Topic-1:
CHOOSING THE BEST CAMERA!
Whether you want a DSLR or a compact camera or a pocket camera, there are so many models to choose from, at a bewildering range of prices, where do you start? Well, the way I choose any new toy these days is to start at the end. What do you want it to do?
As you are reading this and have actually made it to paragraph two, I think we can assume that you are prepared to learn at least a little. So what do you want to do? Do you want something that you can keep in your pocket at all times so you can snap the kids?
Do you want a camera that will allow you to take pictures in any lighting conditions from any distance (with the right gadget screwed on the front of course)? Is this going to be a hobby or just some quick snaps?
The Learning Curve
I haven't seen any cameras on sale in recent years that do not have a fully automatic 'point and shoot' mode, most will automatically switch on the flash for you when it is needed so you may wonder why we need all the other manual and semi automatic modes and an instruction book to make your head spin.The answer is that, although the camera can produce good exposures most of the time, there are times when, to get the results we want, we have to apply a little know-how and select more appropriate settings than the camera would automatically choose.
Before choosing a camera with lots of knobs and dials it is a good idea to consider whether you are ever going to bother to learn what they are all for. I've been around cameras for many years now, and I'm still learning what all the settings on my latest camera actually do. I never bother to learn how to do something until I need to. So there are certain obscure settings that I have yet to find a use for. Of course it would be nice if we could choose just the buttons we need and have each camera custom made for us but in the real world all we can do is choose the level of control based on how much we think we might want to get involved. Generally speaking an SLR will have more knobs, dials and menus than a compact camera which will give you more control over your pictures but will have a much steeper learning curve.
SLR or Compact?
All the cameras on the market can be categorized into a few simple groups. The most important two groups are fixed lens and interchangeable lens. The fixed lens cameras tend, with a few exceptions, to be smaller, lighter and more pocketable, therefore you are more likely to have it with you when you need it. Well that's the theory anyway but I think we can say that you are more likely to be bothered to take it with you on that outing to the beach or the zoo.However even with today's zoom lenses, which are pretty wonderful, you will often find that you are too far away or too close to get the picture you want so you need to be able to change the lens for a longer telephoto or a wider angle. The other major advantage of these single lens reflex (SLR) cameras is that you are actually looking through the lens instead of a separate viewfinder so what you see is what you get, although this is less of an issue now that we can review our photos on the screen of the digital camera. The down side of these SLR cameras is that you very soon end up with quite a heavy bag of gadgets and are less likely to carry it everywhere with you. However much I yearn for a compact camera for it's handiness I know I would be frustrated by it's shortcomings so for me the choice is SLR every time.
Digital or Film?
Do they still make film cameras? Oh yes they do and I wouldn't mind betting that they continue to do so for many years and I wouldn't mind betting that at some time in the future there will be a retro backlash and a large number of 'serious' photographers will return to the darkroom. Some will probably claim that they have never used digital at all, ever.You might think from the remarks above that I am a diehard supporter of film. Nothing could be further from the truth actually, I am now fully converted to digital and loving it. I am going to make the pros and cons a separate discussion that will be posted soon but, for now, I'll just say that I am completely sold on digital and do not feel that I have lost anything significant by changing.
Which brand?
This, of course, is the big question that you really want an answer to and you know that nobody is going to give you one. If you ask anyone who already has a camera most will support the brand of the camera they have unless they have had some trouble with it, even then people are very forgiving. I think the reason for this is that people think that, if they have made the wrong choice it is because they have somehow failed, and they are not going to admit their failure.
Back in the 1980s I had a camera shop in England and at the time a lot of people, who already owned an SLR, were buying compact cameras 'for the wife'. They would ask me which brand was the best and, if I didn't already know, I would discreetly try to find out which brand of SLR they owned, then I would recommend the same brand of compact camera.
Trying to sell them another brand was like telling them they had made a wrong choice when buying their old camera and was likely to lose me a sale. So I'd better have a really good reason for not recommending the Canon, Olympus, Nikon, Pentax or whatever and I didn't have one. All of the well known brands produce similar cameras at similar prices and, by and large, you get what you pay for.
