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Cameras for beginners
- Thread starter Samtb
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My first venture into digital photography was with a waterproof to 5 metres, shockproof to 1.5 metre drop, Olympus TG 310, which I picked up for about $150 at an end of line clearance. Compact and auto everything, with quite a bit of manual override available, I could do quite a bit with it. It got me back into photography after a decade and a half hiatus, was capable of taking OK shots within its limitations, a good learning tool, and I discovered from it what features would be important to me in my next camera.
Just get something you can have some fun with for a beginner camera. Once you know what you want to do with a camera, then move on to something which matches your needs.
Thanks for the thread, (I'm a beginner) After a few days researcher, I concluded that the A6100 or any Nikon beginner camera over the m50 for photos. Mainly, I feel a bit more about Sony A6100! Im thinking about getting it for my 1st camera. Still not sure tho, but I think I will go for it.
Either brand is excellent! One thing which is important is how a camera feels in your hands, and if all the dials and buttons and such are positioned comfortably and feel natural to you. Another thing which is important, although probably not right away to a beginner, is the lineup and availability of lenses, as many people will want to expand beyond their first lens, especially if it is a kit lens bundled with the camera, which is often the case.
Enjoy whatever you get!
Enjoy whatever you get!
It's pretty hard to take a selfie with a DSLR. Other than that......................
If the need ever arrises for me to take one I'll let you know!
I thought they were for slow shutter speeds!I'm always happier behind a camera, not in front of it!
To me, this is purely situational. Smartphones are certainly growing in capability and can cover a wider range of situations than ever before, and these days that covers many people’s general needs. Such “showdowns” where the smartphones hold up well or “win” are for those situations where the smartphone can do some of its best work. There are places where ILCs still excel, but, more than anything, the reason I own one is because I want to be more connected to the machine that does the work. I want different lenses for different situations, I want to have fun and experiment with various focal lengths. I liken it to driving a car with a manual transmission—you have to do more work, but you can get the most out of the machine and you are more connected to what the machine is doing.
Anything can look good with processing. This is what a camera phone is doing. Automatically processing the image.
It's pretty simple physics that the tiny sensor in an iPhone(as good as it is) becomes unacceptably noisy at much lower sensitivity levels than a bit sensor. Even a crop sensor(~16x24mm) has a lot more area and consequently larger photosites better able to gather photons than a small smartphone camera. A full frame(24x36mm) sensor is typically even better, although there full frame sensors with about the same pixel density as crop sensors(i.e. the 45mp sensor in the Nikon D850, when used in DX Crop Mode, has about the same resolution of 20mp as the D500 crop sensor). Any of those are still better than an iPhone that packs 12mp onto a ~4x6mm sensor(rounded numbers).
Also, depth of field control is important. Sometimes you want a lot, and sometimes you want a little. iPhones use such short real focal lengths and small sensors that their depth of field tends to be very deep. As you move to larger sensors, for a given aperture and field of view, you will have a lot less depth of field. This can be desirable for many situations, and you can get even more control over it by using a tilt/shift lens.
Despite my best efforts, I can't get my iPhone to sync with my studio strobes. That's a big deal for a good portion of the photography I do. Photography, fundamentally, is all about light and having ultimate control over it(as you do with strobes) can be important for certain types of photography.
It's important to remember in all of this that the most important component is the guy controlling the camera. I'm active in antique watch collecting, and a lot of guys like to throw money at cameras thinking they'll automatically get incredible photos of their watches. I know one guy who has a D850 and a 105mm f/2.8 Micro, something not at all lacking in capability, and can't manage light something well enough to see the important details. Another guy has a high end Canon(not sure exactly what model) and can't focus to save his life. I see plenty who crank the sharpening slider all the way up and get weird artifacts. Meanwhile, I've seen another guy who earns his living as a full time pro photographer prop a watch up on a windowsill, maybe use a piece of paper as a reflector, and snap a photo with an iPhone that's better than 99% of what you see posted. When he actually gets out his good equipment-and more importantly sets up the lights properly(and he's told me he can spend a half hour playing with the right combination of light for a particular shot) his photos jump off the screen and often let you see something better than if you're looking at it in your hand.
Also, depth of field control is important. Sometimes you want a lot, and sometimes you want a little. iPhones use such short real focal lengths and small sensors that their depth of field tends to be very deep. As you move to larger sensors, for a given aperture and field of view, you will have a lot less depth of field. This can be desirable for many situations, and you can get even more control over it by using a tilt/shift lens.
