/CameraChat
polycounter lvl 19
So, photography seems to be a pretty big hobby amongst most creatives, and I love talking about cameras. I'd like this thread to be about anything photography related, from advice about cameras if you're thinking about purchasing, or even discussion about lighting equipment and lighting modifiers.
Some basic info:
The single most important aspect of your equipment is the sensor, followed very very closely by the lenses.
Full Frame = 35x24 mm in size, just like film. Very few cameras fall into this category. The canon 5d and 5d II, all the 1Ds line, Nikon d700, d3, and d3x, the Sony a900 and a850, and the new Leica m9.
All other DSLRs (digital single reflex lens) are:
Crop bodies = smaller than 35mm film. Canon's are 1.6 crop, Nikon's 1.5, most others are 1.5, except the olympus and panasonic 4/3 format, which is 2x crop.
Point and shoots: With the exception of the Sigma dp1 and dp2 which are large crop format sensors in a p&s body, all P&S have tiny sensors, much much smaller than 35mm.
Sensor size sacrifices image quality. Larger sensor = lower noise at high ISOs, more dynamic range, higher color fidelity, and sharper images on the same lens. (meaning a full frame 10 mp camera will take a sharper image with a lens, than the same lens on a crop camera 10mp sensor). The sensor size also changes how the lens behaves.
The Crop factor. Lenses are always described in how they would behave on a 35mm piece of film/sensor. A 50mm lens is a 50mm lens. However it behaves differently on different cameras. Let's take a Leica 50mm lens, since it can be fit on any type of camera with the right adaptor, from Canon to Nikon to Sony to Olympus. This leica 50mm on a canon 5D, which is full-frame, shows a 50mm Field of View. The human eye perceives spacial relationships at this 50mm lens, so the 50 is always considered "normal". On a canon 400d, or a nikon d40, which are both crop cameras, it shows the equivalent of a 75mm on the nikon (1.5x) and 80mm on the canon (1.6x). On an Olympus 4/3 camera like the ep1 or 520, it would show the equivalent of a 100mm lens (2x).
So to get a normal fov on a camera, you'd need:
50mm on a full frame
35mm on Nikon, Pentax, Sigma, or Fujifilm crop body
30mm on a Canon crop body
25mm on an Olympus or Panasonic 4/3 body
People who need zoom lenses for sports, birds, or planes, normally buy high end crop bodies, because a good 500mm lens is much cheaper than a good 800mm lens. The equivalent fov is good for long things. I tend to photograph wide, so I needed a full frame camera.
Lenses: Your lenses are super important, even though the sensor will ultimate determine image quality, your lenses will play almost an equal role, and you'll keep them through several body purchases. For instance I am on my 2nd camera body in 2 years, but both were Canon's so I still have my same lenses and most likely will keep them even after upgrading bodies again.
The two important aspects of a lens are aperture, and MM. The MM determines how wide or how long the lens will be. 8mm is a fisheye and can see 180 degrees, while 500mm is a telephoto and can see about 10 degrees. You use a fisheye to photograph the interior of a church and get all of the details squeezed in. You use a 500mm to photograph a bird head or a baseball outfielder.
The aperture is how much light it can let in. It goes in reverse order, meaning lower numbers let in more light (f/1 is brighter than f/22). The lens will always list the maximum aperture it can go. Like a 50mm f/2.8 can only open up to an aperture of 2.8. Zoom lenses will sometimes list a range like 3.5-5.6. This means at the widest zoom, they can open to 3.5, but as you zoom it will be forced up to 5.6 by the long end.
Prime lenses are lenses that have one fixed focal length and cannot zoom. Prime lenses are almost always superior to a zoom lens in sharpness, distortion, color accuracy and price. If you like low-light photography, prime lenses are the only lenses that open up wider than 2.8. Even the pricest zoom lenses, with one exception (the olympus zoom lenses can go down to f/2) only open up to 2.8, whereas you can get prime lenses in f/1.4 or even f/1.2 and f/1 if you pay enough.
