What Camera Should I Buy?

I have no idea.

I get asked this question quite a lot and honestly I don’t have a clue. First, I want to start out by saying that for the most part it doesn’t matter. Most modern digital SLR cameras will do great for most people. If you aren’t planning on making your living as a photographer just about any camera made after 2006 by Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Sony, etc. will do great. Image quality has really improved since the beginnings of the digital revolution. I thought my first digital camera, Nikon D100, in 2002 was awesome. Up until that point I was shooting thousands of rolls of film and that didn’t come cheap. I had my own film loader, processor, and darkroom. Digital gave me the freedom to experiment without the high cost (even though at nearly $2,000 the camera wasn’t exactly cheap). Pretty soon my trusty old D100 was getting thoroughly trounced by newer cameras (especially by Canon), it suffered in image quality, low light performance, and resolution. The camera was slooooow, couldn’t autofocus, and was just plain clunky. Digital SLR cameras since then have been improving by leaps and bounds in all aspects. They are at the point now  that unless you are going to be making your living at photography then really anything on the market is going to give you great image quality.

Now you may have noticed that I have been very specific about what kind of camera is universally good. The digital SLR (single lens reflex) is head and shoulders above it’s compact, or worse, phone rival. The SLR has interchangeable lenses and has a a viewfinder that you put your eye up to (rant on this at a later date). There are cameras that have interchangeable lenses that are not SLRs as there are cameras that have viewfinders that you look through that are also not SLRs. With those other types you have a mix of good and bad ones. Surprisingly compact digital cameras for the most part have suffered from WORSE image quality as the years have progressed (more on this in a later post).

Now, I have said before, and I will say it again, you CAN get great images with ANY camera. However, if you want to take your photography to a higher level, the SLR still reigns supreme. Interchangeable lenses allow you more flexibility, more control, generally sharper images, and generally the ability to photograph in lower light. The posture required to hold the camera up to your eye when composing your shot, lends itself to steadier, and therefore sharper, images. The SLR’s larger sensor size (really much more important  than megapixel count) results in cleaner, sharper, and better looking images. Typically speaking there are more accessories and more opportunities to customize on an SLR than any other camera type. Finally, an SLR allows you to have more control. Every one on the market today gives you manual and semi automatic control. If you can control what the camera does it becomes easier to understand what the camera does. When you understand light, exposure, composition, and shadow then you can get better quality images more often.

For more digital photography tips and lessons visit my photography school website.