Camera discussion

[made_in_canada]

It runs on AA batteries as well. Means they die even faster than your standard Li-Ion.

I don't actually see that as a negative. On a trip to Europe we were out all day and I was taking a lot of pictures and it was really nice to just be able to run into a corner store to get batteries when the ones in my camera died.

I'm pretty sure that Santa is bringing me a Canon Rebel for Christmas! I've been using one of the fancier Canon powershot cameras for awhile now and it's definitely time to upgrade. On a trip to Newfoundland this summer I was getting frustrated with its limitations and then my future mil let me play with her DSLR Any suggestions for good books to help me get the most out of it?

 

[Jay42]

I'm sorry I don't know of any really. I've never used one. Definitely make sure you read the manual. I usually Google for articles when I'm looking for more information. It's how I figured out how to shoot the moon, stars and fireworks. Now I just need better lenses to use the knowledge properly . Canon's have a lot of settings under several menus, so make sure you figure out where they are so you can find them quickly. Most of the basics are fairly easy to find and I'm pretty sure the newer Canon's have touch screens which make finding things easier. I know I should know for sure but I just sold a DSLR today for the first time in 2 months so I'm not as up on the full specs as I should be. I've been spending a lot of time sellings TV's and helping people order pictures/giving them their pictures. Makes it hard to get to the camera counter I'm afraid.

I did do a quick Google search just to see if I could find anything good and I came across the book Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson that looks like it would be good. It's not specific to any one camera but it looks like it has a lot of really good information in it. I'm tempted to check out his book Understanding Close-Up Photography. Macro is by far one of my favourite ways to shoot.

Because it's relevant to this thread, here is a photography joke my brother found on Reddit.

 

[Reuven]

I did do a quick Google search just to see if I could find anything good and I came across the book Understanding Exposure by Bryan Peterson that looks like it would be good.

Considered to be one of the best books on photography out there. I'm in several Nikon on-line groups and Peterson's book is always recommended to aspiring photographers.

 

[Deleted member 221]

Bumping this.

Earlier this year, I decided I needed something more than an iPhone camera for all my travels, and I bought a Canon PowerShot SX710 (30x zoom, 20 megapixels, etc.), which was one of the recommended "bridge" cameras with excellent reviews. I'm not sure if it's me or the camera, but I haven't found the pictures to be that much better than the iPhone except when I'm zoomed. If anything, the pictures require more editing, especially in low light. Night time photos (using the night setting) are better than the iPhone, but still not great. I find pretty consistently that the color seems slightly off in almost all lighting conditions.

With holiday sales, DSLRs are really cheap right now. In particular, I'm looking at the Nikon D3300, which is supposed to be user-friendly for new DSLR users and isn't very heavy. Do the experts here think I'm likely to get better photos out of that than the Canon I have? Is going from a $350 (retail) "bridge" camera to a $750 (retail, on sale for about $400) DSLR bundle enough of a jump to see a difference, or would I need to go up in price to see something substantially better?

I'm perfectly willing to accept that the problem is me . If using more of the (limited) manual controls on my Canon will get me better pictures, I'm willing to give it a try. I'll read a book or even take a course.

Thoughts / ideas appreciated!

 

[millyskate]

Bumping this.

Earlier this year, I decided I needed something more than an iPhone camera for all my travels, and I bought a Canon PowerShot SX710 (30x zoom, 20 megapixels, etc.), which was one of the recommended "bridge" cameras with excellent reviews. I'm not sure if it's me or the camera, but I haven't found the pictures to be that much better than the iPhone except when I'm zoomed. If anything, the pictures require more editing, especially in low light. Night time photos (using the night setting) are better than the iPhone, but still not great. I find pretty consistently that the color seems slightly off in almost all lighting conditions.

