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Photography, photos you took, photos you are in, photos you like, the lot!

Started by Tank, June 07, 2011, 07:46:01 PM

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Tank

Quote from: roy1967 on July 20, 2011, 09:17:05 PM
Is buying a higher quality camera used generally a good idea?  How does a rank novice such as myself keep from getting taken?

Roy
Buy a known brand Canon, Nikon and possibly Sony (which I own). If you like small cameras then Olympus and Pentax are also good. Canon and Nikon have never really made a bad camera (in a given price range). In the compact arena you can add Fuji, Lumix, Panasonic and Olympus.

The thing is what sort of photos do you want to take and what do you want to do with them? If you said Architecture and professional prints you'll get a different answer than if you want to do Wildlife for a website.

Photographic equipment is one of those areas where performance is proportional to cost.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

roy1967

Can you get the different types of photos (architecture, wildlife, etc.) With the same camera but different attachments such as lenses? I would be a complete newb, so I am starting at the beginning. Or would I need multiple cameras?
The school is the last expenditure upon which America should be willing to economize.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

OldGit

If you go for an SLR (= big black camera) plus extra lenses, you are going way up into the thousands of dollars range.
As Tank says, many modern compacts give excellent results, but there is one big snag - very few have viewfinders, you have to use the screen.  This becomes unusable in bright sunlight and you can't see what you're doing.
One solution is to go for a "bridge camera", kind of half-and-half.  Big-ish and black, but no SLR mirror mechanism and a fixed lens.
The old Fuji S6500 and S9600 were absolutely superb.  The zoom is by twisting a ring on the lens, like an SLR, which makes for instant action.  They have an LCD viewfinder which is very nearly as good as the SLR version and they take normal AA batteries.  I still have one of each and use them all the time.
They still go for reasonable prices on e-bay.

Tank

Quote from: roy1967 on July 20, 2011, 10:47:08 PM
Can you get the different types of photos (architecture, wildlife, etc.) With the same camera but different attachments such as lenses? I would be a complete newb, so I am starting at the beginning. Or would I need multiple cameras?

There are basically two types of cameras, those that have a fixed lens and those that have a range of lenses. Fixed lens cameras start from $60 and go up to $600+. Camera 'systems' (Canon, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax, Sony) with interchangeable lenses start at $550 for a basic Canon body/lens combination and can get to $40,000 for some body/lens combinations and 80% of that cost will be in a honking great lens.

The main functional difference (in pre-digital days) between fixed lens and system cameras was the ability to accurately see what you were going to photograph. Fixed lens cameras had a separate view finder to the lens, system cameras let you look through the lens that will take the picture so you can see exactly how the picture will be framed. However the advent of the digital camera has blurred this distinction as small digital cameras have a screen on the back that shows the user what the photo will be.

The main difference between fixed lens and system cameras in the digital era is quality of image. Fixed lens cameras usually (there are a few exceptions) have physically smaller sensors with loads of pixels (tiny light sensors), system cameras have physically larger sensors also with loads of pixels. However the system camera pixel will be bigger and produce a higher quality signal than the smaller fixed lens camera.

But, and this is the $64,000 question, what is the cheapest camera that will can take acceptable quality images of the type I want? Your average $100 camera will take perfectly adequate family snap shots that can be printed out on 7"x5" paper. If you want bigger prints of high quality you really need to consider a bottom end system camera. So 'which camera' is entirely dependent on 'what photo'.

Hope this helps.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Tank

Quote from: OldGit on July 21, 2011, 09:32:47 AM
If you go for an SLR (= big black camera) plus extra lenses, you are going way up into the thousands of dollars range.
As Tank says, many modern compacts give excellent results, but there is one big snag - very few have viewfinders, you have to use the screen.  This becomes unusable in bright sunlight and you can't see what you're doing.
One solution is to go for a "bridge camera", kind of half-and-half.  Big-ish and black, but no SLR mirror mechanism and a fixed lens.
The old Fuji S6500 and S9600 were absolutely superb.  The zoom is by twisting a ring on the lens, like an SLR, which makes for instant action.  They have an LCD viewfinder which is very nearly as good as the SLR version and they take normal AA batteries.  I still have one of each and use them all the time.
They still go for reasonable prices on e-bay.
I'd agree with this. The so-called 'bridge camera' is a good compromise if you want reasonable quality with good flexibility and don't want the cost or hassle of interchangeable lenses.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Tank

The descriptions of different camera types on this site is quite good http://www.cameras.co.uk/
Note: They call a 'bridge camera' a 'super zoom'.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

OldGit

Good link, Tank.  The Fuji Finepix HS20EXR  looks good.  Notice it has twist-the-barrel zoom.  Most recent bridge cameras have a zoom lever in front of the shutter, which is slow and clumsy in comparison.  I took a S5200 out the other day, because it fits in a pocket, but that feature seemed really awkward.
The new ones have much higher video resolution, too.
I see the HS20EXR also has a flash shoe, which a beginner may grow into needing later.

