That's one of the camera's I'm looking at. Our "PHD" camera's have all been Nikon's and we've been happy with those.
I'm also looking at the Canon EOS Rebel T4i (I think that's the model..) which looks nice too.
Someone up the thread said it's more about the glass (lens) than the DSLR. Is that true? If I want to zoom in from the ship to the shore (we're taking an Alaskan Cruise from Vancouver up to near Anchorage with 2 days in Denali National Park) what type of lens do I need? Or are ship to shore pic's out of the question due to distance or the lens being too expensive?
I'm trying to stay under $750 for the camera and a decent lens....
It's ALL about the lenses. For what you are looking for a lens will cost over $2000. Look at the super-zooms in my previous post. I think that's a better fit for you.
I do not want to sound like a snob, but a decent lens from that distance is out of your price range.
You can get decent second hand lenses out there, so I would do some research and really ask yourself if you want to spend that much.
An alternative is to spend the money, then sell it after the trip.
I spent six grand on a lens four or five years ago, and sold it recently for just under five. The high quality stuff holds its value. I
But for what you are talking about you will spend as much on the lens as the body.
Yes it is true that the lens is probably the most important part but that really makes no difference as they all, except maybe Fuji have all the lenses you could want.
They all have cheap and expensive ones. Good and excellent ones. Sony is regularly introducing new Zeiss lenses which are world beaters but really are they that much better than Nikon or Canon?
I have an old Pentax DSLR with only 6 MP which has made some great pics. One of the best photographs I have ever made was with a Canon P&S which allowed an extreme close up of a dragon fly. It has 5 megapixels.
I will have to admit that I am probably going to get a full frame 24 MP the next time I get a new one. Nikon also has one with something like 32 Megapixels.
“If I want to zoom in from the ship to the shore (we’re taking an Alaskan Cruise from Vancouver up to near Anchorage with 2 days in Denali National Park) what type of lens do I need? Or are ship to shore pic’s out of the question due to distance or the lens being too expensive?”
The 55-200mm of the Nikon kit combined with the 1.5x crop factor of its sensor yields a real-world zoom range of 82.5-300. Now, when you combine that with the 24 megapixel sensor (easily capable of 16”x20” prints without enlarging the picture), you can take an image at full zoom (even if it’s just a tiny area in the frame) and crop to a decent (4”x6” or 5”x7” print) without much, if any, any quality loss. That’s where the megapixels matter: the higher the resolution, the less you lose when you crop. Here’s an example of what I’m talking about...
http://imaging.nikon.com/lineup/dslr/d3200/features01.htm