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Minolta Maxxum 5
Hi. I am planning to purchase a Minolta Maxxum 5 body and would like
advice on what lens to purchase. The camera will be used by my wife to take snapshots of our children (probably using the auto mode exclusively), and by me to learn photography (my only experience with an SLR is from high school yearbook, 15 years ago.) We would like the lens to be zoom. Our budget for body + lens is $200 or less. What are the relative advantages/disadvantages to buying a refurbished body or lens? Is the extended warranty for this camera a good idea? We plan to buy in the next several days. Thanks in advance for your responses! Jim Spencer |
#2
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Jim Spencer wrote:
Hi. I am planning to purchase a Minolta Maxxum 5 body and would like advice on what lens to purchase. The camera will be used by my wife to take snapshots of our children (probably using the auto mode exclusively), and by me to learn photography (my only experience with an SLR is from high school yearbook, 15 years ago.) We would like the lens to be zoom. Our budget for body + lens is $200 or less. Goto groups.google.com and type "John Doe Maxxum 5" in the search box. Click on the first link that leads you to a post called "What lenses for Minolta Maxxum 5". Should be useful. See www.keh.com for used cameras and lenses. Even if you buy used, a good condition camera body and a zoom lens will exceed US$200, IMHO. Anyways, I am posting the prices I found on www.keh.com for used lenses. $119 Maxxum 5 Date Body (New) $30 50mm f1.7 (Used) $60 28-85mm f3.5-4.5 (Used) $100 70-210mm f4 (Used) Add another $50 for some decent Hoya/B+W filters. What are the relative advantages/disadvantages to buying a refurbished body or lens? Shutter life? My humble advise is to go digital. I did about a year back when I started with a digital P&S (Olympus C-750) and I learned a lot because I could afford to shoot tonnes of photos with digital, something, atleast, I couldn't have afforded with film. A decent prosumer class digital will cost you more initially ($300-$500) but offers lots of manual controls like shutter, aperture, focus, white balance, ISO etc and most have a good lens (Panasonic uses Leica lenses). Infact a few lenses you find on prosumer digicams would cost a bomb if you bought the same spec-ed lens for a SLR. And when you calculate the cost of a film SLR don't forget to add the cost of a good film plus processing. And when you have outgrown your digital P&S come back to usenet for advice (as I did) ;-) Cheers, Siddhartha |
#3
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Jim Spencer wrote:
Hi. I am planning to purchase a Minolta Maxxum 5 body and would like advice on what lens to purchase. The camera will be used by my wife to take snapshots of our children (probably using the auto mode exclusively), and by me to learn photography (my only experience with an SLR is from high school yearbook, 15 years ago.) We would like the lens to be zoom. Our budget for body + lens is $200 or less. Goto groups.google.com and type "John Doe Maxxum 5" in the search box. Click on the first link that leads you to a post called "What lenses for Minolta Maxxum 5". Should be useful. See www.keh.com for used cameras and lenses. Even if you buy used, a good condition camera body and a zoom lens will exceed US$200, IMHO. Anyways, I am posting the prices I found on www.keh.com for used lenses. $119 Maxxum 5 Date Body (New) $30 50mm f1.7 (Used) $60 28-85mm f3.5-4.5 (Used) $100 70-210mm f4 (Used) Add another $50 for some decent Hoya/B+W filters. What are the relative advantages/disadvantages to buying a refurbished body or lens? Shutter life? My humble advise is to go digital. I did about a year back when I started with a digital P&S (Olympus C-750) and I learned a lot because I could afford to shoot tonnes of photos with digital, something, atleast, I couldn't have afforded with film. A decent prosumer class digital will cost you more initially ($300-$500) but offers lots of manual controls like shutter, aperture, focus, white balance, ISO etc and most have a good lens (Panasonic uses Leica lenses). Infact a few lenses you find on prosumer digicams would cost a bomb if you bought the same spec-ed lens for a SLR. And when you calculate the cost of a film SLR don't forget to add the cost of a good film plus processing. And when you have outgrown your digital P&S come back to usenet for advice (as I did) ;-) Cheers, Siddhartha |
