The other day my cousin Cynarra emailed me to say her trusty Canon PowerShot was misbehaving and that it was now time to repurchase.
Her question was specifically seeking advice on whether to go for a D-SLR or just stay with the higher end point-and-shoot models.
Some of my other friends too have also asked me similar questions in the past, so I’ll attempt to answer that here, and pre-empt you from asking me in the future.
I think before deciding what to buy, you need to ask yourself some basic questions :
A) What is the intended use ? [ Birthdays, general use, business field-reporting, serious amateur use or professional etc ]
B) How far do you want to go with your camera / hobby ? [ Fiddle around with it once a month, take it to the next level, produce fine-art prints, share over the internet etc ]
C) How much are you willing to spend ?
While most camera and optic systems today cost far less than they did say 10 years ago, it might still be worthwhile fixing a ceiling limit to how much you wish to spend.
Given the bewildering options available, and what each camera manufacturer wants to promote as a “killer-feature”, stay focused on your specific need. Besides, they keep improving on technology every 18 months. So it never ends.
Some of the common questions people ask me :
a) How many Mega Pixels is good ?
b) Should it be able to record VDO ?
c) Which brand ?
If you’ve successfully and truthfully answered the self-questions earlier, it becomes easier to decide. For instance, general-use and occasions etc don’t warrant more than 4 MegaPixels.
The thumb rule is more mega pixels [ MP ], more the memory requirement for each image.
And if your intended use is for shaing over email / internet, you don’t want huge files clogging peoples mail boxes. Each MP is roughly half an MB [ Mega Byte ] unless you resize and save it in a smaller form.
Besides, most peoples monitors are set at 1024x768 screen resolution, so anything more than that is a waste. Also, if you wish to take domestic sized prints of a size like 4x6 [ generally acceptable ], you would get the desired results.
Now coming to VDO. I am of the personal view that still images and moving images are inherently different both from the technical angle as well as their subsequent usage, and should be treated and handled differently. [Which is why camcorders were invented in the first place.] So without going into the myriad world of screen size ratios, PAL/ SECAM standards, movie file formats, bit-streaming, vdo codecs and cross compatibility, I’d say don’t go there. Buy a camcorder separately.
But if you have to; and simply MUST HAVE that awesome moment of when the knife slices through the cake [ or someone’s throat ], then just do it.
Now the all important question of which brand.
In my opinion, we all have personal brand preferences, and no matter what you tell someone, they are pretty much pre-programmed towards one rather than the other for a host of reasons.
So I’m not going to open up a discussion with Hasselblad Vs Canon Vs Nikon Vs Olympus Vs Minolta Vs Sony. So just do whatever works for you, and go with whichever matches your needs and personal preferences.
Now for those of you who are planning to upgrade from point and shoot to D-SLR, my personal experience has been like this.
SLR offers you the greatest control over the results, and is personally very rewarding. It can be very exciting, the learning curve is long and deeply satisfying.
Entry cost can be high [ starting at Rs 40,000 to 50,000 ] and this may be only for the body and maybe an additional kit-lens to get you started.
Additional accessories can set you back a fair amount. Eg
- Prime lenses [ at the wide or telephoto end ] approx Rs 10,000 to 25,000, you’ll want at least one wide and one tele.
- A respectable speedlite is another Rs 25,000
- And between Rs 8,000 to 15,000 for additional soft boxes if you intend doing any indoor/studio work.
- A light meter [ if you want to be a purist, though most cameras now have a reasonably good one built in ] this could be another Rs 15,000
- A remote “plunger” for those night shots [ must have ] which cost another Rs 5000.
- A reasonably good tripod will come for another Rs 1500 to 2000.
- Then we have filters with another Rs 2000 each.
- Spare batteries, chargers and memory cards another Rs 5000
- A kit bag to dump all this stuff into another Rs 3000
Overall, the camera body is just the beginning of the story. Do the math.
I don’t mean to scare you, or to make it sound like you need to get all geeky and into gadgetry. Its just that as you progress, your needs WILL expand, and you WILL be confronted with these decisions at a later stage. Might as well you know it now, and choose wisely.
[ I’ve been evaluating which of my lesser vital organs I can sell to fund my studio expansion ] Ha ha, don’t be such a pussy and get scared off so easily
.
After all, at the end of the day if you don’t have a passion, where’s the fun in life ?….
Her question was specifically seeking advice on whether to go for a D-SLR or just stay with the higher end point-and-shoot models.
