ed.

Ed:

Are you shooting in RAW/highest quality JPEG?

Anything less will definitely NOT show the increase in pixel count.

[EdMak]

Shoot in best quality jpg, can open these in RAW, and do as I require. Ed.

[Wall-E]

Shoot in best quality jpg, can open these in RAW, and do as I require. Ed.

Did you really mean "open these in ACR (Adobe Camera Raw)"?

'Cuz, I was asking if you SHOOT in RAW format files.

[craw]

When looking at cameras, what influences you the most?

Great reviews?

Word of mouth - information from others?

Features?

What are your most important influences in choosing a camera?

reviews are important as are the informed opinions of users but I feel a final hands on is essential.

[EdMak]

Sorry, bit slow, I do not shoot in RAW. Did not realize when I changed camera, that CS4, did not support new camera, RAW wise. Sony's own version, did not appeal to me. Thanks. Ed.

[Korry]

I strongly believe that today there is almost no camera that is bad enough so you can't make quality photos with it. When I'm looking at cameras, I'm checking the features that I find important. That narrows a choice a bit. The next important thing for me is to take the camera in my hands - if it doesn't fit nicely and I don't feel it like something natural in my hands, it isn't for me. At the point when I'll be deciding between two or three cameras, I'll go through reviews just to check if I've missed something important - that is the lesson I've learned with my HX1.

[KeithB]

Reading camera reviews on various forums and review sites, I got the impression that DSLR users fall into either Canon or Nikon camps with a lot of contributors showing an understandable and sometimes quite aggressive bias towards their equipment of choice. I think this probably applies to most of our major purchases in life. I do think also (IMHO) that a lot of reviewers seem obsessed with technical excellence, pixel counting and innovation and seem to forget what cameras are for!
I think I was able to take a pretty open minded view when it came to buying my first DSLR having only used a Lumix bridge camera (6mp) and a Kyocera compact (2.3mp) since giving up on the old film SLR. My daughter in law uses a Nikon D90, which I tried and liked very much, after a considerable amount of research I decided when my boat comes in I'll go for the then newly released D7000.
However, when the time came to actually buy. I started all over again. Research, research, research! I agree with Korry, with modern camera equipment anybody can produce good images. It does boil down to personal choice and you can't beat getting your hands on one. If it doesn't feel comfortable to you, you'll never be entirely happy no matter how good the results.

When it came to the crunch, for me the Sony SLT-A77 beat the D7000/7100 hands down. I love it! It handles beautifully, the control layout is the most intuitive of all the models I have tried and the results so far have been frankly sensational! and I guess at the end of the day, that's what I bought it for! However I wouldn't dream of bad mouthing other makes or claiming Sony cameras are best any more than Ford is better than Toyota! Each to their own. Whatever you choose, go out and have fun with it.
Cheers. Keith

[Barbara G.]

Welcome to craw and KeithB. Thanks for joining us!

[a_orme]

It seems that we all agree on reading camera reviews is important to us and since I was looking at moving up from a bridge camera I did the same,tended to get confused went into shop after shop -tried cameras -listened to the sales people and went back to the drawing board.So for me
1 reviews were important
2 the latest technology
3 features
4 did it fit into my price structure
I ended up with fixing a price I could afford and getting the best I could get,I also wanted the latest technology ,why buy old technology for all cameras move forward,As for the features they are there if you are stuck or struggling ,as for the build quality external ,this was not to much of an issue for I gave myself a price limit and worked to it.So that's little imput and as Kiethb knows I bought a Sony A58.