People ask me all the time which type of camera is best. Honestly, there's a lot of truth to the saying, "the best camera is the camera you have with you." Short of carrying a camera around at all times, odds are when you see something that just begs to be captured, you don't have your camera. This is why I adore the camera built into my iPhone. I always have it with me. It doesn't take the most fabulous photos of all time, but the resolution is good enough that if I post the image to the web, you can tell what it is that I have photographed, which is more than most older cell phone cameras could manage. That technology is just going to keep getting better.
"What camera should I buy?" You can Google that question and find all kinds of answers. You can ask your friends and family what kind of cameras they use and what they like and don't like about them. You can ask someone like me. I can give you pretty decent advice, since I've been a photographer for many years. I also worked part time at a camera store for a while. When I worked there, I had access to all the different brands and got to play with them. That was great education, and watching our customer's reactions to the different brands, and listening to what they wanted in a camera. Teaching classes gives me great access to the different models, too.
Currently, my main camera is a Nikon D300S. The lens I use with it is a Nikon 18-200 VR. It's a fabulous camera. It's the nicest camera I've ever owned, and it took me many years in the field to get to the point to where I could afford such a camera. However, even though I love this camera, it is not the camera for everyone, and as I found out hiking in the mountains last week, it's not really the camera for me all the time. It's heavy, for one. It's a great camera for studio shooting, for events and general walkabout, but for hiking four miles into the mountains, it's too much. For that instance, it's also too nice. It was hot when I was hiking, and I was sweating like you know what. I was reluctant to put my sweaty face and my sweaty fingers on my nice camera to get a shot. I was also preoccupied with getting from point A to B, and by the time I got to the top of the mountain to take a photo of the view, I was all out of breath from exertion and also breathless with how beautiful it was. I was so overcome, in fact, that I neglected to check my camera's settings as I snapped away in the bright, mountaintop summer light. I had my ISO set to 1600. Ooops. (1600 is what you want the ISO on when shooting in dim light)
So. There is such a thing as too much camera. If all you want is a good camera to take snapshots, you do not need a camera like my D300S.
When buying a camera, I would suggest asking yourself these questions:
- What is your budget?
- What are you primarily going to be photographing?
- How much camera do you want to carry around?
- What are you going to do with the photos you take? (Put them on the web, print them, make posters, etc...)
- How durable do you need the camera to be?
I'd say budget is probably the most important thing to consider, followed by what you want to photograph. Most point and shoot cameras can capture anything the casual shutterbug desires, but there are several situations where only an SLR will work well. Those situations are primarily for stopping action, photographing in low light, and if you want to make large prints.
Image quality is always going to be better with SLRs, but not everyone wants that much camera, or wants to learn the nitty gritty information about settings on cameras. Ask yourself just how much do you want to learn about photography. Do you just want to get good shots, or do you really want to know how the camera captures the image and how to manipulate that to your advantage?
Also ask yourself how much time you want to spend learning it. Everyone is busy, and photography can be a time consuming (and expensive) hobby. But if you really love photography, then jumping into it with both feet might make you really happy. Once of the best things about being a teacher is seeing people really enjoy photography, and learning more about it and pushing themselves to be creative. Everyone can use a dose of creativity in their lives, and we all have it in us.
So I identified my main camera, but it's not the only camera I have. If you've bought a digital camera in recent years, you'll know that they become outdated almost as soon as you get them, like computers. And just like old computers, once they are outdated, their value decreases at a heartbreaking rate. Because of this, when I bought my current camera, I didn't even bother selling the SLR I had before the D300s, the Nikon D70. I figured I'd use it as a backup. I haven't done that so much, because the image quality of the D300s is better than the D70, but I have used the D70 for workshops I teach kids. I let them use the D70, and they love it. I would feel more comfortable hiking up a mountain with it as well, because if I dropped it or got it all sweaty, it wouldn't be as big of a deal. I urge you to hang on to your old cameras when you upgrade, and let your kids use them, or take them to the park or on the boat. Might as well get as much life out of old cameras as you can.
I also have a Canon Powershot SD600. For little bitty pocket cameras, Canon makes some of the best. They are very lightweight, and small enough to fit in your pocket or purse. I used to use it a whole bunch for snapshot type photos, saving my SLRs for professional or fine art work, but now that I have my iPhone, its camera has kind of replaced my Powershot. The iPhone camera isn't as good as the Powershot, but it's not bad, and with the iPhone, I can take a photo and immediately share it on the web, which is a fun thing to do.
Again, it's all about what you want to do with your photos, and what you want to carry, how much you want to spend, etc....
Personally, I like Nikon and Canon best of all the brands. They consistently make a quality product, have been in the business for years, and because they are in competition with one another, each brand always has something new and interesting to offer. You really can't go wrong with either brand, in an SLR or a point and shoot. There are other brands out there, and some of them are pretty decent, but I'm always going to recommend Nikon and Canon first. There are many different models to choose from with both brands, but these days, any of their cameras are going to take a good picture. What you do with the photo afterward is up to you.The possibilities are endless!
