UKH

I'm looking at buying a Canon 550d. Is it worth buying new or second hand? Is there a particular advantage in buying new/having a warranty? As long as it's not broken is there anything that can be worn out on a DSLR?

Seems like the rough prices for a kit of body + basic lens is £350 second hand or £500 new?

Ideally I'll be using it more for filming than photography....but I know almost nothing about cameras...so any advice is more than welcome.

In reply to Kemics: 2nd hand all the way. My experience of canon kit is that, other than known design faults (lens cover on the G-series), they don't really go wrong. So probably worth doing a search on the forums for known faults but

In reply to Kemics: DSLRs are not the best for filming ,your better off with a sony nex or similar type camera.

In reply to john1963:

The video on a 550D isn't actually too bad, if you can keep it steady & focussed. There's a few cheap & cheerful shoulder rigs & follow-focus set-ups on Amazon now for not a lot of money.
However, with the 550D, you don't get a headphone socket, so no audio monitoring which renders it pretty much useless for decent quality video (for my purposes anyway).

In reply to Kemics:

Oh, and the DOF you can get with decent glass is bloomin' lovely! I had a play with a 550D & the basic 'nifty fifty' 50mm 1.8, and got some stuff I'd be more than happy to use professionally (apart from aforementioned audio).

In reply to TryfAndy: so no audio monitoring....
I believe the Magic Lantern firmware update/hack can allow audio monitoring, although for non-technical people it may not be worth the effort. I don't know much about video in general.

To the OP, I got a reconditioned american import 550D + lens for under £400 a year ago, they are now £350 from digigood on a well known auction site. That could be a safer way to go than second hand, although you get a reduced warranty (3 months I think).

In reply to Bob Hughes:


My 400D 'went wrong' and I had to replace it.

In reply to Bob Hughes:

Not much Canon experience then?

Error 99, mirrors falling off, duff sensors, etc...


Not to say that other brands don't have issues, but the suggestion that canons don't go wrong is inaccurate.

In reply to Kemics:

Especially when you get a 500D so wet on a day in the Lakes (forgot to seal the dry-bag, oops...) that water drips out of the screen & lens mount. That certainly breaks them!

In reply to TryfAndy:

This is basically my primary reason

Though do you get audio output on the 60d? Though to be honest just going to be making climbing flicks so audio's not quite as crucial (no dialogue etc)

In reply to Kemics:

Doing online shopping - http://www.digitalrev.com/product/canon-eos-550d-ef-s/NzgyMw_A_A?googlebase...

Found a kit for £419 and free shipping ... seems too good to be true? Is it because the lens is garbage? (I know nothing about them ) or what's the shuffle?

has anybody used digital rev...what's the disadvantage. Seems about £150 cheaper than any other 550d kit I can find with an 18-55.

In reply to Kemics:

It's calling it a kit but it doesn't state that it comes with a lens so my thoughts would be that it's body only.

Plus, T2i is the american model of the 550d. I tried to purchase one of these from a site like this a year ago and when you got to the checkout they added postage and import tax which bumps the price up.

I also purchases a T2i from digigood on ebay, these are refurbished t2i and mine looked brand new. I only had to buy the body because I had a lens and it set me back around £300 which was a good deal. They come with a 3 month warranty but I never had to test it.

If I could go back in time, I'd probably just get a decent HD camcorder as like yourself, I mainly wanted to take video.

In reply to Kemics: The drawback for filming is a 30 minute limit on the length of any single clip/file, which may or may not be a problem. This is some sort of arbitrary limit set to distinguish still cameras that can do video from video cameras (for import duty purposes or similar?). I have taken videos with mine, it works OK but a proper video camera will probably be cheaper...