As an example:
This photo would be impossible to take with a zoom lens. It's taken at ISO 1600 (the maximum my camera can go) at 1/20 of a second (hand held, any slower and it would be super blurry) at f/1.8. f/2.8 is 8x less light, so this entire image would be black if I had to use a lens with 2.8 as it's maximum aperture. Plus, zoom lenses that have a max aperture of 2.8, tend to be very expensive, whereas this 50mm lens is 90 dollars.
DSLRs vs P&S: Point and shoot cameras will not allow you to create blurry backgrounds with isolated sharp subjects like this:
The large sensor size is what creates the blurry background, and since P&S have such small sensors, they render everything in perfect sharpness unless your subject is a few cm in front of the lens, at which point the distance is enough to render the background blurry. The large photosites on a larger sensor also allow more light rays to reach each one, which results in a cleaner signal.
ISO is the sensativity your sensor or film has to light. ISO 100 is considered base on most cameras, though Nikon starts at 200. This will give you the best image quality. However you need a lot of light for this. You can then increase to 200, 800, even 3200 and 12,800 on some high end bodies. This will result in more noise, and less dynamic range, but sometimes you have to do it to get the photo. Very few P&S have usable 400, let alone 1600, and even when they aren't a blurry mess, you will have 4 stops of dynamic range left, compared to 8 or so on a dslr at iso 1600.
Dynamic range is what allows you to record the extreme darks and lights of an image. It's the difference in your darkest darks and lightest lights. 8 stops is baseline what you want to make good photos with clear definition between shadows and highlights. You can get 8 stops on some high end P&S at their lowest iso, but Canon dslrs start at 10 or more stops, and maintain 8 all the way through iso 1600 compared to 4-6 on P&S
My recomendations for someone wanting to get into the world of photography with a dslr as apposed to P&S. Go used with a higher end body instead of new with a lower end. A canon 20D is nicer than a canon 400d, and a used 5d mark I is nicer than a new 50D. Buy a used Canon 20d from www.keh.com or your local craigslist, and get a 50mm f/1.8 lens, it's around 90 dollars new. Shoot with this for several months till you figure out whether you like portraits or landscapes, wide or telephoto, and only then think about getting more expensive lenses.
I shoot with:
Canon 5D (the original version, there is a mark II out now. I bought mine 3rd hand for 1,100 USD)
35mm f/1.4 (1,300 USD)
85mm f/1.8 (400 USD)
Plus my lighting equipment. I shoot environmental portraits, and honestly I could get away with just the 35mm lens. I can always zoom with my feet since I set up my own shoots, but sometimes I want to compress with the 85 instead of widen with the 35. I own the cheapo 50mm and use it only when wandering around on vacations because it's so small and light, but I only use the 35 and 85 for my serious shoots. Don't think you need everything from 18-500mm covered before you even figure out what you like to photograph. You'll waste money buying cheap inferior gear, instead of 1-2 lenses that you really like. I could have gotten a lot of cheaper zoom lenses for the price of my 35mm, but none of them would open up to f/1.4 and I love doing low light environmental shots, so I really needed a full frame camera, and a super large aperture wide angle lens. This is also what keeps me in the Canon camp, as none of the other camera makers have a 35mm lens this nice, except for Leica, which is even more expensive, and they haven't had a full framedigital till this week.
Lens review sites:
www.photozone.de
www.slrgear.com
Sensor review sites:
www.dxomark.com
www.dpreview.com
Some basic info:
The single most important aspect of your equipment is the sensor, followed very very closely by the lenses.
Full Frame = 35x24 mm in size, just like film. Very few cameras fall into this category. The canon 5d and 5d II, all the 1Ds line, Nikon d700, d3, and d3x, the Sony a900 and a850, and the new Leica m9.
All other DSLRs (digital single reflex lens) are:
Crop bodies = smaller than 35mm film. Canon's are 1.6 crop, Nikon's 1.5, most others are 1.5, except the olympus and panasonic 4/3 format, which is 2x crop.