I will stick my neck out a little bit here and say that in my humble opinion the manufacturers who make the best film cameras the Japanese Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Pentax, Minolta and the German Contax and Leica seem to make the best digital cameras.
I would not be too happy to put my trust in brands whose traditional expertise is in other fields when there are such good cameras available from the traditional sources. I will probably get a lot of hate mail from people who have bought Sony cameras or Hewlett Packard and are perfectly happy with them.
If I wanted a printer Hewlett Packard would be top of my list and I am a huge fan of Sony video and TV equipment but my first choice for a digital SLR would be one of the names mentioned above. Right now in 2012 Olympus have fallen on hard times but we’ll see what happens there.
How Many Pixels?
Until recently the quality of a digital camera was measured by how many pixels it boasted. Now we have cameras with tens of millions of them and it has ceased to be the most important test of quality. In the real world the number of pixels you need depends on how big you want to print your pictures. If you mainly want postcard size or A5 then I would consider 6 to 10 million pixels to be perfectly adequate. Even at A4 size I would be hard pushed to tell the difference between my 10 million pixel camera and my 18 million pixel camera. Don’t forget though that your framing in the camera may not always be perfect so you may be enlarging only a portion of the image. Top of the range camera sensors seem to have settled down now (in 2012) at around the 16 to 20 million pixel mark, and maybe we finally have enough of them. The main difference between a pro camera and an amateur camera is that the sensor is bigger and therefore each pixel is bigger but there are roughly the same number of them, the bigger pixels certainly do seem to produce better quality, smoother pictures.I find the main advantage of having more pixels is being able to shoot at faster ISO settings and still get decent definition. This really helps to freeze the action in sports photography and other kinds of fast moving subjects. You get better definition at all ISO settings of course but, be warned, you need a good quality lens to really see the difference.
However we do sometimes seem to get too hung up on image quality, a fellow photographer once observed that photographers tend to smell pictures rather than look at them, by which he meant that they were more interested in the graininess and sharpness of the print than the actual content of the image itself.
Topic-2:
CHOOSING LENSES FOR YOUR DSLR!
The next big decision, if you have chosen a DSLR camera, is which
lenses to choose. There are loads to choose from, they literally come in
all shapes an sizes, and indeed prices. So what do you need to know
before you choose?Prime Lens or Zoom?
A prime lens has a fixed focal length, and a zoom lens lets you . . . err . . . zoom in and out, in other words it has a variable focal length. This makes the zoom lens more useful as one lens may do the job of two or three prime lenses. There is always a trade off of course and, in this case, it is that the prime lenses are normally better quality. Although, having said that, modern zoom lenses are certainly good enough for most purposes and are the weapon of choice for most photographers. I have only one prime lens in my collection, which is a rather specialist macro lens, the other three are all zooms.Focal Length
Focal length determines the angle of view of the lens, a wide angle lens will include more of the scene giving the illusion that you are further away from the subject, whereas a telephoto lens will pick out a smaller area and make you seem closer to the subject than you really are, like a telescope. The focal length that matches what we normally see is called the ‘standard lens’. The exact number of the focal length of this lens varies according to the size of sensor or film you are using. On the old 35mm film cameras the number was easy - 50mm - but, as most amateur and ‘prosumer’ cameras use an APS-C size sensor, which is smaller, the standard lens has a focal length of 31mm. So, if you have an APS-C size sensor (and most DSLRs on the market, except the very expensive ones, do), then any lens with a focal length below 31mm is a wide angle lens and any lens longer than 31mm is a telephoto.What focal lengths do you need?
