EOS Upgrade

greenspun.com : LUSENET : Camera Equipment : One Thread

I am a photo journalism student and have a Rebel XS that I have had for four years. I want to upgrade my body now. I would like to get an AE2 but it is unfeasible at this time. My budget is $1,000 or less. I'm looking for a work horse of a body that can be a back-up in the future.

-- Mariah (nelsonriah@hotmail.com), January 04, 2001

Answers

If you are just looking for a body, and plan to stay with Canon, you have 3 choices really. I don't know why you can't get an A2E/EOS 5 since you say you have $1000 to spend though. I really wouldn't want one since it is the only EOS left that can't use E-TTL flash technology, but that is my choice. The other choices would be the Elan II/IIE while they last, the new Elan 7/7E, or the EOS 3. All but the 3 are cheap enough to throw in a new flash, and/or lens as well.

John Owlett has a point, but it all depends on where you compare prices. I buy almost every thing from B&H or Adorama. The Elan 7E is about $500. The EOS 3 is now down to $900, so it is no longer more than double the price of the next camera down. Considering the improvements in both cameras compared to the Elan II and A2E/EOS 5, I really don't suffer from sticker shock with either. Both have a few shortcomings, but every camera in the past has too, and every camera in the future will as well. I would have liked something in between the 3 and the 30/7E, but with only $400 separating them, I don't think it is likely. If the 7E could autofocus at f8, I'd probably buy it, since it has 95% of the other features I need. It can't, so I'm stuck with the EOS 3 for my next body. It is overkill, but as I've said before, there is only so much room between the Elan series and the EOS 3 for added features, without stepping on the EOS 3's toes, so I'll have to live with overkill.

I'll agree that the new Maxxum 7 is an impressive camera. More so than the Maxxum 9, or even the F5 and 1V in some ways. But it doesn't do Canon or Nikon users any good, except for raising the bar for the replacements of the F100 and EOS 3. That really isn't a bad thing, except that my EOS 3 will probably be obsolete by the time I order it in a few months...

-- Brad Hutcheson (bhutcheson@iname.com), January 06, 2001.


How about the Elan 7E with some good glass. It's almost as fast as the A2 and quieter.

-- Ken Cravillion (kenc@execpc.com), January 05, 2001.

The A2E and the Elan 7 are both priced around $500 right now. The Elan IIe is about $325. Check http://www01.bhphotovideo.com/ for new prices. Used prices for all of the above aren't much less.

-- Jim Strutz (jimstrutz@juno.com), January 05, 2001.

Jim is one of the forum's leading gurus on the EOS system, Mariah, so his estimates of the prices for your options will be right. That doesn't mean I wholly understand them.

The replacement of the Elan II (EOS 50E) with the Elan 7 (EOS 30) I can understand. Canon needs a new enthusiast camera to compete with the Nikon N80 (F80), and anyway its technology does not stand still. This means that the remaining Elan II cameras are amazing bargains: only slightly less sophisticated than the Elan 7 and much cheaper.

But the "replacement" of the A2E (EOS 5) with the EOS 3 is harder to understand. Prices have come down on the old model, as Jim points out, making the A2E a bargain, but the new advanced amateur camera, the EOS 3, is more than twice the price of the new enthusiast camera, the Elan 7. That's an awful big gap.

More or less the same thing has happened in the Nikon range with the "replacement" of the N90s (F90x) with the F100.

Has the SLR market stayed with four levels of camera:

... only now, for some reason, there is a big gap between the middle two levels? Or is the market moving towards having five price points, and we should expect mid-market replacements for the A2E (EOS 30) and N90s (F90x) cameras that have been such stalwarts of their systems for so long?

At present, it seems that Minolta has this mid-market point to itself with the Maxxum 7 (Dynax 7).

Appropriate seasonal greeting for Twelfth Night,

Dr Owl

-- John Owlett (owl@postmaster.co.uk), January 05, 2001.


More information about the middle ground. "Amateur Photographer" recently (in its 27 January issue, available from Oldtimer Cameras) ran a comparison test of the Canon EOS5 (A2E) and the Nikon F90X (N90s) against the new Minolta Dynax 7 (Maxxum 7).

In our comments to this thread, both Brad and I say nice things about the new Minolta 7. And it seems that "Amateur Photographer" agrees with us! It is very polite about the older cameras, both launched in the early 1990s, but in the lukewarm way that active politicians are courteous about elderly retired politicians. The Minolta 7, on the other hand, it describes as being "in really excellent shape".

Later,

Dr Owl

-- John Owlett (owl@postmaster.co.uk), February 16, 2001.



Moderation questions? read the FAQ