Rubbing the elderly?
But anyway, it's mostly not the body that determines how good your pics are gonna be, it's more a combination of photographer and lens. That is , if you at least have a DSLR though.
I'd go for canon, always. There ain't a big difference between the 400 and 450, wouldn't spend a couple of hundred more on that. Rather buy a 400D and spend a bit more on a decent lense. I got myself the 17-85 EF S IS, costs around 300 euros now if you can find a place where they sell it for that price. If you want a big mofo tele lens, you'd be spending way more than that. Anything under 600 euros for a range of 70-200 is crap. Macros are also quite awesome, you can get a decent macro lens for around 2 to 3 hundred euros.
At first, I thought of buying a nikon D80, but didn't like the colors of the nikon much, so, went with my trusty old canon. Canon has always fulfilled my needs with ease in the past.
So what you need to be on your way:
- An average decent body (Canon 400D for instance)
- A decent lens, costs at least 3 to 4 hundred euros (I got the 17-85 EF S IS from canon)
- If you wanna photograph landscapes properly, you need a tripod. Try to go with quality, if you see your newly acquired camera and lens tumbling down the hill cuz the wind blew the whole thing down, you know you were too cheap ass on the tripod! I got a manfrotto for about 130 euros, very nice tripod! Was a package deal, a tripod with head on it.
http://www.fotokonijnenberg.nl/product/ ... combi.html
A gorilla pod as extra would be fun as well, that way you can attach your SLR to a tree or something
http://www.fotokonijnenberg.nl/product/ ... d_slr.html
- A remote control for your camera. If you wanna take landscapes at F25 or somewhere around that, you need to minimize movement even more then only having a tripod. Or with HDR pics for instance!
- A decent bag to carry your camera in.
- Fast mem flash card