which camera?

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 30/05/2016 15:35:33:

Posted by Vic on 30/05/2016 15:08:34:

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 30/05/2016 14:02:05:

A professional wildlife photographer I know recommend bridge cameras for macro work because they have superior depth of field because of the smaller sensors. He has ££££ of kit and was one of the pioneers of high DF macro using stepper motors to take multiple images then stitching them back together.

Focus stacking has become popular for macro work but as far as I am aware most folks use DSLR's with a good quality prime lens.

You couldn't get this depth of field with a DSLR:

This one of mine has reasonable DoF:

Fuji S2 Pro, Nikon 105mm Macro lens, ISO 200, f/22, 1/125 + ringflash, handheld, taken in 2006 in my back garden.

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

As to the OPs question, budget will be the prime factor determining what is available to choose from.

Don't ignore second hand items – nearly all of my current equipment was bought S/H from 'the bay'

Don't get caught up with megapixel arguments – easy sell for a salesman – 'this one has more so must be better', you need a huge increase in MP to increase the actual image quality since all you are doing is adding a strip of pixels along 2 sides to create the difference between a smaller and a larger pixel number. 8MP is not double the pixels of 4MP, 16MP is double the pixels of 4MP.

Also what size are you going to produce your prints (if at all) a 4×6 image at 150dpi (what most people are happy with) requires 600×900 pixels (0.54MP) or at 300DPI (professional photographer) requires 1200×1800 pixels (2.1MP).

Be wary of large memory cards – how many photos will you lose if it corrupts or is lost? – I use 1GB cards and my camera will store 210 pictures per card (I have 10 cards) – I am happy with that loss rate if a card corrupts or is lost, what are you happy with losing in one hit?

Bridge cameras, as already mentioned are a good 'all in one' solution from macro to telephoto in a portable package, with DSLRs you are buying into a system, the DSLR itself is a consumable item with a steady stream of new models from the vendor, the lenses are where you spend the bulk of your money.

These days for pretty much anything with a relatively stationary subject I use either a small compact P&S or my iPhone, I only bring out the DSLR for difficult lighting conditions, action shots and macro work, or when I really feel like carrying several kilos of equipment around with me – carrying a DSLR with a 50-500mm zoom gets old pretty fast, even carrying my S2 Pro with a 18-200mm lens is still around 1.5Kg in my hand.

There are also many 'lower end' DSLRs available with 'kit' lenses which are much lighter and cheaper (under 1kg in the hand).

JPG vs RAW – I don't have time to post process all my pictures, so I just save as JPG, RAW formats change and may not be supported in the future, you can do pretty much anything to a JPG that you can to a RAW in Photoshop, Gimp, etc anyway.

Edited By Timothy Moores on 06/06/2016 16:03:35

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

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Good post Timothy. – I totally agree with 95% of what you have said.

Nick

[VicParticipant @vic]

You lose a lot of information if you shoot in JPEG that you can never get back. I'll stick with RAW thanks.

**LINK**

I've spent less on lenses so no, it's not where I've personally spent the most money. Buying lenses is a choice, not an obligation. I reckon the vast majority of DSLR bodies sold only ever get one or two different lenses put on them.

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

Posted by Vic on 06/06/2016 17:31:35:

You lose a lot of information if you shoot in JPEG that you can never get back. I'll stick with RAW thanks.

**LINK**

I've spent less on lenses so no, it's not where I've personally spent the most money. Buying lenses is a choice, not an obligation. I reckon the vast majority of DSLR bodies sold only ever get one or two different lenses put on them.

There are equally good arguments for shooting JPG, Ken Rockwell puts forward some good ones, personally I can't be bothered with the post processing or extra storage space requirements associated with RAW – each to their own.

One could argue if someone is only ever going to use 1 or 2, most likely kit lenses, they might be better off with a bridge camera – less chance of dust, less weight and decent wide to telephoto range all in a handy package, probably cheaper too.

The main point of a (D)SLR is that you have the option to add whatever speciality lens, flash, bellows, etc you want in order to meet a specific requirement, as well as being able to use it as a glorified point and shoot – fit a moderate zoom, 35 or 50mm prime and set it to full program and let the camera take care of everything.

