Hello all,

My girlfriend is looking for a decent, not too expensive camera. I have a EOS 50E (ELAN IIE), and she is used to that one already.

She's willing to pay something like 250 euro for the camera (around 200$) second hand. Looking into this forum and some other, the obvious selections are the EOS 100 (ELAN) or a camera from the 600-series. The newer models like the 3000 or 300 are completely excluded: I checked them out once and I simply hate the cheap toy-alike feel of them.

What is important for my girlfriend:

1) The camera must be robust (things are more prone to gravity when she's holding them ;-) 2) reasonable easy to AF, even in low light (she's now and then complaining that my 50E is not fast enough)

What do you suggest? Thanks

-- David Chiaradia (chiaradi@imec.be), May 02, 2002

Answers

For that sort of money you should be able to find a used EOS 50 or 50e on ebay.

For appreciably faster AF, you'd need to go to an EOS 3 or EOS 1V, which is obviously a lot more money, and out of your range. The EOS 50 (E) has a useful low-light AF assist beam, and probably represents the best choice for that kind of money.

-- Isaac Sibson (isibson@hotmail.com), May 02, 2002.

David, As a supplement to my 50E and EOS 5 I bought a secondhand EOS 600 (630)for Infrared photography (no IR film sensor) and found it such a nice camera I bought a second for general use. They cost me about 100 pounds (160 Euro, 145 USD) each on eBay in the UK. They are very solid and perform brilliantly. Compared with the 5 and 50E the only real difference is the single focus sensor but in practice its no problem.

Regards, Derek

-- Derek Linney (dlinney@aol.com), May 02, 2002.

I think Derek is right on the money, Ive owned the 630 as my backup camera for about 12 years, and I can tell ya, this camera can take a beating. Ive probably put about 2,000 rolls of film through it, dropped it a few times, and only my EOS 1n has required service not the 630, this is a very good(slightly primitive) camera. Go get one. JC

-- joe cap (joemocap@yahoo.com), May 02, 2002.