Tank

Quote from: OldGit on July 21, 2011, 02:37:16 PM
Good link, Tank.  The Fuji Finepix HS20EXR  looks good.  Notice it has twist-the-barrel zoom.  Most recent bridge cameras have a zoom lever in front of the shutter, which is slow and clumsy in comparison.  I took a S5200 out the other day, because it fits in a pocket, but that feature seemed really awkward.
The new ones have much higher video resolution, too.
I see the HS20EXR also has a flash shoe, which a beginner may grow into needing later.
I agree with you about the Fuji HS20EXR. You'd be hard pressed to find a better combination of quality and features at the price.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Tank

A little comment on pixels.

Marketing a technically complex piece of kit to a technically naive consumer group has resulted in 'Maga Pixel' marketing. One camera is better than another because it has more pixels, this is not true. The pixel issue came about because early digital cameras simply didn't have enough pixels to produce a picture as good as a film based camera. I believe a 35mm frame of good quality film had a nominal digital equivalent resolution of 23 mega pixels.

So how many pixels is enough? Well the base line for viewing an image is the human eye. Now at normal viewing distances (10" to 20") the human eye cannot resolve (tell the difference between) more that 300 dots per inch (dpi). Now a pixel equates to a dot. So let's take a A4 piece of paper (11.7" x 8.3") as this is the common paper size for house hold colour printers. So 11.7 x 300 x 8.3 x 300 = 8,739,900, say 9 million pixels. So any camera with more than 9MP can produce more pixels than one could reasonable print on an A4 piece of paper. How many times will you want to print an image bigger than A4?

This calculation kept me using film until Sony brought out the 'Alpha 100' a 10MP camera that fitted the Minolta lenses I already owned. However if a camera does have more than 9MP it allows flexibility in which part of the image you print. What you can do is 'crop' (only use part of) an image and still have enough pixels to print out to A4. One should also bear in mind that if you only intend to show a picture on a computer screen resolution drops massively, down to 72dpi, so you can waste an awful lot of money buying lots of pixels in your camera which you simply throw away when you display the image on a computer screen.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

McQ

Great information regarding cameras and pixels, what camera is needed for what type of photos, etc. Tank put it in really easy to understand terms.

A site I use sometimes to check reviews of equipment is DP Review. www.dpreview.com

Good reviews, although tricky to navigate.

Elvis didn't do no drugs!
--Penn Jillette

Ihateyoumike

Could I suggest we get a split on this thread... Keep this one with the pictures, and split off the part about all the info about the cameras?
Prayers that need no answer now, cause I'm tired of who I am
You were my greatest mistake, I fell in love with your sin
Your littlest sin.

Tank

Quote from: Ihateyoumike on July 21, 2011, 04:40:56 PM
Could I suggest we get a split on this thread... Keep this one with the pictures, and split off the part about all the info about the cameras?
If somebody has the time and wants to put the effort in that could be a good idea.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

Tank

Quote from: McQ on July 21, 2011, 04:06:53 PM
Great information regarding cameras and pixels, what camera is needed for what type of photos, etc. Tank put it in really easy to understand terms.

A site I use sometimes to check reviews of equipment is DP Review. www.dpreview.com

Good reviews, although tricky to navigate.


Bookmarked that site.
If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.

OldGit

I fully agree with Tank about Megapiglets (as I call them).  Makers are pushing big numbers of Mp as a sales gimmick; it's got out of hand.  With the small sensors in compact cameras, there will inevitably be more noise generated as you divide the same space into more pieces.  (The same is true of big sensors, too, but the signal/noise ratio can still remain acceptable.)
Far more important is the optics, also the sensor.  And for different Mp settings you can usually choose levels of jpeg compression - that makes a big difference, too.

Tank

Quote from: OldGit on July 21, 2011, 05:17:25 PM
I fully agree with Tank about Megapiglets (as I call them).  Makers are pushing big numbers of Mp as a sales gimmick; it's got out of hand.  With the small sensors in compact cameras, there will inevitably be more noise generated as you divide the same space into more pieces.  (The same is true of big sensors, too, but the signal/noise ratio can still remain acceptable.)
Far more important is the optics, also the sensor.  And for different Mp settings you can usually choose levels of jpeg compression - that makes a big difference, too.
This would be a 3 Megapiglet image then?

If religions were TV channels atheism is turning the TV off.
"Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt." ― Richard P. Feynman
'It is said that your life flashes before your eyes just before you die. That is true, it's called Life.' - Terry Pratchett
Remember, your inability to grasp science is not a valid argument against it.