my [JOE] blog: the dailies of a portrait & documentary photographer. who doesn't take pictures.

Photography: the Beginning.

Posted by jOe

This post is designed to help those of you looking to buy a camera figure out which one is the best fit for you.  I've divided it up into the the four main issues I hear most people talking about: Megapixels (whatever those are); personal style/vision (not something people talk about too much, but knowing it will save you a lot of money!); what is an SLR; and how much you should pay for all this stuff.

Megapixels

They're not really that important.  There's an industry term for this; it's called hype.  Anything bigger than 6MP will give you a good quality print out.  My advice here it to not let this not be a selling point.  This might lead into the question of why cameras with a crazy amount of megapixels, some in excess of a hundred, exist.  There are reasons, but they will cost you more than your car to find out.  I chose to keep my car, so I can't tell you.

I will have another post coming soon which is a continuation of this aimed at intermediate photographers who have been shooting for a while.  In this coming post I'll discuss some advantages and disadvantages of megapixel count.

Your Photography Style (or Vision)

This is the only part of this review that is not technical, and, as a result, not something I can directly advise you on; however, I mention it because knowing your style (or vision, that is, end objective) will better help you understand what camera best fits your needs.  First you need to define what you want to shoot: people (portraits/events), nature (flora/fauna), or landscapes. There are others, but these cover the basics.  Next, you'll need to explore how you want to shoot: hobbyist (just for fun, whenever), journalistic, documentary, commercial (ie: a product), or editorial (think: magazine).

If all this is starting to make your head hurt, that means you're doing it right.  But if you're not ready to tediously define all these aspects of your photographic soul, that's okay, too.  Just take pictures of what you like.  That's usually a big indication of where you fit in.

By finding your vision, you'll know what kind of gear you need.  For instance, if you shoot documentary-street photography, you won't need to buy one of those $20,000 rigs that a sports shooter uses.  Not only will it be cumbersome and leave you with one less kidney, but anyone you try to photograph will see you coming a mile away.  Maybe two.  I'm not sure.

To SLR or not to SLR

SLR or DSLR stands for [Digital] Single Lens Reflex.  In other words, that's the one where the lens comes off.  Here's how an SLR (or DSLR) works.  You look through the viewfinder (or in LiveView mode, the LCD on the back) which, with the help of a mirror, shows you exactly what the lens sees.  When you take a picture, the mirror flies up, the shutters opens and closes, and the mirror falls back down, all in a fraction of a second.  The mirror is what gives an SLR it's cool sound.  This is what originally made me want to become a photographer.

Not kidding.

So why do you need an SLR when a point-and-shoot can fit in your pocket and cost, at most, half of an entry level SLR?  In short, because they're fast and sharp.

In 2 seconds flat you can power-on, focus, and take 3 pictures with an entry level SLR where a point-and-shoot would still be showing you the welcome screen while it automatically starts extending and retracting it's built-in lens (why do they always do that?).  That might seem like overkill, but if you have kids or like to photograph nature or sports, it's just about a necessity to catch those perfect moments.

The "fast" I mentioned comes into play with the lens.  If you look look at the end of the lens on your point-and-shoot or SLR, you'll see something that looks like 1:3.5-5.6 or 1:2.8.  Without getting technical the closer the second number in the ratio is to 1, the more light the lens lets in.  The more light mean the faster shutter speed.  Hence, faster.

But why does the lens need to come off?  The reason for this is because there are many different options when it comes to lenses: telephoto (narrow, close field of view; often isolates your subject from the background and surrounding elements), wide-angle (alternate to a telephoto; shows a very wide field of view), zoom (able to change the focal length), and prime (fixed focal length: the type of zoom you operate with your feet.  aka: walking.).  Nature and candid photographers (and often portrait photographers) use telephoto (zoom or prime) lenses.  Journalists tend to use wide-angle lenses to capture many aspects in one picture (good for story-telling).  Zooms are moderately fast, but save you the trouble of having to move to get the shot.  Primes have fixed focal lengths (always the same field of view), and tend to be much faster and sharper than zooms.  If you find yourself taking pictures inside where the light is low but don't want to use a flash, primes are a good option.  Those huge-mongus lenses you see sports photographers using are also (telephoto) primes.

"Faster" also refers to focusing.  SLRs do it faster.

Price

"You paid what?!"  In the end, you get what you pay for.  But before you pay for what you get, you need to know what you're really getting.  What.  yeah.  Keep reading.

When shopping for a camera, you'll get the best deal when you do the 3 following things:

•  Know your style.  A salesman can't talk you into something you know isn't for you.  Don't be afraid to look around--especially in today's economy, nothing is flying off of anyone's shelves.

•  Make sure the camera feels comfortable in your hands.  If it doesn't you probably won't use it.

•  Taking pictures is about making memories.  If you feel offloading an obscene amount of cash makes a difference (you know, where you give yourself the "good investment" speech), there are better charities than camera stores and credit cards that can help you here.

I posted about them a few days ago.

Happy New Years Eve!