Sony DSLR A330 300

When I decided to retire my old analog 35mm film SLR camera (Zenit Xp12), I was looking for a digital SLR that would replace my Zenit and wouldn't ruin my budget.

What I was looking for was a simple, but reliable DSLR with standard 18-55mm lens plus a telephoto lens, since I like wildlife photography, and that's what I was using my zenit for (with 200mm lens from pentax). Due to budget limitations I was considering three choices:

1) CANON EOS 1000d with 18-55mm + 55-200mm

2) NIKON D3000 with 18-55mm + 55-200mm

3) SONY ALPHA 330 with 18-55mm + 55-200mm

After having a look at each one of these, and trying them, it turned out that they are not so different after all in terms of quality of optics or the resulting pictures. What's important it turned out that out of the mentioned trio, A330 had few features the other two lacked:

* built in image stabilisation

* very good live view system (In my opinion, the best I've seen so far)

* moveable LCD display (no need to lay in the mud to take that great shot from the ground!)

* good noise reduction in JPEG (I mean good for this price segment)

* easy to learn and intuitive menu system

* price !!

So after all I decided to go with Sony Alpha 330 instead of Canon EOS1000D or Nikon D3000, and I must admit this was an excellent choice. I just love this camera, and the quality of the pictures taken with it.

What is worthy mentioning that at the time of buying it, A330 was about £100 cheaper than remaining two , which has given me an opportunity to buy a slightly better telephoto lens (instead of the kit 55-200mm), in this case I decided to go with:

Sigma 70-300mm DG APO Macro

Which turned out to be excellent choice for amateur photographer with limited budget :) I will post the review of that one at some point too.

regards,

Bombalina