Digital Camera Advice

Hi All

I have never been into photography and the camera on my phone has always been more than good enough for my needs. However, a friend of mine gave me his old digital camera (nothing special, a Canon Powershot A510) a while back and I have discovered the joys and angst of trying to take some really nice pictures.

I have now managed to convince myself that I need to upgrade the camera to something a of a little better quality and with more features to play with. I don't want to spend a fortune as it is a new hobby and I want to see if I can be any good without spending a lot of money to start with.

I have a budget of about £150 (not sure how much this equates to in US$). What would be your recommendations for a camera that I could get a lot of use and fun from.

Thanks for your time

Tom

Search Ebay for a good used Canon, Nikon, Minolta/Sony Pentax or Olympus
You don't have big budget, so you will struggle a little.
I'll have a scout around later to give you some ideas though.

Thank you for your reply. I'm not sure what I should be looking for regarding features etc, are there any "must haves"?

Some basic questions need to be answered first. It's obvious that you have been stricken by the urge to upgrade, but why ? What about shooting intrigues you ? Perhaps better worded is to ask, what would you like to shoot ? Is there a specific subject matter which has drawn you to want to have a better camera ?

Reason for asking this is because there are cameras which are better suited for specific types of shooting. Example: sports; nature/wildlife; portraits/modeling; landscape.

Second question: How big/small of a camera do you wish to carry ? Ergonomics and being comfortable is one of the most important aspects of shooting. After all, if one is not comfortable carrying a camera, it's more than likely that the hobby will be over before it has even begun.

When I was struck by the upgrade bug, I had been shooting with a Kodak Easy Share camera, which I must say... was quite an advanced camera for someone who was only shooting snap shots. Advanced I say, because it had close to full manual controls. I had control over exposure, f stop and ISO.

These things led me to believe that I could handle something more advanced, and so then I bought (something I could EASILY recommend to you) a Canon S3IS which has full manual controls EXCEPT for manual focus. Compared to my Nikon D300 it's a toy (weight, build, construction etc) but the image quality is absolutely superb as long as the ISO isn't being pushed past 400. ISO 800 is usable but only with no cropping and in good light. (but then, this is where a tripod or monopod comes in).

Anyway, I won't drone on without knowing more about what I asked.

Doug

Very usefull post there thank you. I'm not really sure what I want to shoot at the moment to be honest. I just want something a little better than the 3.2MP Canon that I am currently using.

I think the Canon has a lot of controls for ISO, Focus, ISO etc, but am not sure if I am right or wrong here - I don't know a lot about cameras.

I don't think I want a large camera as I don't mind having it in my jacket pocket all of the time but don't want to be carrying something separate around. I've had the Canon for a couple of months now, thinking I would wait to see if the hobby would be over before it begun but I have been taking more and more pictures and desperately wanting something just a little bit better.

I suppose I have mostly been taking photographs of my dogs, but have taken a lot of pictures of family events etc as well - I don't know if this helps.

Many thanks

Tom

I'm just gonna go ahead and recommend the panasonic TZ5 again.

A quick look at it includes 10x optical zoom (28mm-280mm) 9 megapixel sensor, 720hd movie mode, auto lens stabilization and numerous of preset shooting modes for its self away intelligent auto mode. It also has exposure times as little as 1/200 of a second up to 30 seconds.

Canon 1Ds MKIII. It's what all the kids are buying right now.

Village Idiot said:

Canon 1Ds MKIII. It's what all the kids are buying right now.

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lol.. Stop it, you.


As for the Panasonic TZ5 which was mentioned, specs look ok but specs can actually go against getting the best deal. The biggest example of this is how many Mega Pixels are crammed on to a sensor.

The more mega pixels the better right ? Wrong. (usually) In the basic consumer market, given the size of all of these digital camera's, you can be sure of one thing... The sensor sizes of them all are either the same, or ****ed close to the same. That said, these sensors are so small, that each new iteration of them with more pixels crammed onto them, makes the picture quality worse, not better.

Worse in two ways. And one compliments the other. For one, more MP means more noise on a small sensor. For two, camera companies try and compensate for the noise with "in-camera" noise control, which usually doesn't do any good for pictures which you want to perhaps print/blow up. There will perhaps be less of the inherent noise, but it will be transformed into something else, such as less sharpness or something else along those lines.

Point being, don't be sucked in by how many MP's a camera has. It means JACK SQUAT. My old 4 MP Kodak produced wonderful photos which I was able to print up to very decent sizes.

Next question:

What is your budget ? Answer that and we can go from there. I can honestly say though, that if you have a small budget, you'll likely be best off staying with Canon. They make some of the best pocket sized camera's in terms of features and picture quality.