With holiday sales, DSLRs are really cheap right now. In particular, I'm looking at the Nikon D3300, which is supposed to be user-friendly for new DSLR users and isn't very heavy. Do the experts here think I'm likely to get better photos out of that than the Canon I have? Is going from a $350 (retail) "bridge" camera to a $750 (retail, on sale for about $400) DSLR bundle enough of a jump to see a difference, or would I need to go up in price to see something substantially better?

I'm perfectly willing to accept that the problem is me . If using more of the (limited) manual controls on my Canon will get me better pictures, I'm willing to give it a try. I'll read a book or even take a course.

Thoughts / ideas appreciated!

Louis, I believe phone cameras have a lot of post-processing done automatically. They are geared to users who want instant result. Actual cameras return the JPEG with little automatic compensation and let the user adjust to their liking in photoshopt/lightroom. You'll find the files to contain much more info though, and there's much more potential for you to exploit once the picture is downloaded onto your PC.

You'll have this phenomenon amplified even more with a DSLR. It sounds like you're more suited to Nikon since their files are set to appear brighter/more saturated by default. DSLRs are hard work - shooting on automatic won't bring great results and you definitely have to post-process. Depending on the lighting conditions, your files will not come out consumer friendly and they're not designed to.

 

[Jay42]

You can shoot in Program though, it gives you a bit more control over some of the settings. You don't have to worry about shutter speed or aperture but you can set the ISO and white balance plus you get more control over the exposure compensation (or exposure value) settings. In my experience a DSLR is better for night photos because the ISO goes higher. You have to watch how noisy it gets though. Don't go past 1600 at the most on a D3300. It's still noisy but it's not completely intolerably noisy. A point and shoot, even a high level bridge camera can't go that high with the ISO so the DSLR would be better in that aspect.

The thing that can get the hardest to deal with in a DSLR is the lenses. It usually comes with an 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 and sometimes you can get a 2 lens package that includes either the 55-200mm F3.5-5.6 or the 55-300mm F3.5-5.6. None of those lenses are great in low light and none of those zoom as far as the SX710 does. For lower light situations you would want to look for a lens that has a lower F-number. A F2.8 is usually a good start if you go for a prime lens (lens that doesn't zoom). The lenses that would give you an equivalent zoom to the SX710 would end up costing thousands of dollars though. Also an F2.8 zoom lens can get pretty expensive too.

I have a lot of issues with Canon's compact cameras. They never seem to be quite as good as they should be. I've found colour issues with most of the Canon compact cameras that we carry. The only one that really impresses me right now is the SX60 and that sucker is still heaver and doesn't have the best grip. The pictures look great though.

If anyone isn't sure what noise is in a digital camera, here is a Wikipedia article that explains it a bit better than I can.

 

[TheGirlCanSkate]

I have an Olympus DSLR and really liked it. It is close to 10 years old now and I have not brought it out in 2 years- camera phone photos are so much easier. I was a hobbiest. Now I just like photos for memories. My daughter will take my dslr out for nature photography but I doubt her interest will last - it's just too heavy for being in the field.

 

[millyskate]

Another couple of thoughts: with DSLRs, the image quality depends not so much on the camera but on the lens. I'm not familiar with Nikon kit lenses, but to get the sharp quality you expect from shooting with an expensive camera you'll likely need to buy an extra lens. Don't settle for anything less than f 2.8

A big surprise that hits many new DSLR owners is the inability to zoom. Even with what is called a "zoom" lens, your range is limited. Your zoom power will be much, much, much, much greater with your current bridge.

So:
-The DSLR will have better image quality potential. This will only be highlighted if you couple it with a good lens.
-High quality lenses for DSLRs generally have small ranges. The top quality lenses are called "primes" and only shoot one focal length, no zooming in or out at all. For telephoto lenses, prices are incredibly steep and the lenses cumbersome.

In practice this means that:
-With a bridge you can get average quality across a wide range of situations
-You can achieve better quality with your DSLR if you purchase a good lens. However, the tradeoff will be it only does 1 distance.
-If you don't want to compromise on range and purchase a cheap zoom lens to fit your DSLR, your image quality will be no better than with your bridge.