[VicParticipant @vic]

Posted by Timothy Moores on 06/06/2016 20:31:58:

One could argue if someone is only ever going to use 1 or 2, most likely kit lenses, they might be better off with a bridge camera – less chance of dust, less weight and decent wide to telephoto range all in a handy package, probably cheaper too.

The problem with bridge cameras and compacts is that they never go wide enough for landscape work. I've got a 8-16mm wide angle for my DSLR. You're lucky to get a 24mm equivalent on a bridge camera. The lenses on them also aren't very fast and the sensors on many are too small.

Sadly a lot of Ken Rockwells stuff is out of date and simply wrong. That article is seven years old.

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

I like taking piccies and videos but unlike the missus I will never have the patience for composition and the technical areas

The impression I get is that photography is like Steam trains and dominated by boys, you get that broad range of users/tourists who are boys/girls but at the serious end we have the trainspotters and rivet counters who can talk about technical issues for hours

[MWParticipant @mw27036]

Posted by Ady1 on 07/06/2016 09:39:14:

I like taking piccies and videos but unlike the missus I will never have the patience for composition and the technical areas

The impression I get is that photography is like Steam trains and dominated by boys, you get that broad range of users/tourists who are boys/girls but at the serious end we have the trainspotters and rivet counters who can talk about technical issues for hours

I think you got the gist of it. This is probably my folly but my sister uses a huge array of lenses for an expensive camera that i couldn't possibly begin to understand why, to me a picture is a picture and thats it.

Also do people really count the number of rivets? i couldnt begin to understand what would be interesting or what you could tell by the number of rivets? Does it make a machine any less special? also alot of rivets can be filed flat to the metal and you wouldnt even know they were there and the meet between rivet and metal become indistinguishable, especially if they were hidden under a coat of paint.

 

Edited By Michael Walters on 07/06/2016 10:26:47

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

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I shoot in RAW. ……… Always. Why you would not if the camera is capable I don't understand.

The images are tweaked if required in their RAW state, very often as a batch. This gives the option to vary the 'white balance point'. I find that if that is correct at this point the processing and balancing at a later date falls simply into place. If it's wrong I find you are constantly fighting all the time when editing editing the image. In the long run I find it saves time.

Chosen images are then converted to TIFF. This takes little time when done as a batch on a decent PC.. Final editing (if any) takes place in this format and saved uncropped.

Images are then cropped to desired proportions and saved ( usually as jpg ) in separate folders e.g. Prints, web size etc. with the required profile assigned. I don't understand the extra storage argument as large drives for a good while now have been 'as cheap as chips' and very reliable. – But yes I still do separate back ups.

As I have no idea very often what size image or print the customer will finally require I can always go back to the TIFF and crop their requirement easily. e.g. The 'obvious' crop of an image is perhaps not what an editor such as Neil may require for a magazine cover. They may want some latitude for positioning so that the text on the cover does not interfere with what 'they' consider to be important parts of the image.

Now who is going to start over sRGB vs Adobe RGB colour space.

Nick

[NJHParticipant @njh]

…… or indeed Prophoto RGB 😳

N

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Nick

Well explained and with the authority of the professional.

On a slightly different photographic tack my " favourite" photographer is, and has been for some time, David Ward. Until recently at least, "which camera" for him would have taken large format film!

If you have some time to spare take a look HERE .

You won't find any technical description or details of cameras – just wonderful, inspiring, images.

Norman

[VicParticipant @vic]

One of the problems with shooting RAW is which version, I have a couple of choices on my camera and I can't recall which of the two I currently use.

I do know that the general consensus of which was best did change some years back so I followed suit!

[VicParticipant @vic]

Posted by NJH on 07/06/2016 12:14:13:

Nick

Well explained and with the authority of the professional.

On a slightly different photographic tack my " favourite" photographer is, and has been for some time, David Ward. Until recently at least, "which camera" for him would have taken large format film!

If you have some time to spare take a look HERE .

You won't find any technical description or details of cameras – just wonderful, inspiring, images.

Norman

You can't beat 5 X 4 slide film no matter what the Canikon boys say!

I always wanted a Pentax 67 for the same reasons – huge slides.

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

I respect anyones choice to shoot RAW, for whatever the reasons – because you can, you have the time, you have a great workflow, you do it for a living, whatever, good for you, it is a free world and that is your choice to make. All I ask is that people don't shoot down someone else for choosing a alternative approach that works for them and could also work for others.