Despite my best efforts, I can't get my iPhone to sync with my studio strobes. That's a big deal for a good portion of the photography I do. Photography, fundamentally, is all about light and having ultimate control over it(as you do with strobes) can be important for certain types of photography.
It's important to remember in all of this that the most important component is the guy controlling the camera. I'm active in antique watch collecting, and a lot of guys like to throw money at cameras thinking they'll automatically get incredible photos of their watches. I know one guy who has a D850 and a 105mm f/2.8 Micro, something not at all lacking in capability, and can't manage light something well enough to see the important details. Another guy has a high end Canon(not sure exactly what model) and can't focus to save his life. I see plenty who crank the sharpening slider all the way up and get weird artifacts. Meanwhile, I've seen another guy who earns his living as a full time pro photographer prop a watch up on a windowsill, maybe use a piece of paper as a reflector, and snap a photo with an iPhone that's better than 99% of what you see posted. When he actually gets out his good equipment-and more importantly sets up the lights properly(and he's told me he can spend a half hour playing with the right combination of light for a particular shot) his photos jump off the screen and often let you see something better than if you're looking at it in your hand.
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The problem of getting the camera to focus precisely upon the subject rears its ugly head.
Partly it depends on what “some review sites” define as “quality“. It also depends on what camera or cameras they were comparing it to. In the right lighting and with certain types of subjects in specific focal ranges, you can get great image quality on iPhones for a given definition of “image quality”. Pretty amazing stuff, actually, for people who know what they’re doing (not me ? - all thumbs on my phone). What that definition is would be important to know, of course, in order to answer your question. I also think it’s useful to phrase the comparison strictly in terms of sensor size and not whether something is a smartphone or a mirrorless/DSLR. They’re all image capture devices.
Like larger sensor cameras, image quality on phones is driven by sensor size, sensor quality, pixel quality, number of pixels, quality of optics and algorithmic smarts, among other things. Lots and lots of the algorithmic smarts in the case of phones because of the physics of smaller sensors and smaller photosites. The algorithms in the imaging chain have to work with noisy image data and build nice images from those data. That’s why when someone says an iPhone or other camera phone can “beat” a camera (of any sort) with a larger sensor, those situations tend to be in a more narrow range than with larger sensor cameras. Larger sensors give more flexibility in a wider range of scenarios because they offer a better chance of starting off the imaging chain with higher quality data to work with.
So it really depends on how and in what kinds of situations you want to shoot, what sort of flexibility you want to have and what your personal presences are. Lots of great image capture devices out there
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The current Canon RF mount...
Canon blundered by making two incompatible mounts for Full Frame and APS-C Mirrorless instead of making one mount (EF and EF-S) for both like on their dSLR's...
OP:
If you're considering Canon, I'd recommend two possible routes:
The DSLR line.
Perhaps something like the Rebel SL3, one of their smallest DSLR's.
It can use EFs (APS-c) and EF lenses.
I have a 77d (still sold), and it's a fine DSLR.
The mirrorless "R" line.
The "way of the future" for cameras is "mirrorless".
The EOS RP is a compact FULL FRAME camera with an excellent sensor at a very reasonable price. You might even find the best deal at Canon's own refurbished site. I've bought some lenses there, they were like brand-new.
If you're considering Canon, I'd recommend two possible routes:
The DSLR line.
Perhaps something like the Rebel SL3, one of their smallest DSLR's.
It can use EFs (APS-c) and EF lenses.
I have a 77d (still sold), and it's a fine DSLR.
The mirrorless "R" line.
The "way of the future" for cameras is "mirrorless".
The EOS RP is a compact FULL FRAME camera with an excellent sensor at a very reasonable price. You might even find the best deal at Canon's own refurbished site. I've bought some lenses there, they were like brand-new.
Maybe this isn't the best suggestion but imo this is what I think is the best to start.
Canon 6D Mark 1, its weather sealed to an extent and that ceter AF is amazing, and tbf the camera now is pretty cheap. Full Frame with higher ISOs still crisp (not as high as Sony Mirrorless) its what made me the successful photog I am now.
Canon 6D Mark 1, its weather sealed to an extent and that ceter AF is amazing, and tbf the camera now is pretty cheap. Full Frame with higher ISOs still crisp (not as high as Sony Mirrorless) its what made me the successful photog I am now.