#4
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Jim Spencer wrote:
Hi. I am planning to purchase a Minolta Maxxum 5 body and would like advice on what lens to purchase. The camera will be used by my wife to take snapshots of our children (probably using the auto mode exclusively), and by me to learn photography (my only experience with an SLR is from high school yearbook, 15 years ago.) We would like the lens to be zoom. Our budget for body + lens is $200 or less. For general snaps and photo training wheels, the 28-80 kit lens is decent enough. As a rite of passage for learning photography, esp. composition, buying the 50 mm f/1.7 is a good idea as well (and these are available new and used at very good prices). At B&H the Maxxum 5 (QD) is $150 and the 28-80 is $70 (US Warrany). The 50mm f/1.7 is $80. Bill and Magnus will weigh in here, I'm sure. (Note: I often reccomend the 24-105 as a GP lens, but it is outside your budget by a bit). What are the relative advantages/disadvantages to buying a refurbished body or lens? Maxxum 5 refurbished? Hmm. Better go new. (I say 'Hmm' cause it is a relatively new model and I'd be surprised that there any refurbs on the market...) Is the extended warranty for this camera a good idea? No. Or rather only if it so cheap as to be inconsequential. We plan to buy in the next several days. Thanks in advance for your responses! Go for it. Great little camera, great capability for the price If your hands are large you might find it a bit hard to work with. For most ladies it is a perfect size. The built in flash is okay for snaps with high speed film (400-800), but consider a future purchase of a 2500D or 3600HS D flash as well. Cheers, Alan. -- -- rec.photo.equipment.35mm user resource: -- http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm -- e-meil: there's no such thing as a FreeLunch.-- |
#5
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Jim Spencer wrote:
Hi. I am planning to purchase a Minolta Maxxum 5 body and would like advice on what lens to purchase. The camera will be used by my wife to take snapshots of our children (probably using the auto mode exclusively), and by me to learn photography (my only experience with an SLR is from high school yearbook, 15 years ago.) We would like the lens to be zoom. Our budget for body + lens is $200 or less. For general snaps and photo training wheels, the 28-80 kit lens is decent enough. As a rite of passage for learning photography, esp. composition, buying the 50 mm f/1.7 is a good idea as well (and these are available new and used at very good prices). At B&H the Maxxum 5 (QD) is $150 and the 28-80 is $70 (US Warrany). The 50mm f/1.7 is $80. Bill and Magnus will weigh in here, I'm sure. (Note: I often reccomend the 24-105 as a GP lens, but it is outside your budget by a bit). What are the relative advantages/disadvantages to buying a refurbished body or lens? Maxxum 5 refurbished? Hmm. Better go new. (I say 'Hmm' cause it is a relatively new model and I'd be surprised that there any refurbs on the market...) Is the extended warranty for this camera a good idea? No. Or rather only if it so cheap as to be inconsequential. We plan to buy in the next several days. Thanks in advance for your responses! Go for it. Great little camera, great capability for the price If your hands are large you might find it a bit hard to work with. For most ladies it is a perfect size. The built in flash is okay for snaps with high speed film (400-800), but consider a future purchase of a 2500D or 3600HS D flash as well. Cheers, Alan. -- -- rec.photo.equipment.35mm user resource: -- http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm -- e-meil: there's no such thing as a FreeLunch.-- |
#6
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The "consumer" zoom that B&H packages it with is really very good. It surprised