Personally I don't have the time to post process hundreds of photos, I admit I don't have have a great workflow for it anyway and no guarantee that my choice of white balance from one photo to the next will be any better than what the camera picked anyway. By the time I have spent a few hours messing with half a dozen pictures to try and make them look 'right' I am bored with it and could have just tweaked the few JPGs that I thought looked 'wrong' and be done.

Maybe I am choosing the easy way out and being lazy, maybe that is also simpler for anyone new to the hobby rather than getting bogged down in trying to work out a good workflow becoming despondant and giving up. If you can standardise a workflow for all your pictures, how is that really a million miles different from what the camera company have done for you inside the camera? If at some future point in time they choose to experiment with tweaking their RAW photos, again great, but don't make it the be all and end all of taking pictures.

At the end of the day, all pictures are subjective and will usually only really look right to the person who took them, if you like how your picture looks then great, you are inspired to take another, to work on your composition and lighting and concentrate on taking more great pictures.

Some of the best pictures I have ever seen have had minimal or no changes from how they were shot direct from the camera, shooting print or slide film costs money to process, and you often have no control over the processing, so it teaches you to get things right in the camera.

[Nick_GParticipant @nick_g]

Posted by NJH on 07/06/2016 12:14:13:

You won't find any technical description or details of cameras – just wonderful, inspiring, images.

Norman

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Talking to models they often remark that they can spot very often a hobbyist photographer against a pro. This has nothing to do with the quality of the work they produce as many hobbyists produce some truly exceptional images. – I suppose a bit like model engineering, a pro machinist could not devote so much time to a single project and it be economically viable and stay in business.

What they tell me is invariably the hobbyist will prattle on about their equipment and it's virtues etc. Which 'most' of them don't understand and care little about anyway. Whereas a pro just takes the image and talks about anything other than cameras.

An old saying in photography is :- "If you are having to give your equipment more attention than you are the subject you have a problem"

I suppose the above could again be applied to the workshop.

Nick

[norman valentineParticipant @normanvalentine78682]

Vic, the Fuji GW690 that I have produces slides that are 60 x 90 mm. with the fantastic lens that it has you will find it hard to beat.

If you would like to own this fantastic camera I would be prepared to talk.

 

Edited By norman valentine on 15/06/2016 21:32:26

[Roger Williams 2Participant @rogerwilliams2]

Hello all, as has been mentioned, some shoot in RAW , some are happy with the JPegs straight from the camera. I bought a Fuji X100s some time ago and Im certainly happy with the JPegs it produces. They certainly look OK to my untrained eye !. I would literally rather throw the camera in the fire than sit at a computer manipulating RAW files. So each to his own.

[NJHParticipant @njh]

 

Roger – That's quite OK – you take images and the jpegs produced meet all your requirements. In that case spending time in processing them further is wasted time for you.

For those of us who either take photographs for a living or have photography as a (serious!!) hobby then the RAW file is important. The image from the camera is often just the start of the story and further work is usually required to produce an image that meets the photographer's vision and intent. The jpeg file processes the RAW file in a particular way which, whilst it may often meet some requirements, also compresses the data " throwing away" information which cannot then be regained. If the RAW file is maintained it is then possible to process this in different ways to achieve different effects – always working with the maximum data without the compression produced by the jpeg process.

Finally don't throw your camera on the fire – it won't burn well and you will curse when that amazing photo opportunity presents itself!

Norman

 

Edited By NJH on 16/06/2016 00:02:41

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

I am sorry, but that is a rather condescending post, effectively bellittling anyone who chooses to shoot JPG as being less of a serious photographer than someone who chooses to shoot RAW, it is a personal choice, just like religion, sexuality or use of cutting fluid whatever works for you, I respect your choice, please respect others.

Go 'old school' and shoot slide film once in a while (if you still have a film camera), it improves your techniques and 'forces' you to get it right first time in the camera, you don't get the chance to post process, the added financial cost of the film processing is an additional incentive to get it right. I am not saying you can't post process slides, it is just a bit more involved and/or costly. The experience will help your photographs regardless of which way you 'swing' – less post processing for the RAW shooters, better first time for the JPG shooters.

