£350 Upgrade

[jjones]

I currently have a Canon 400D with two lenses, 50mm f/1.8 II & a 28-105mm f3.5-4.5

Don't really want to spend more than £350 so thinking second hand is the best bet.

Current thoughts are either upgrading to a 70-200 L f4 or changing the body (to something like an Canon 7D) and keeping the existing lenses.

Suffered in the past from a lot of soft shots and issues with blowing out skies in landscape pictures.

Where would you spend the cash?

[Simpo Two]

I'd practice AF options, appropriate aperture, exposure, and send the £350 to me

[Tony1963]

Have you tried shooting in RAW?

That might go some way to alleviating your exposure problems, and you might save the £350 into the bargain.

[ukaskew]

400D + 50mm 1.8...

meeting the mountains (colour version) by Amanda Keogh, on Flickr

In all seriousness though, unless there is a fundamental issue with your camera or lens (i.e. it's broken) there is no reason why the kit you have shouldn't be very capable. £350 won't improve things, what would be useful is to post some samples with EXIF so people can try and help out.

[tenohfive]

I know that infinitely better togs than I are saying the opposite, but when I killed my 400D I replaced it with a 70D. And found myself both using the camera more and in different ways (with Liveview and a fold out screen it's so much easier getting unusual perspectives) and getting more keepers through better AF and low light performance.

I wish I'd fallen over and broken the 400D sooner.

[eltawater]

jjones said:

Suffered in the past from a lot of soft shots and issues with blowing out skies in landscape pictures.

Where would you spend the cash?

Have you tried some neutral density graduated filters for your landscape shots?

[Tony1963]

tenohfive said:

I know that infinitely better togs than I are saying the opposite, but when I killed my 400D I replaced it with a 70D. And found myself both using the camera more and in different ways (with Liveview and a fold out screen it's so much easier getting unusual perspectives) and getting more keepers through better AF and low light performance.

I wish I'd fallen over and broken the 400D sooner.

It was the same for me when I upgraded to a 5D3, but I'm under no illusion. David Bailey could take better photographs on an EOS 10D than I can on absolutely anything. And as shown above, technique, knowing your equipment, and a few post-processing skills can make the most of 'basic' equipment.

Imaging spending say £2k on a camera body and a 35mm f/1.8 lens just to find that your technique wasn't correct in the first place!

[Craikeybaby]

Neither of the issue you mentioned in your post will be fixed by a different focal length lens, or a better body.