Point and shoots: With the exception of the Sigma dp1 and dp2 which are large crop format sensors in a p&s body, all P&S have tiny sensors, much much smaller than 35mm.
Sensor size sacrifices image quality. Larger sensor = lower noise at high ISOs, more dynamic range, higher color fidelity, and sharper images on the same lens. (meaning a full frame 10 mp camera will take a sharper image with a lens, than the same lens on a crop camera 10mp sensor). The sensor size also changes how the lens behaves.
The Crop factor. Lenses are always described in how they would behave on a 35mm piece of film/sensor. A 50mm lens is a 50mm lens. However it behaves differently on different cameras. Let's take a Leica 50mm lens, since it can be fit on any type of camera with the right adaptor, from Canon to Nikon to Sony to Olympus. This leica 50mm on a canon 5D, which is full-frame, shows a 50mm Field of View. The human eye perceives spacial relationships at this 50mm lens, so the 50 is always considered "normal". On a canon 400d, or a nikon d40, which are both crop cameras, it shows the equivalent of a 75mm on the nikon (1.5x) and 80mm on the canon (1.6x). On an Olympus 4/3 camera like the ep1 or 520, it would show the equivalent of a 100mm lens (2x).
So to get a normal fov on a camera, you'd need:
50mm on a full frame
35mm on Nikon, Pentax, Sigma, or Fujifilm crop body
30mm on a Canon crop body
25mm on an Olympus or Panasonic 4/3 body
People who need zoom lenses for sports, birds, or planes, normally buy high end crop bodies, because a good 500mm lens is much cheaper than a good 800mm lens. The equivalent fov is good for long things. I tend to photograph wide, so I needed a full frame camera.
Lenses: Your lenses are super important, even though the sensor will ultimate determine image quality, your lenses will play almost an equal role, and you'll keep them through several body purchases. For instance I am on my 2nd camera body in 2 years, but both were Canon's so I still have my same lenses and most likely will keep them even after upgrading bodies again.
The two important aspects of a lens are aperture, and MM. The MM determines how wide or how long the lens will be. 8mm is a fisheye and can see 180 degrees, while 500mm is a telephoto and can see about 10 degrees. You use a fisheye to photograph the interior of a church and get all of the details squeezed in. You use a 500mm to photograph a bird head or a baseball outfielder.
The aperture is how much light it can let in. It goes in reverse order, meaning lower numbers let in more light (f/1 is brighter than f/22). The lens will always list the maximum aperture it can go. Like a 50mm f/2.8 can only open up to an aperture of 2.8. Zoom lenses will sometimes list a range like 3.5-5.6. This means at the widest zoom, they can open to 3.5, but as you zoom it will be forced up to 5.6 by the long end.
Prime lenses are lenses that have one fixed focal length and cannot zoom. Prime lenses are almost always superior to a zoom lens in sharpness, distortion, color accuracy and price. If you like low-light photography, prime lenses are the only lenses that open up wider than 2.8. Even the pricest zoom lenses, with one exception (the olympus zoom lenses can go down to f/2) only open up to 2.8, whereas you can get prime lenses in f/1.4 or even f/1.2 and f/1 if you pay enough.
As an example:
This photo would be impossible to take with a zoom lens. It's taken at ISO 1600 (the maximum my camera can go) at 1/20 of a second (hand held, any slower and it would be super blurry) at f/1.8. f/2.8 is 8x less light, so this entire image would be black if I had to use a lens with 2.8 as it's maximum aperture. Plus, zoom lenses that have a max aperture of 2.8, tend to be very expensive, whereas this 50mm lens is 90 dollars.
DSLRs vs P&S: Point and shoot cameras will not allow you to create blurry backgrounds with isolated sharp subjects like this:
The large sensor size is what creates the blurry background, and since P&S have such small sensors, they render everything in perfect sharpness unless your subject is a few cm in front of the lens, at which point the distance is enough to render the background blurry. The large photosites on a larger sensor also allow more light rays to reach each one, which results in a cleaner signal.