This one isn't "too" budget, but it's very small, shoots RAW, has manual exposure control and a few other nice bells and whistles. 10MP btw, which is perhaps still a BIT too many, but not totally out of control. The benefit of shooting RAW also helps with using noise reduction software if shooting at high ISO's. I shoot in nothing but RAW, myself. (unless shooting sports outdoors).

Canon reintroduces S-series with PowerShot S90: Digital Photography Review

Panasonic and Leica are certainly also ones to look at, but not at the same budget prices IMO.

Give us a price range. And be generous with yourself... Remember though, if you want to take this hobby any further, you'll definitely want to learn about manual exposure, focal lengths, ISO control (which is part of exposure control) and more. And you won't be able to do most of that with a small point and shoot without spending a bit more $.

And so then logically, if you're spending a bit of cash (over $400) then you might actually consider a camera which isn't a point and shoot, sacrifice or compromise on size and go for a smaller DSLR OR get a bridge camera. (meaning an in-between size as well as feature wise, bridging the gap between the two)

So, price ?

Doug

If the OP wants to go with a P&S and still wants to learn photography, then something like a G series would probably be their best bet.

Full manual and a hotshoe for lighting options. In fact, David Hobby from Strobist uses one and you can't tell the difference between what he takes with that and what he uses his Nikon DSLRs for. Goes to show you, it's the photographer and not the as much the camera.

Doug b said:

As for the Panasonic TZ5 which was mentioned, specs look ok but specs can actually go against getting the best deal. The biggest example of this is how many Mega Pixels are crammed on to a sensor.



Point being, don't be sucked in by how many MP's a camera has. It means JACK SQUAT. My old 4 MP Kodak produced wonderful photos which I was able to print up to very decent sizes.
Doug

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Nah there's no need to worry about cramming of pixels horribly disrupting the quality of the pictures. Perhaps you should try looking at the in depth comparisons on sites like dpreview and not just look at quick stats?
Prosumer Camera Group Test Q4 2008 Review: 1. Introduction: Digital Photography Review

As for the G series, Cannon's asking a bit too much for G10 etc, a couple hundred usd above the price range for topic creator (including the S series). Personally if I were him I'd look into cheaper line of cameras, and if he really wants to get into photography then skip the high end canon cameras all together and pay a little extra for an entry level DSLR from nikon.

trademark said:

Nah there's no need to worry about cramming of pixels horribly disrupting the quality of the pictures. Perhaps you should try looking at the in depth comparisons on sites like dpreview and not just look at quick stats?
Prosumer Camera Group Test Q4 2008 Review: 1. Introduction: Digital Photography Review

As for the G series, Cannon's asking a bit too much for G10 etc, a couple hundred usd above the price range for topic creator (including the S series). Personally if I were him I'd look into cheaper line of cameras, and if he really wants to get into photography then skip the high end canon cameras all together and pay a little extra for an entry level DSLR from nikon.

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But Canon is better thank Nikon. An XTI would be better than a D40.

Haha wow-- fanboy much? A lot of DSLRs are so close in image quality that brand really doesn't matter much. In reality if topic creator wanted a DSLR he should pick one based off of current deals and at the moment and extensive research through photography sites. If he saw a Canon DSLR that was selling for an extremely cheap price at the time than by all means he should buy it if he wanted a DSLR.

Canon isn't the end all to cameras though.

trademark said:

Haha wow-- fanboy much? A lot of DSLRs are so close in image quality that brand really doesn't matter much. In reality if topic creator wanted a DSLR he should pick one based off of current deals and at the moment and extensive research through photography sites. If he saw a Canon DSLR that was selling for an extremely cheap price at the time than by all means he should buy it if he wanted a DSLR.

Canon isn't the end all to cameras though.

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Nah. My camera of the month is the 40D. Used you can get them for about $600 USD in great shape. It blows any of the new entry level cameras out of the water in build & FPS. IQ is going to be so similar between any APS-C CMOS camera. The only reason I'd buy a D40 is for the flash sync capabilities, but even then, I'd probably go with a D70 over that.

Fanboy! Yes! I should save up for a digital back for my 503c... then it'd stomp any Canon out there and I could tell people to only buy Hasselblad

A used 'G' series Canon would be a great place to start. They have the benefit of zoom and macro, which when you are just starting out can be quite addictive. Even with an entry level DSLR you would have to part with alot of hard earned cash to buy a macro lens, tripod etc. With a 'G' it's light, easy to carry around and more likely to get used at any opportunity, which is really what it is about.