 

[Deleted member 221]

Interesting, thanks for all of the information. I have to turn up the brightness and saturation in almost all of my photos. I thought I was doing something wrong, but it sounds like this is par for the course? I guess I need to re-base my assumptions and plan for more editing time.

 

[Jay42]

Have you played with your exposure value at all? if you bump it up a bit you might not need to spend quite as much time editing. Unless you are where there is snow. White Balance can't compensate for snow very well and it will blow out the highlights on the picture. Then you need to turn the EV down a bit to compensate for it.

 

[millyskate]

Interesting, thanks for all of the information. I have to turn up the brightness and saturation in almost all of my photos. I thought I was doing something wrong, but it sounds like this is par for the course? I guess I need to re-base my assumptions and plan for more editing time.

The digital files that come out are a bit like negatives, they need to be processed. The idea is that a good photographer "shouldn't need photoshop" is completely rubbish! There are certain lighting conditions that return the optimal result straight away, but those are few and far between and it's not something you can control.

I'm a serious photographer and I adjust curves, brightness & contrast on nearly all of my files. If a group of pictures has been taken in identical light conditions, you can batch process them.

 

[Reuven]

To piggyback on milly, DSLRs allow you to shoot in RAW formats where everything the sensor see is recorded. This gives you much more latitude in post-processing. Not sure how serious you want to get, @Louis, but Maybe a look at the D5500 might be worth a look, too. Actually Nikon's kit lenses aren't too bad, but overall, if you're going to get serious, invest in glass, that is lenses for full frame, which will work on cropped sensors, but are better quality than lenses for cropped sensor lenses. Yeah, I know, it's getting complicated.

 

[sk8pics]

@Louis It all depends what kind of photography you want to do. I have a Nikon D70 DSLR, which is old but still works great. I have a good 80-200mm/2.8 Nikor lens that is very fast and good in low light. I did a lot of good figure skating photography with it. I still use it when I want to shoot sports and I'm not too far away. It is heavy, because of the optics. I also have a lighter 300mm zoom that is, I think, f4 or so. It is not nearly as good quality but I can use it at a longer distance for some sports action. It actually does great on thoroughbred racing in the sun. Because it's a DSLR, there's no delay, and of course it shoots many frames a second. So, if you don't want any delay, you need a DSLR.

I also have a Nikon Coolpix P600 (I think that's the model; it has a 60x zoom) that I use for birding. The zoom is way better than my good lenses, and it has a birdwatching mode that I have been using pretty successfully. It is very hard to shoot by hand zoomed in so far, though. But I am getting better at it. The delay really annoys me at times, but the cost of a 400 mm lens for my D70 is crazy, so I've been making do.

But I think my iPhone6 really does a great job for when I'm sightseeing. The pictures I got on my trip to Israel earlier this year were just as good as what I got with my Nikon D70. In fact, except for one day when I wanted to shoot continuously, I didn't bother bringing the D70 with me out sightseeing.

If you want to see some examples of pictures with each of these, I can send you a link (I think) or if you are on Facebook, I can show them to you that way. Good luck!

 

[Jay42]

To piggyback on milly, DSLRs allow you to shoot in RAW formats where everything the sensor see is recorded. This gives you much more latitude in post-processing. Not sure how serious you want to get, @Louis, but Maybe a look at the D5500 might be worth a look, too. Actually Nikon's kit lenses aren't too bad, but overall, if you're going to get serious, invest in glass, that is lenses for full frame, which will work on cropped sensors, but are better quality than lenses for cropped sensor lenses. Yeah, I know, it's getting complicated.

To piggyback on Reuven's piggyback, some compact class cameras do shoot in RAW as well. The overall image quality doesn't degrade as much with RAW files either. With jpeg because of the compression if you do a lot of editing you will start to lose image quality.