Some of my other friends too have also asked me similar questions in the past, so I’ll attempt to answer that here, and pre-empt you from asking me in the future.
I think before deciding what to buy, you need to ask yourself some basic questions :
A) What is the intended use ? [ Birthdays, general use, business field-reporting, serious amateur use or professional etc ]
B) How far do you want to go with your camera / hobby ? [ Fiddle around with it once a month, take it to the next level, produce fine-art prints, share over the internet etc ]
C) How much are you willing to spend ?
While most camera and optic systems today cost far less than they did say 10 years ago, it might still be worthwhile fixing a ceiling limit to how much you wish to spend.
Given the bewildering options available, and what each camera manufacturer wants to promote as a “killer-feature”, stay focused on your specific need. Besides, they keep improving on technology every 18 months. So it never ends.
Some of the common questions people ask me :
a) How many Mega Pixels is good ?
b) Should it be able to record VDO ?
c) Which brand ?
If you’ve successfully and truthfully answered the self-questions earlier, it becomes easier to decide. For instance, general-use and occasions etc don’t warrant more than 4 MegaPixels.
The thumb rule is more mega pixels [ MP ], more the memory requirement for each image.
And if your intended use is for shaing over email / internet, you don’t want huge files clogging peoples mail boxes. Each MP is roughly half an MB [ Mega Byte ] unless you resize and save it in a smaller form.
Besides, most peoples monitors are set at 1024x768 screen resolution, so anything more than that is a waste. Also, if you wish to take domestic sized prints of a size like 4x6 [ generally acceptable ], you would get the desired results.
Now coming to VDO. I am of the personal view that still images and moving images are inherently different both from the technical angle as well as their subsequent usage, and should be treated and handled differently. [Which is why camcorders were invented in the first place.] So without going into the myriad world of screen size ratios, PAL/ SECAM standards, movie file formats, bit-streaming, vdo codecs and cross compatibility, I’d say don’t go there. Buy a camcorder separately.
But if you have to; and simply MUST HAVE that awesome moment of when the knife slices through the cake [ or someone’s throat ], then just do it.
Now the all important question of which brand.
In my opinion, we all have personal brand preferences, and no matter what you tell someone, they are pretty much pre-programmed towards one rather than the other for a host of reasons.
So I’m not going to open up a discussion with Hasselblad Vs Canon Vs Nikon Vs Olympus Vs Minolta Vs Sony. So just do whatever works for you, and go with whichever matches your needs and personal preferences.
Now for those of you who are planning to upgrade from point and shoot to D-SLR, my personal experience has been like this.
SLR offers you the greatest control over the results, and is personally very rewarding. It can be very exciting, the learning curve is long and deeply satisfying.
Entry cost can be high [ starting at Rs 40,000 to 50,000 ] and this may be only for the body and maybe an additional kit-lens to get you started.
Additional accessories can set you back a fair amount. Eg
- Prime lenses [ at the wide or telephoto end ] approx Rs 10,000 to 25,000, you’ll want at least one wide and one tele.
- A respectable speedlite is another Rs 25,000
- And between Rs 8,000 to 15,000 for additional soft boxes if you intend doing any indoor/studio work.
- A light meter [ if you want to be a purist, though most cameras now have a reasonably good one built in ] this could be another Rs 15,000
- A remote “plunger” for those night shots [ must have ] which cost another Rs 5000.
- A reasonably good tripod will come for another Rs 1500 to 2000.
- Then we have filters with another Rs 2000 each.
- Spare batteries, chargers and memory cards another Rs 5000
- A kit bag to dump all this stuff into another Rs 3000
Overall, the camera body is just the beginning of the story. Do the math.
I don’t mean to scare you, or to make it sound like you need to get all geeky and into gadgetry. Its just that as you progress, your needs WILL expand, and you WILL be confronted with these decisions at a later stage. Might as well you know it now, and choose wisely.
[ I’ve been evaluating which of my lesser vital organs I can sell to fund my studio expansion ] Ha ha, don’t be such a pussy and get scared off so easily
.
After all, at the end of the day if you don’t have a passion, where’s the fun in life ?….
2 comments:
Buddy,
Me thinks u should start writing a column or something
I admire your write ups this one really got me :-
But if you have to; and simply MUST HAVE that awesome moment of when the knife slices through the cake [ or someone’s throat ], then just do it.
Think about it
P.S: what about that trip???
Very informative..
I now know the cost of my "passion" !
Lemme know if you get more buyers for your organs !! That way, I'll atleast have a camera when slices me !!
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