Posts Tagged D-300
Which camera is best for you?
Posted by Mark Duehmig in Everything, Focus on May 8th, 2009
I’ll say right up front that I can’t tell you the answer to this question, but, I can give you some directions to look.
Point and Shoot vs. a Digital-SLR
Let’s do a big separation here. Do you just want good pictures of the family? Something to grab those irresistible looks on your daughter’s face? Don’t know or care about f-stops? My friend, YOU are a candidate for any of the many excellent point and shoot cameras out there. And the good thing here is that they all take EXCELLENT photos. The only things to consider are features. But that is another post.
Or, did you have a film SLR and loved taking photos a few years ago but never made the leap to digital? You loved your Tri-X black and white film and remember the good old days when you took that dark room class in college. (Oh, the nasty chemicals we used to just pour down the drain!) You have an interest in taking photography to the next level? Being more creative? Then maybe a D-SLR is for you.
(One other note, these two cameras are not mutually exclusive. I have a LOT of camera gear. But I just bought a little point and shoot from Canon and I love it. Why? A few weeks ago my 10-month-old daughter was in a pink dress and the cat walked into the room. She lit up with a wonderful smile and all my camera gear was packed safely away in camera bags elsewhere. So I pulled out my iPhone and took a picture that is now my wife’s favorite. It is a grainy, 1 megapixel image that I can’t look at without wishing I had taken it with a camera instead of a phone. So now I always have a camera with me.)
Leaning toward a D-SLR
Ok, so you want to make the jump to a digital single lens reflex camera (D-SLR.) Here is the good part: the entry-level D-SLR cameras from either Nikon or Canon are excellent choices. You get a lot of camera for your money. At the time of this writing, for the Nikon, it is the D40. For Canon, it is the Rebel. You can spend more money, but I’m not sure why unless you really want some of those extra features. The 80/20 rule works here: you are getting 80% of the features with these cameras. You’ll really have to spend a lot more to get that remaining 20%.
Not convinced the low-end cameras are the way to go? Here is another idea; buy the lower end camera bodies and spend that extra cash you have on good lenses. Camera bodies will come and go, but good glass will stay with you year after year. But brace yourself; good lenses can cost three times as much as your camera.
Can I use the lenses from my film camera with my digital SLR? Answer: Maybe. With Nikon, yes. (As with both Nikon and Canon, because of the small size of the sensor, you multiply the lens focal length by 1.5. So if you put a 50mm lens on a DX camera, [Nikon D40 through the D300 or the Canon Rebels or 50D] the result will be the same as if you put on a 75mm lens. If you buy an FX body [Nikon D3 or D700 or Canon 1D or 5D] the lens will act normally. A really old lens may lack some of the metering functions, but will still work.)
Canon lenses, probably won’t work. They have been much more anxious to incorporate the latest technology, even if that means making a lens for a specific camera line.
Last comment on old lenses; before you pull that old manual focus, 7 lb zoom out of the shoebox in the closet, keep in mind that new lenses are vastly superior in performance to the old lenses. Design, coatings, etc, combine to give you a great lens. Even the “kit” lens that comes with the camera.
Finally…
One final thought about choosing a camera; you may be excited about taking creative photos with a D-SLR, but a camera that gets left at home is worthless. If you get a D-SLR, buy a small bag that is easy to grab on your way out the door. Get in the habit of taking it with you or you might as well have bought a shirt-pocket sized point and shoot.
Keep shooting,
Mark
www.MarkDuehmig.com
So you’re a professional photographer…..
Posted by Mark Duehmig in Everything, Focus on May 8th, 2009
I wonder if, in certain professions, the same questions appear over and over. The way a sore elbow is asked about when someone says “Actually I’m a doctor…”.
For me, the question is, “So what camera do you use?”
There are a lot of reasons people ask me this, but I think the biggest is that a lot of people are constantly shopping for a camera, but never buy one because the choices out there are overwhelming. SLR or point and shoot? Canon or Nikon? Which lenses do I get? How much memory? What is a megapixel?
I’m guessing some people think if they ask a professional photographer what camera they use, that might be a magic bullet. If she uses a X900, I’ll get an X900, or maybe an X900 JR.
When I answer the question I loose half my audience right off the bat; because if I say Nikon and the person asking is a Canon user, then never mind. And visa-versa. It seems a person’s preference in one of these two major manufacturers is stronger than politics or Mac vs. PC, and maybe a little more ingrained than religion. (There are other manufacturers out there of course, just as there are always cults out on the fringe. But we don’t want these people taking our picture and we certainly don’t want to ask them about cameras. )
We almost expect to hear a knock on our door, and two well dressed young men saying “Good morning, we’d like to talk to you about Pentax….” Slam the door!
I’ll get it out in the open right now. I use Nikon D700s. I’m guessing some people are saying “Hmm. Too expensive for my tastes.” And others are saying “Hmm, wonder why he doesn’t use the D3? Or the new D3x?”
Here is my answer to both. (Canon users and the rest of you, be patient. Much of this applies no matter what brand you use.) First, the D700 is a “full frame” camera, meaning it has a much larger imaging sensor than “DX” cameras do. By full fame, I mean the sensor is the same size as a piece of 35mm film. There is nothing magical about this size. It is, in fact, an arbitrary size in the digital world, but it is now a standard for larger sensor sizes. So to me, the $3000 price tag for each camera body is worth it.
Why not the D3, Nikon’s top of the line? If I shot sports, or something else that required the D3’s incredibly fast frame rate, I would. But I don’t and I am too hard on cameras to spend an extra $2000 on features I don’t use. I was in Cameroon waiting for a plane full of medical supplies to arrive when my camera rolled off a small ledge and broke the whole lens mount off the frame of the camera. (That my 70-200 lens wasn’t broken was a true miracle.) Fortunately I was with a group of doctors, including an optometrist, who had a nice tool kit and some superglue for fixing glasses. The camera made it through that trip, but if I’m going to trash camera bodies, I need a good reason for that to be a $5000 loss instead of a $3000 loss.
In the near future, there may be a technology gap between the very highest cameras and the D700s that warrant the extra price tag. But right now there isn’t.
For you Canon users, let me say I almost put my whole Nikon collection up on EBay not long ago to make the jump. The release and incredible performance of the D700 stopped me at the last minute.
I, like many of you, stuck with Nikon in the jump to digital because I shot with Nikon film cameras. But truthfully, until Nikon released the D3 and the D700, Canon had it all over Nikon in the digital world. The playing field is now about even. For most things, I’d prefer Nikon. If I was suddenly thrust into the world of fashion photography, I’d probably jump to Canon.
When shopping, make sure you compare FX cameras to FX cameras and DX cameras to DX cameras. There is quiet a price jump between the two.
Next time: which camera is best for you?
Keep shooting,
Mark
www.MarkDuehmig.com