 

[Deleted member 221]

Thanks, you guys have been so helpful! It's all making sense now. I'll try bumping up the exposure in gray places (like London!). I'll stop beating myself up when I have to edit my photos (I did assume good photographers don't need Photoshop!). But I will be mindful of how much the photos deteriorate when edited. I encountered that a few times already. :/ I took a beautiful picture in Vancouver of the clouds reflecting into the bay. It was a gray day, and I was shooting into the sun, so I knew I would have to edit it. But all of the edits are blah. I feel like a better camera and/or a better photographer would have captured this moment, and I'm left with a cool concept shot with poor execution. Maybe shooting in RAW (which my camera can't do) might have saved the picture?

Before I spend a ton of money, I'll see if I can find a friend with a DSLR capable of shooting in RAW. I assume it's not easily possible to rent a camera?

 

[Meredith]

Rental cameras used to be available, but I don't know if they are anymore. If I were to upgrade my DSLR (and I doubt I will), I would look into rentals before I made any decisions.

 

[Jay42]

I haven't seen a DSLR that doesn't shoot in RAW since I started selling cameras in 2012. It's pretty much standard to have available now, even in the entry levels.

Consider Photoshop like a digital darkroom. Ansel Adams used to spend hours in the darkroom to perfect his photos. That being said, editing drives me absolutely insane and I loathe doing it. I think I need to take a Photoshop class and maybe then everything would make sense. I turned a 3 hour editing job into 5 hours because I had to go online every once in a while just to do something different. Editing photos of doors, windows and eaves troughs is insanely boring. Don't worry, I only charged them for the time I actually spent on their pictures. I would never charge for the time I spend needing to decompress my brain.

Even if you can find a camera store that will let you actually play with the camera can be a huge help. We actively encourage our customers to try the cameras out in store. We also have a satisfaction guarantee if they end up not liking the camera for some reason when they get home. I have seen some stuff where you can rent cameras through websites. Maybe try Googling camera rentals and your city? You may find something that way.

 

[orbitz]

You can rent camera bodies online.

You can do a lot with a RAW file to improve your final image without degrading the original file at all. CS's bridge raw processor and CS's layers will be your friend when working with raw.

You still should aim to get a proper exposure when in raw mode and usually aim to get the histogram as far to the right as possible without clipping any important highlight. A severely underexposed raw image will get noticeable digital noise when you try to brighten it up. Of course you can then try to reduce the noise via photo editing SW, but I find the final result is not that great. So get it right in camera .

Even with this discussion about what type of camera one should own, the "best" camera to have is still always the one that you currently have with you , i.e. Your iPhone...I try to keep this mind because my DSLR is not always with me but my phone is.

 

[Reuven]

As you can see @Louis, there's a lot to digital photography. But post processing has always been a must, even back in film days. I used to do B&W developing of my pics. I've been a serious amateur for several decades. I shoot for the fun of creating images and showing them off. I am a tradesman for a living so I don't totally subscribe to the idea that the camera is just a tool, it's the photographer behind the eyepiece that matters. Well, that's partly true, but having quality tools makes for a better product, too. You know you can PM me anytime for information and I'm sure there are others here willing to help as well. Good luck! Enjoy London!

 

[Vash01]

I attended a photography lecture last night and I am inspired to do some serious photography. I am considering a Nikon DSLR 5200. I have never used a DSLR, but I plan on attending a one day workshop to learn the basics. Anyone has any recommendations for a not too expensive DSLR camera? The reviews on amazon.com for this were pretty good, and the price is below $500. That fits my budget.

 

[sk8pics]

Be careful about full frame vs not full frame. A friend of mine got a DSLR camera and it is not full frame, so what you see through the lens is not exactly what you get. I was surprised, because I thought all DSLR cameras were full frame.