me. While were on the subject of the Maxxum 5, is there a way to advance the film without firing the shutter? I'm trying to work out a system to make mid-roll changes with the camera. Alan Browne wrote: Jim Spencer wrote: Hi. I am planning to purchase a Minolta Maxxum 5 body and would like advice on what lens to purchase. The camera will be used by my wife to take snapshots of our children (probably using the auto mode exclusively), and by me to learn photography (my only experience with an SLR is from high school yearbook, 15 years ago.) We would like the lens to be zoom. Our budget for body + lens is $200 or less. For general snaps and photo training wheels, the 28-80 kit lens is decent enough. As a rite of passage for learning photography, esp. composition, buying the 50 mm f/1.7 is a good idea as well (and these are available new and used at very good prices). At B&H the Maxxum 5 (QD) is $150 and the 28-80 is $70 (US Warrany). The 50mm f/1.7 is $80. Bill and Magnus will weigh in here, I'm sure. (Note: I often reccomend the 24-105 as a GP lens, but it is outside your budget by a bit). What are the relative advantages/disadvantages to buying a refurbished body or lens? Maxxum 5 refurbished? Hmm. Better go new. (I say 'Hmm' cause it is a relatively new model and I'd be surprised that there any refurbs on the market...) Is the extended warranty for this camera a good idea? No. Or rather only if it so cheap as to be inconsequential. We plan to buy in the next several days. Thanks in advance for your responses! Go for it. Great little camera, great capability for the price If your hands are large you might find it a bit hard to work with. For most ladies it is a perfect size. The built in flash is okay for snaps with high speed film (400-800), but consider a future purchase of a 2500D or 3600HS D flash as well. Cheers, Alan. -- -- rec.photo.equipment.35mm user resource: -- http://www.aliasimages.com/rpe35mmur.htm -- e-meil: there's no such thing as a FreeLunch.-- |
#7
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Alan Browne wrote in message . ..
For general snaps and photo training wheels, the 28-80 kit lens is decent enough. That's good to know. From what I gather from further reading on the group, the 28-100 is not a good lens? Maxxum 5 refurbished? Hmm. Better go new. (I say 'Hmm' cause it is a relatively new model and I'd be surprised that there any refurbs on the market...) Ebay and Overstock.com both list refurbished cameras. In part, they're claimed to be returns of new or fairly new cameras. Isn't the Maxxum 5 3-4 years old? The built in flash is okay for snaps with high speed film (400-800), but consider a future purchase of a 2500D or 3600HS D flash as well. My wife tends to buy 200 film for the family shots. With this camera, should I encourage the higher speeds, or was your recommendation for higher-quality photographs? Thanks for your response. Very helpful. Jim |
#8
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"Siddhartha Jain" wrote in message oups.com...
Goto groups.google.com and type "John Doe Maxxum 5" in the search box. Click on the first link that leads you to a post called "What lenses for Minolta Maxxum 5". Should be useful. Thanks for the good recommendation. See www.keh.com for used cameras and lenses. Even if you buy used, a good condition camera body and a zoom lens will exceed US$200, IMHO. Anyways, I am posting the prices I found on www.keh.com for used lenses. $119 Maxxum 5 Date Body (New) $30 50mm f1.7 (Used) $60 28-85mm f3.5-4.5 (Used) $100 70-210mm f4 (Used) Add another $50 for some decent Hoya/B+W filters. I looked on keh.com after your post, but couldn't find the body. It was such a great price, it must have sold My humble advise is to go digital. I wish I could afford to do it now. I can use the Maxxum lenses for film cameras with digital Maxxums if I buy one later, right? Jim |
#9
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Jim Spencer wrote: $119 Maxxum 5 Date Body (New) $30 50mm f1.7 (Used) $60 28-85mm f3.5-4.5 (Used) $100 70-210mm f4 (Used) I looked on keh.com after your post, but couldn't find the body. It was such a great price, it must have sold Oh, sorry. The new Maxxum 5 body price wasn't taken off keh. You will find a $119 Maxxum 5 at www.beachcamera.com. And I checked their rating at www.resellerratings.com, it seems to be good. My humble advise is to go digital. I wish I could afford to do it now. I can use the Maxxum lenses for film cameras with digital Maxxums if I buy one later, right? Well, $200 will get you a Maaxxum 5 + one decent used lens perhaps. But like I said don't forget the film processing costs. Yes, that is another good way to grow. You can always use the Maxxum lenses on the digital Maxxum. Cheers, Siddhartha |
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