| Photography Forum: Camera Equipment News Forum: |
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Q. what is a good camera for me?
Asked by Katherine Burgess
(K=4) on 5/6/2003
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i am an amateur photographer and i am going to go buy my first good camera, what are your suggestions for what to get? i mostly do nature photography if that makes a difference for the camera
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Evan Parker
(K=216) - Comment Date 5/6/2003
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Not trying to be mean or anything, but this is just about the most vague question possible. There are many good articles about choosing a camera on Usefilm.com and photo.net. The first thing you probably want to do is decide what size format you want to shoot (which is based on the portability and economy needed for your particular desire and situation) and, in my opinion, whether you will do primarily color or B&W work (as larger format cameras tend to be more suited to B&W).
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Richard Milner
(K=1653) - Comment Date 5/7/2003
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Nature presumably means macro or long range birds and so on. A good starting point would be a 35mm SLR, which gives you viewing and metering through the lens and a good selection of telephoto lenses.
Major 35mm SLR makers produce both close-up equipment like bellows or macro lenses, and long telephoto lenses and convertors.
Think about manual focus versus auto-focus. Manual is very good for macro work but fast auto-focus is good for birds and so on.
You also need to consider digital versus film. The quality of 35mm digital now rivals film, however you need to have computer storage, processing and printing facilities to make best use of it, and that's all extra expense.
Finally you might want to think of buying a tripod.
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Megan Forbes
(K=4617) - Comment Date 5/8/2003
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Hi Katherine,
This is a hard choice, especially with the huge range out there! I assume you are going into this for enjoyment and fun? Depending on your budget you should probably have a look at 35mm SLR's, and digital camera's. Digital will give you the freedom to experiment, learn quickly, and generally enjoy yourself, but if your budget is tight getting a digital which can take telephoto lenses (a must for nature, birds, etc) will be hard. There are plenty of great 35mm SLR's out there, which are great for beginners. A friend of mine is having a lot of fun learning with the Canon EOS 300v. This will give you the freedom to get additional lenses on a tighter budget, but will bring constraints on experimentation due to film and processing costs.
Hmmm... have I confused you further? I hope you end up with a good friend when you do finally make your purchase :)
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John Reed
(K=6994) - Comment Date 5/30/2003
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Katherine, I have shot lots of nature photos in my history, with 35 mm and digital cameras. I like the new medium of digital, because it gives me "instant feedback" on whether my photo will be any good or not, including will it be blurry, well-composed, properly illuminated, etc. I've had 3 different digital cameras, and I usually recommend the Nikon CoolPix cameras very highly for their unique closeup (macro) capability, being able to focus as close as 2 cm from the subject. Recently, I've been using a Panasonic DMC-FZ1 camera, and it has really caught my fancy. It's very easy to use (my wife highly prefers to use it over my Nikon), it has a small compact, yet very powerful lens: It's fast at f2.8, with a 35mm equivalent zoom range of 35 to 420mm, AND an image stabilizer, which lets me take sharp full telephoto shots without a tripod. The attached dove photo is a typical "nature" shot, taken at full telephoto, handheld.
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