 

[millyskate]

Be careful about full frame vs not full frame. A friend of mine got a DSLR camera and it is not full frame, so what you see through the lens is not exactly what you get. I was surprised, because I thought all DSLR cameras were full frame.

The cheap DSLRs will be all cropped frame. The full frame ones are significantly more expensive - cropped frame will be suitable for your needs.
The issue is more about factoring in the price of a good lens - a DSLR with a bad lens will not yield good pictures, no matter how good the camera is. The Nikon people here will know better than me if the kit lens that comes with the 5200 is usable or not. I still have traumatic memories from the kit lens that came with my first DSRL and so I tend to be a bit biased against kit lenses

 

[Jay42]

When you're just getting into photography with a DSLR a crop sensor is usually fine. Full frame cameras start at about $1700 Canadian and that's just the camera body no lens. It's usually a good idea to start with the entry level DSLR to get used to it because the full frame cameras don't have a lot of the settings the DSLR's do. There is a greater emphasis on manual shooting, for example.

The D5200 has a 1.5x crop on lenses so the 18-55mm lens that comes with it becomes effectively a 27-82mm lens. That can actually be quite handy because if you're trying to shoot something at a distance you don't have to try and get as close to the subject to make things show up. The macro still works really well. I've used my 18-55mm lens to shoot macro and I've gotten some great shots.

The 18-55mm lens that comes with the Nikon cameras is a good lens to start out with. It gives you some basic wide angle but the zoom is only equivalent to about a 3x optical zoom in a point and shoot. If you can find a 2 lens package that comes with the 55-200mm or a 55-300mm I do recommend it just because it will give you more versatility in what you can shoot. I have a 55-200mm and it's worked out really well for me. Both lenses are an F3.5-5.6 aperture though so light will be an issue if your shooting too late at night. But the max ISO is 6400 on the d5200, although try not to go that high, from what I've seen 1600 is about the highest you can go before the digital noise starts to get a little overwhelming. Honestly most of the time you won't need to go past 1600 ISO anyway. It has to be pretty dark to warrant that. I'm sorry if I'm getting to technical on the light thing. I know it can be confusing.

As to the camera itself, the Nikon D5200 is still a good camera model, despite being a couple of years old, most of the functions are pretty much the same. The current model, the D5500 has built in Wi-Fi and the EXPEED 4 imagine engine where the D5200 is compatible with the Wu-A1 Wi-Fi adapter and has the EXPEED 3 imaging engine. EXPEED 3 is still good, a lot of cameras still use EXPEED 3 or it's equivalent. The difference in megapixels is negligible (.1 of a megapixel.) The differences between the D5200 to the current D5500 are quite small. Neither Nikon or Canon seem eager to step things up in the entry level DSLR's so not a lot of changes have been made in the last 3 years. The overall image quality is virtually identical so you really won't be missing anything by purchasing the older model camera. Good luck on your purchase Vash, I hope you find something great.

 

[Reuven]

Be careful about full frame vs not full frame. A friend of mine got a DSLR camera and it is not full frame, so what you see through the lens is not exactly what you get. I was surprised, because I thought all DSLR cameras were full frame.

Any dSLR the viewfinder displays pretty much what the result will be. @Nell411 pretty much covered the focal length issue. Been shooting Nikon for decades, the 5200 is a damn fine body. I also have no quibbles with the 18-55 kit lens. It's a good lens for the price. As you get more proficient, you will want to invest in better lenses. You'll want to get lenses for Full frame (FX), rather than cropped frame (DX). The reason being, FX glass is better quality and more durable. Just make sure it can auto focus on the 5200, that is the lens is AF-S, or has the motor in the lens if it's a third party lens.

 

[Vash01]

Thanks all for the great info, particularly Nell411, thank you for getting technical. It's good to know the limitations right from the start, and from what Reuven wrote, it sounds like the D5200 will work fine for me. I will also check at Costco to see what they have in the $500-$600 price range.