ISO is the sensativity your sensor or film has to light. ISO 100 is considered base on most cameras, though Nikon starts at 200. This will give you the best image quality. However you need a lot of light for this. You can then increase to 200, 800, even 3200 and 12,800 on some high end bodies. This will result in more noise, and less dynamic range, but sometimes you have to do it to get the photo. Very few P&S have usable 400, let alone 1600, and even when they aren't a blurry mess, you will have 4 stops of dynamic range left, compared to 8 or so on a dslr at iso 1600.
Dynamic range is what allows you to record the extreme darks and lights of an image. It's the difference in your darkest darks and lightest lights. 8 stops is baseline what you want to make good photos with clear definition between shadows and highlights. You can get 8 stops on some high end P&S at their lowest iso, but Canon dslrs start at 10 or more stops, and maintain 8 all the way through iso 1600 compared to 4-6 on P&S
My recomendations for someone wanting to get into the world of photography with a dslr as apposed to P&S. Go used with a higher end body instead of new with a lower end. A canon 20D is nicer than a canon 400d, and a used 5d mark I is nicer than a new 50D. Buy a used Canon 20d from www.keh.com or your local craigslist, and get a 50mm f/1.8 lens, it's around 90 dollars new. Shoot with this for several months till you figure out whether you like portraits or landscapes, wide or telephoto, and only then think about getting more expensive lenses.
I shoot with:
Canon 5D (the original version, there is a mark II out now. I bought mine 3rd hand for 1,100 USD)
35mm f/1.4 (1,300 USD)
85mm f/1.8 (400 USD)
Plus my lighting equipment. I shoot environmental portraits, and honestly I could get away with just the 35mm lens. I can always zoom with my feet since I set up my own shoots, but sometimes I want to compress with the 85 instead of widen with the 35. I own the cheapo 50mm and use it only when wandering around on vacations because it's so small and light, but I only use the 35 and 85 for my serious shoots. Don't think you need everything from 18-500mm covered before you even figure out what you like to photograph. You'll waste money buying cheap inferior gear, instead of 1-2 lenses that you really like. I could have gotten a lot of cheaper zoom lenses for the price of my 35mm, but none of them would open up to f/1.4 and I love doing low light environmental shots, so I really needed a full frame camera, and a super large aperture wide angle lens. This is also what keeps me in the Canon camp, as none of the other camera makers have a 35mm lens this nice, except for Leica, which is even more expensive, and they haven't had a full framedigital till this week.
Lens review sites:
www.photozone.de
www.slrgear.com
Sensor review sites:
www.dxomark.com
www.dpreview.com
Replies
I'm really looking into the different camera's around because i want to get into photograpy. My question is, is a 20D comparable to any of the new low-end dSLR's that are out now because the 20D is around 5 year's old? I imagine technology catching up to that level pretty quickly.
I'm keeping my eye on this thread
Having no choice really teaches you to use your imagination. I'd reccomend starting with the worst camera you can get your hands on.
Nowadays I spend far too much time fiddling with buttons and adjusting my flash settings to take pictures with life.
The nice thing with the 20d, is larger and brighter viewfinder that uses a prism instead of mirrors. It also has a 2nd scroll wheel in the back for changing aperture and shutter speed at the same time, instead of having to use one wheel for both like the low end stuff. It's also more durable and likely to last longer.
If you have the money for something newer, check the 40D. The problem is if you splurge for the 40d, then discover you absolutely must have full frame, OR you use it for a while and know you want crop, but you need more megapixels or video, and you could have been on the 20d, and saved for either a full frame or a higher end crop body. You will never know what you want to do with your first camera, so get the cheapest option that lets you figure it out, and then upgrade with your saved cash.
one stop is one full difference of light. An extra stop and the image is 2x as bright. A stop less and it's 1/2 the light.
If I'm at f/8 1/200 of a second, and iso 200, I can go to iso 100 for one stop less light or half the brightness. I could also leave iso at 200, and change shutter to 1/400, or aperture to f/16. To let in more light, I could go to iso 400, or go to 1/100 or f/4.