Normally the camera is sold with an 18-55mm lens, which is called a mid range zoom. A mid range zoom is the most useful lens you’ll ever buy for general photography. I find it’s the lens I use for 80 to 90% of all my shots. There are times, however, when you just can’t get close enough to the action and you need a telephoto zoom to bring the action closer to you. These come in all sizes but I would advise going for something around 55-200mm. A 200mm zoom brings most subjects in nice and close, going longer than this, as you would need to for, say, bird photography, means either accepting a drop in image quality or shelling out big bucks for a very specialist piece of kit. I used to have a 70-300mm lens which was pretty good but I could never really get a sharp result over 200mm, so when I replaced it, I went for a 70-200mm lens.There are also times when you are in a confined space and need a wider angle than you can get with your mid range zoom, then you need a wide angle lens. I have a wide angle zoom in my bag that goes from 10mm to 22mm but I have to be very careful with it, the distortion, especially at the edges of the frame can be dreadful at full wide angle. So to be quite honest it doesn’t get a lot of use. One thing it is very good for is shooting interiors of appartments or houses, it makes the rooms look very big.
Apertures
When you look at the specifications of a lens, after the focal length, you will see a number like f4 or f2.8. This is the maximum aperture of the lens and is very important. In the case of a zoom lens there may be a range of apertures, f4 - f5.6 for instance, this is because with some zooms, especially the cheaper ones, the maximum aperture is different at different focal lengths.The larger the maximum aperture of the lens, which means the smaller the f-number (see apertures for an explanation), the more expensive the lens will be. This is because the lens will need a lot more precision ground glass and is more difficult to make.
The advantage to the photographer of a larger maximum aperture is that the lens will let in more light when the aperture is fully open, enabling you to shoot pictures in more demanding circumstances, in a low light situation or when using faster shutter speeds to capture action. Also, and just as important, the large maximum aperture allows you to limit the depth of field and throw the background of your photo out of focus. All of which you can learn about in other tutorials. So when you look at a price list of lenses and see that a 70-200mm f2.8 is considerably more expensive than a 70-200mm f4 lens, there is a good reason for it and a good reason to buy the more expensive one if your budget allows.
Coverage
One thing that can be a bit confusing is the issue of coverage of the sensor. In the old film days all SLR cameras were 35mm, that is the picture size was 36mm x 24mm, and all the lenses were made to cover this area. The large or ‘full size’ sensors on digital cameras are still this size but the APS-C cameras, which includes most of the cameras that us mere mortals can afford are, as discussed earlier, smaller. So the lenses that are specifically made for the smaller cameras can also be smaller and therefore cheaper. The problem is that all the top quality lenses are made to cover the full frame sensors, so the difference in price is even more than it might be otherwise. However, unlike camera bodies which need to be updated or replaced every now and then, a good lens will last a lifetime (at least I’m hoping they will). So, if you have aspirations of owning a full frame camera one day, it’s worth forking out for a lens that will cover the format.Personally I am always living in hope that the price of the full frame camera bodies will drop to a more affordable level, they have done in the past few years but not quite enough to tempt me yet. When they do I am ready with two extremely good zoom lenses that will fit right on the front.
Image Stablizer
The latest must have extra on lenses is an imager stablizer. Lots of lenses now offer this option for extra money. I’m afraid, when I bought my lenses, I couldn’t bring myself to pay all that extra money; sometimes double the price. If I need an image stablizer, I get out my tripod.What to Buy
So, buy the best quality lenses you can afford, get a large aperture if you can and try to get a zoom that has the same aperture all the way through the zoom range.Personally I would steer clear of the all-in-one mega zooms that have focal lengths from 18mm to 300mm or so. There is something to be said for not having to keep changing lenses especially when you are out and about on a windy day, but the trade off for such convenience is usually a drop in quality and a smaller maximum aperture, you would be better off with two zooms to cover the same range. Having said that, others will tell you that they are very happy with such a lens.
A good lens should last you a lifetime if you treat it well, so they are a good investment. With so many millions of pixels on the sensors of modern cameras, that end of the camera is no longer a real issue as far as quality is concerned. What makes the difference between a so-so shot and a really crisp rendition of the subject, apart from your technique of course, is a really good piece of glass on the front of the camera.
Lastly I must say that, if you can’t run to the super lenses just yet, you will still get pretty good results from the ‘kit lenses’ that are included with the camera, so don’t despair if you can’t shell out thousands to start with, just get started with whatever you can afford.
No comments:
Post a Comment