To be honest, I am quite happy with my two autofocus Nikon cameras, but I see that every time there is a photography class, they are assuming that everyone will bring a DSLR. Someone said that now some of the autofocus cameras have many features. So not buying a DSLR before my first photo class (I think it's in March) may be a good idea too. That way I could wait for a really good deal. In any case I won't be taking a big camera to worlds in Boston, so my smaller autofocus will travel with me. I have always hated carrying heavy/big cameras, unless I was driving with one. Even one of my autofocus Nikon cameras feels too big for Boston (and I know that you can't take really good FS pictures with these cameras).

I feel very interested in photography right now because I have been taking pictures for many years and the feedback was always pretty good, even with pics taken with the cell phone. However, when I see the quality of some of the photos on line, I want to be able to take pics like those. I had done oil paintings in the past, and that background has always helped me in the compositions, but technology in cameras has advanced a lot. I should take advantage of that.

Thanks for all your inputs.

 

[Deleted member 221]

This is one of the best threads on FSU . So happy it keeps getting bumped.

I read "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson, and it's as good as everyone says it is. Since reading that book, I shoot only in manual. In less than perfect conditions, I've also started shooting a quarter to a half stop underexposed and then post-processing to get the result I want. Underexposed photos are so much easier to work with! And, even with a basic app like PS Express, I can do so much to bring out highlights, eliminate shadows, and "defog" cloudy skies.

I'd still like to get a DSLR at some point to do more creative photography than a bridge point-and-shoot allows, but I'm so much more pleased with my travel photos. Now that I understand the manual controls at a basic level, I am taking much better photos much more consistently.

 

[sk8pics]

Huh, my Nikon D70 has many features on it and these days I rarely shoot manually with it. What you see through the eyepiece is what you get, which was not the case with my friend's Nikon. I will ask her which model she bought and the lenses, because I know she is not all that happy with it.

I bought my D70 from Cameta Cameras on line, and it may even have been refurbished, because I don't think it was all that expensive. I just bought the camera body there and then bought lenses separate. Actually, now that I think of it, both my previous lenses still worked. I have a 80-200/f2.8 lens that is awesome. Anyway, that has to be more than 10 years ago and it still works fine.

Eta: my friend said she got this: D7100 Nikon, 55-300 lens 4.5-5.6, 18-55 3.5-5.6

 

[Reuven]

This is one of the best threads on FSU . So happy it keeps getting bumped.

I read "Understanding Exposure" by Bryan Peterson, and it's as good as everyone says it is. Since reading that book, I shoot only in manual. In less than perfect conditions, I've also started shooting a quarter to a half stop underexposed and then post-processing to get the result I want. Underexposed photos are so much easier to work with! And, even with a basic app like PS Express, I can do so much to bring out highlights, eliminate shadows, and "defog" cloudy skies.

I'd still like to get a DSLR at some point to do more creative photography than a bridge point-and-shoot allows, but I'm so much more pleased with my travel photos. Now that I understand the manual controls at a basic level, I am taking much better photos much more consistently.

The book is highly recommended and well reviewed. Truth be told, because of my subjects of choice I usually use aperture priority to control depth of field (DoF). But I started decades ago when manual was the only option so I have to learn the fundamentals. And,of course, you couldn't change the ISO on a whim. You had to work with the speed of the film (ASA).
@Louis, can your bridge camera shoot in RAW? That's the best way to get everything you can out of the photo file in post-processing (pp).
RAW gives you all the information the sensor sees, no compression.

 

[Deleted member 221]

No, unfortunately, my Canon PowerShot can't shoot in RAW.

I'm debating between a DSLR, likely one of the same Nikon models that Vash01 is considering, or a mirrorless Sony. I like that the Sonys are smaller, but I haven't done enough research to feel ready to commit. And with the better pictures I'm getting out of my Canon, I don't feel any rush.

 

[Southpaw]

Go for the Sony, I've seen prints that came out of those cameras and they're incredible.