which camera?

[cadetchris]

i am in need to buy a camera for work and pleasure.
for work, it is going to be used to take museum record photographs, so it going to have to be something along the dslr line.
i have been told by higher powers that the lens must have a 50mm capacity within in somewhere, as this is apparently quite good for general record photography.
my budget tops out at about £600, so this to include camera and lens.

i have narrowed my choice down to either

canon 500D

sony nex-3

or

Nikon D3100

any one had experience of any of these cameras?

[nigelr2000]

Canon every time, I had a film Canon and the pictures were stunning, not had enough money to upgrade to a digital but know 3 people with them and the results are fantastic.

I have a Panasonic TZ3 with a Leica lens and the results off this are good for a compact. One day I will be rich enough to get another canon.

Here are some examples my mate steve took with his new Canon[frame][/frame][frame][/frame][frame][/frame][frame][/frame]

[cadetchris]

they are very good,

i do like the idea of using a leica lens, having been around their factory, i was very impressed and would love to have one some day.

[irmscher]

canon a quality camera

[MarkyB]

If you want non-partisan advice take a look here;
http://www.dpreview.com/

If you have experience with a particular make be it Canon or Nikon then go with that make, they each have a different attitude to what are main functions, and which things get buried in sub menus.

I'll put in a vote for Nikon.

[Peetee]

I'm quite happy with my Canon 350. And i haven't read the instruction book yet !

[Jared]

I have a canon 500d and can recomend it, it's absolutly brilliant and very easy to use. If your new to it all there is the option of putting it in full auto and just pressing the shutter however, it still has excellent manual controls that allow creativity.

If you can stretch to it though can I suggest the 550d as you get a couple more million megapixels and importantly for me now it has an external microphone socket. Yes I do use mine for video, I never thought I would but with the feature there you will start to have a fiddle to see what it can achieve and I really feal that the inbuilt mike is very good but an external would just make filming so much better.

[cadetchris]

i do quite like the canon 500d, but it has a hd video thingy on it, which i wont be using, so as i see it, ill be paying for something that i wont be using

[ptitterington]

I used to be a bit into photography as a kid but got involved with other things and lost interest due to the delay from taking a pic and seeing the developed image. I have had a few modern cameras and currently use a canon digital ixis 980is and regularly take better pics than my daughter does with her fancy dslr on her a level course!

[Trog]

I was a pro news photographer til about 3 years ago. I would say the Nikon P80 or similar is more than enough, I use one for work and play, much easier than carting a DSLR around . Pick one up for about £100-£150 and spend the rest on a copy of photoshop elements and a treat for the Moggy