I've spent almost as much on flash stuff as I have on my camera. Flash portraiture is dangerously addicting.
What would you recommend in terms of static gear? I shy away from studio equipment. My dad was a commercial photographer so I avoid static lighting setups like the plague (if only to avoid becoming like him). I think he would happily offload his old set-ups on me, but they are awesomly 70's.
That said I think it is understated what a good flash setup can do for a photographer. Most people I know are still using their popups!
I do have some tiny little mobile flash units my dad gave me from his retro kit that fire when detecting incoming flashes. I use those occasionally when there isn't a decent surface to bounce the flash off, or I need a gentle fill.
What are you after? My shooting style requires that I can travel from a single rolling case (I shoot alone and often travel and I'm NOT checking my gear) so I paid extra for this small, powerful, and remote controllable flash. If you can handle more stuff, meaning you only shoot in a studio, or rarely travel and when you do don't mind a larger rolling case that would fit in a car but not carryon, I recomend Novatron pack units, where you can control all the heads from one power supply. They're fairly cheap. If you want the ultimate budget option, go Alienbees.
You can make shoemount flashes work, that's how I started, but I really wanted a bit more power, remote power control using radio, not infrared, and bare bulb to properly fill a softbox.
His awesome 70s gear is probably perfect, and if you don't want it, I do. Shoot, even just to start practicing with it's probably worth it.
I personally have never taken a photo with the flash on camera. My current one doesn't even have a built in flash. I normally shy away from absolutes, but an on camera flash will never add anything artistic to the photo. It might allow you to document a moment you couldn't have captured without it, but if your goal is to take good photographs for artistic sake, you *cannot* do it with on camera flash.
That clears it up, thanks
My gear :
Nikon D700
AIS 50/1.2
AFD 28/2.8
AIS 105/2.5
aaand a sweeet AIS 35/1.4
Sigma DP1 for those times when i'm too lazy to carry the stuff above :P
As you can see i'm a big fan of the old metal MF lenses..the newer AF ones just don't feel right
For those that can't grasp the technical jargon of aperture: When dealing with the f-stops (aperture) bear in mind that the lower the number, the more blurry the background becomes.
So a low f-# = brighter with a blurry background, while a higher f-stop will be darker and more in focus, globally. But that means you then have to increase exposure time to compensate.
When starting off, it's nice to know simplistic explanations for these complex functions. Nikon's new camera actually has nice menus to simplify these settings. Kind of nice for new photographers.
Good point, reminds me of a particular gallery by a photographer, not sure who again. But he had images shot with his expensive (analog I think) fullframe and a leightweight dslr, side by side. Most of the fullframe's were black, not because he didn't get his exposure right, but because he didn't or couldn't take the time to set it all up with the big heavy bulky camera.
Using the worst camera might not be that good of an idea, but consciously thinking about what kind of image you as artist want to create is possible with a lot of camera's also cheap ones.
Also Ben, good to see you posting again, nice technical breakdown of all the things that matter. Wondering how you got your models when you started out? I kinda bug my friends once in a while but they can only go so far.
Thanks Ben
Thinking of getting something like an Epson Stylus Pro 4880..
Yup, that's the quadra. I took from the first delivery in Germany. I really love it. I sold both my shoemount flashes and work with just this now.
Nice camera setup, seems about the type of range I work, do you do much portraiture? My want list is the new olympus ep1 and the panasonic 20mm 1.7. Would be a great walk around.
I mostly bug my friends, the attractive ones. :-) I also use modelmayhem occasionally though I haven't actually shot anyone off there yet. I sometimes also just ask casual acquaintances if I like their look.
I have the HP B9150 that prints up to A3+ size, I had an epson, but never again after how easily it clogged. I now refuse to buy printers without user replaceable print heads. I love the output of my hp. It's color is dead on to my monitor. I like it because it calibrates itself against a reference built in, so as long as your system is color calibrated, there is no need to print contact sheets and mail them off to have them calibrated, which is what you have to do with any epson printers.