As always, the best camera is the one you have with you at the time, be that a point and shoot, your phone, or an SLR with 50+ lenses, rather take the shot with what you have and save the moment, than worry about what how much better it might be if you had brought some other camera with you.

If your camera is light and easy to use you will take more pictures and be more inclined to carry it with you. Unless you are specifically going on a photo shoot, not many people can be bothered to cart around several kilos of camera equipment with them all day. Bridge cameras and lower end DSLRs with a kit lens can be less than a kilo in weight and therefore less of a burden on a day out.

Edited By Timothy Moores on 16/06/2016 09:02:31

[Roger Williams 2Participant @rogerwilliams2]

Tim, well said.

I used to carry around a DSLR with a few lenses, spending to much time trying to decide which one to fit on the camera. Sod that, since I bought the little Fuji with its fixed 35mm equivalent lens, Ive found I enjoy photography hell of a lot more.

Edited By Roger Williams 2 on 16/06/2016 09:37:43

[Brian GParticipant @briang]

Posted by Roger Williams 2 on 16/06/2016 09:31:49:

…Sod that, since I bought the little Fuji with its fixed 35mm equivalent lens, Ive found I enjoy photography hell of a lot more…

I bought a first generation Minolta 24mm f2.8 A lens a few months back, and I haven't touched the lens release button since, and for the moment at least I have given up carrying other lenses. Uniquely, Sony SLTs offer autofocus, in-body stabilisation and a full-brightness DOF preview (hardly necessary with the 24mm) when using 30-year old Minolta lenses, so I don't bother much with modern lenses.

Brian

[Martin WParticipant @martinw]

Unless I have missed it something that hasn't been raised is matching your monitor to your print source. If this is not correct then trying to colour balance your images is rather pointless. Another problem is that if you are printing at home then depending on the paper you are using often has an impact on the colour balance. This can happen using the same type of paper i.e. Photo Glossy produced by different manufacturers and is common to most inkjet printers even 5 ink units.

I suspect that dye sublimation don't suffer from this but don't have any experience to back this up.

Martin

[ZebethyalParticipant @zebethyal]

Colour balancing monitors – something I was also going to bring up:

You may have gone the extra mile and colour balanced your monitor with a spider, or whatever to be colour perfect, the next question is how are you presenting your pictures for others to view? Printing them yourself, using Jessops/Costco/Boots, etc or displaying on the web?

If you are only ever displaying them on your own monitor, then fair enough, they should look exactly as you intended, but that is a pretty limited audience.

If printing yourself, then you need to be sure, as said above that your printer is equally well calibrated to what you can see on your screen, and may need recalibrating for each type of paper you use, most inkjet prints will fade over time, so even if calibrated, the prints will only be correct for a short period of time.

If using a high-street printer, how recently was their machine calibrated? and for which type of paper? do they offer the possibility of colour matching to whatever standard you may be using at home?

If displaying on the web, how many (if any) of the people viewing your pictures have bothered to calibrate their monitors? moving an image from one monitor to another on my 2 monitor desktop at work can show huge differences in colour balance.

As with most things in life, photography, engineering, whatever, chasing down perfection involves the law of diminishing returns, at what point do you decide that the extra X steps or Y amount of time is no longer worth it and what you have is good enough – there will always be someone with more time and/or money who is willing to take it several steps further, but at what cost for how much improvement? only you can decide at what point enough is enough, and that point will be different for everyone.

Edited By Timothy Moores on 16/06/2016 14:07:03

[VicParticipant @vic]

Getting decent coloured prints from my first two digital cameras (both Canon) was problematic on both Epson and Canon inkjets. Since I've switched to using Pentax cameras the colours have looked much better although these days I don't print that many.

I don't think Norman was being condescending at all, he was just expressing his preference for shooting RAW.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

My view?

Nothing improved my photography more than getting a digital compact, and I used to lug around a Pentax with half a dozen lenses, and either develop my own transparencies or use a top rank developer.

RAW is great for astrophotography where I want to stack barely-detected features. I really don't feel that my other photography would benefit from RAW over JPEG, my bridge camera only compresses less than 3:1 at maximum quality, the loss of signal is undetectable

I think it can only really offer dividends in demanding studio conditions or when you want to pull out very faint details in shadow etc.

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 16/06/2016 16:42:26

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