Tina wrote:Yesterday we went up to London and visited the new Park Cameras outlet just off Oxford Street. Not as good as Burgess Hill and I wasn't convinced the assistant we spoke to was as experienced as I needed at that time.
That was my experience as well went I went up there just before Xmas. Friendly staff who tried to be helpful, but unknowledgable. I could not help but make a less than favourable comparison with Jessops. I do not know how much training was given beforehand, but it clearly was not sufficient. There are a lot of other camera stores in the area, so they could end up struggling.
As an alternative to buying a lens for your current camera, another option could be the Panasonic G5 with the 45 - 200 lens, which can be bought for under £500. The m4/3 system has a 2x crop factor, so the lens is equivalent to 90 - 400 on full frame and I have found it to be a reasonable performer. It will be much lighter and smaller than your Canon kit to boot. There is a 100 - 300 lens (200 - 600 equivalent) as well, but it is more expensive and I have not found that it performs very well at focal lengths in excess of 225 or so. It definitely needs some form of support at the long end to get the best out of it as the IS is not very effective at extreme magnifications.
http://www.wilkinson.co.uk/cameras/comp ... -body.html
http://www.wexphotographic.com/buy-pana ... _source=aw
If you want to pop over at some point, I have a Panasonic system you can try out, as well as a Canon 300 f/4 with 1.4 extender, which will give you something of an idea of focal lengths on your camera, as well as the likely bulk and weight.
