Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Choosing the Right Camera

Before we shoot anything, we need to decide what do we shoot with. Many people often ask me: "What is the best camera?", "What brand?", "Where to get it?" or my personal favorite: "Here is the money, go get me a great camera!". Well this madness stops now. I would like to say that there is no "best camera", what matters is the way we operate it. There are cameras that fit our individual needs and likes, and luckily we live in a time of incredible variety.
In my personal opinion, there are only two camera brands in this world: Canon and Nikon. I understand that the other companies are great or maybe even "cool", however if you want the best, choose one of the above mentioned brands. Quick note: iPhone or other mobile devices are not cameras, they are phones. Just wanted to clarify that...
I personally use Canon and I can advocate in it's favor for a very long time but there are plenty of other websites that compare the two brands and sometimes even offer an array of great verbal abuse competitions on some forums... I use Canon 5D Mark II full frame with various "L" lenses (I'll get to lenses in another post) as my primary camera.
When choosing the camera we need to consider a few factors. The most annoying of them is the price! but lets say you are a responsible person and tacking a second mortgage is not an option, how do you choose a good camera? 
"Point and Shoot" cameras are great for drunk club photos, day at the beach photos (you don't care about the sand as much) and other photos for Facebook or grandma monthly report. If you are interested in a slightly better results and pictures that you can proudly print and frame, you will choose a DSLR camera. DSLR or Digital Single-Lens Reflex cameras produce the finest results when looking for a high quality photograph. Many of today's "Point and Shoot" cameras have great quality as well, however they will never be as fast as DSLR. You know that annoying and frustrating feeling when you think you have a great shot of your kid or pet doing something really amazing, but instead you get a scene from "The Blair Witch Project"? Well it happens to the best of us but luckily very easy to avoid. Pretty much any DSLR will do the trick so now it's the other factors that we need to consider:

Megapixels - An elaborate scam invented by marketers and sales people because they needed some kind of number they can throw at you when you buy a camera. You do not need more than 10 for great quality. The more megapixels you have the bigger the print you can do and still maintain the quality. Since most of us don't print on buildings, we really don't need more than 10.
High ISO - Now this is more important. The higher the ISO (film sensitivity) the less noise (those tiny colorful dots you see in the dark areas of the picture) you will have. Normal camera can go up to 3200 ISO without having any noticeable noise. My camera has a limit of 25600... that doesn't mean I can go that high but my 3200 setting and the same setting on a lower priced camera will produce different results and that is one of the reason for price difference.
FPS- The number of Frames Per Second your camera can shoot. Very important when shooting sports, kids and other fast moving objects. Most of the standard cameras have 3.7 fps and its a good number to start with.
Price - Very annoying but we have to consider it. If it's your first DSLR, don't go and spend $3,000 on it. Practice on a lower priced camera and then move to full frame camera (I will explain this in a post about lenses). 

If you are a beginner and would like to take great photos without spending a fortune, I would suggest getting something like this:
This by the way is the website I recommend for everything you need for photography. B&H Photo is a Disney Land for photographers and it is my favorite source. They are known for having everything and the prices are great.
If you want to spend a little extra, you can go for this:


Ok so I think I covered the most important factors and hope it makes some sense.