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Recommended Starter Camera? #186665 03/02/02 01:04 PM
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1of3trees@prodigy.net Offline OP
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Gary: For the benefit of those people who are in the category of just about to start taking photos and aren't sure of what camera to start out with, what would you recommend as a starter camera for them until they feel more confident of their abilities to take photos and learn some of the basics?

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Terry (Only my mother, brothers & sisters call me Teresa) Forrest


Terry (Only my mother, brothers & sisters call me Teresa) Forrest
Re: Recommended Starter Camera? #186666 03/02/02 02:53 PM
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Hey Terry, trying to get me in trouble here? The moment I utter Nikon, someone that loves Canon will disagree! That kidding aside, it largely doesn't matter which of the major camera brands you go with... in alphabetical order - Canon, Minolta, Nikon, and Pentax - are all very good these days and in many respects it may be a matter of personal preference or familiarity that becomes a deciding factor in one's choice. Canon and Nikon are the choice of the pros these days, and the argument rages back and forth as to which is better in any given year. If you're seriouisly into photography (or think you might get to that level of insanity at some point), Canon and Nikon also offer the greatest range of exotic lenses and other goodies and gadgets.

Film vs. Digital?

Continuing this thread, I guess the first fundamental question one needs to ask and decide how to answer is that of film vs. digital. In part, that depends on what you want to do with your results but that is becoming less and less of an issue as the number of megapixels that the new digital cameras offer (for a price) continues to climb. Personally, I shoot film almost exclusively because there are some things photographic that digitals don't do, like allowing you to play with reciprocity failure. That said, this isn't an indictment of digital cameras, and certainly not the digital "darkroom," that's just my own predilection. Ultimately, the slides I shoot get fed into my Nikon Coolscan 4000ED slide scanner and end up as digital files - sometimes very large files approaching 130 Mbytes each in size! If you want to share photos in digital form with family and friends, post them to the HL forum, or whatever, if you're shooting with a digital camera they're already in digital format and about all you need to do is some resizing and you're ready to send them off into the ether. On the other hand, if you're shooting film, you're going to need to scan them into digital form before your foray into the electronic world. Prints can be scanned on flatbed scanners which are now relatively inexpensive. Slides generally require a more specialized slide scanner that can run from a few hundred dollars into the thousands.

To Point & Shoot?

Beyond the film/digital debate, the next thing that someone interested in a starter camera has to consider is their inclination toward photography in general. Many people start with a point and shoot. There's nothing wrong with that decision. There are a bunch of 'em around my house and I occasionally carry one, a waterproof Canon Sureshot A1, for when I know I'm going to get wet, particularly if it involves salt water. They're also light and compact and very easy to travel with! Quite a lot of people are happy with that level of photographic capability. Others will get more seriously involved in photography and will graduate from a point and shoot to an adjustable camera that gives them still more capability and creative freedom. But, before leaving the subject of point and shoot cameras, the issue of zoom lenses on them warrants mention. If you're going to go out and shoot lighthouses, in particular, you can't always get close enough to them and consequently, the "reach" of a zoom lens on your point and shoot can come in handy. Conversely, in some locations you can't get far enough back from the lighthouse without falling off a cliff, particularly the tall towers, to get all of the tower in the viewfinder with a normal lens, which by definition for 35 mm format is 50 mm. So, some wide angle capability also comes in pretty handy. A quick scan of the B&H Photo Video ad in the latest issue of Popular Photography suggests that the most common zoom range for lenses on point and shoot cameras runs from about 35-38 mm on the wide angle end to about 120-150 mm on the telephoto side. For the uninitiated, the shorter the focal length the wider the field of view. Conversely, the longer focal length the more magnification you'll get if you can't get very close. (There are some photos illustrating the impact of telephoto focal length posted on the thread "Opportunities in Ohio.") In general, the wider the range the more the point and shoot in question will cost. I noticed in the comment posted earlier today by Bob M over on the Velvia or Velveeta thread that he's shooting with an Olympus point and shoot that zooms out to 200 mm; Pentax makes a point and shoot that will also go out to 200 mm.

Some of the major photo mags do an annual smorgasboard of the hundreds of available point and shoot cameras with comments and comparisons as well as prices. I'll try and dig up the most recent issue of Pop Photog or Photographic that carried one of these cmoparsions and will come back and add a URL to it if one is available.

Gary

Re: Recommended Starter Camera? #186667 03/02/02 05:07 PM
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Gary, have you read anything about the Minolta Maxxum 5? Shutter speeds from 30 sec to 1/4000. I know yours has a wider range. Sep.2001 Photographic has that report. This camera seems to have better autofocus capabilities than the other Maxxum cameras. I've looked at the Canon and Nikon, I can't seem to get comfortable with either.

PHOTOgraphic Nov. '01 has thier annual 35mm buyers guide, quite a bit of info there. March '01 has "digital vs. film"

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Bud Schrader


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Re: Recommended Starter Camera? #186668 03/02/02 05:57 PM
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Bud,
Thanks for digging up the issues that had those annual Buyer's Guides in them... I've been out doing some grocery shopping for my wife in case the weather guy's latest toss of the dart was accurate.

I have a friend who shoots with a Minolta Maxxum but I think his is a Maxxum 7. He likes it quite well and has generally been happy with it. As for the shutter speed range, a camera not going beyond 1/4000th of a sec isn't any limitation as far as I'm concerned. Mine go out to 1/8000th and to be honest I've only used the 1/6400th and 1/8000th sec shutter speeds a handful of times at most. About the only time I tend to use them is in extremely high contrast situations when I want to emphasize the contrast. To give you an example of what I'm talking abouit, this shot of the lighthouse at Manitowoc, Wisconsin was shot that way:



Although this photo sort of gives the impression of what might be a full moonlight scene, it was shot with a 1/6400th sec shutter speed at f32 using a 300 mm f4 lens on Provia 400F slide film. Other than for something like this, not having shutter speeds faster than 1/4000th shouldn't be an issue in the least.

As for the Nikon or Canon not feeling right... that's a personal choice. I probably wouldn't buy a camera that didn't feel right unless there were an extraordinariliy compelling reason to do so. About the only situation I can think of where I'd buy a camera that didn't fit in my hands well might be for something like the metering system that Nikon put in the F5, which I really wanted for the extreme ranges of exposure conditions that I enjoy working in. Fortunately, given the size of my paws, the size and weight of the F5 isn't an issue.

Hope that this helps some.

Gary


[This message has been edited by lighthouse_photo (edited 03-02-2002).]

Re: Recommended Starter Camera? #186669 03/03/02 05:17 AM
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1of3trees@prodigy.net Offline OP
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Gary Martin - lol, you know darn well I wasn't trying to get you in trouble!! Just thought I'd bring up a topic that I thought would be a good one to cover! After all, not everybody would have a good friend like my co-worker, Tony Giglio, who allowed me to use his Canon Elan for 2 weeks to help me decide if a Canon was what I wanted to go to from the Kodak 35mm without a zoom and a hard-to-find battery I never did find! Up to that point, I had always had Kodaks: he Brownie my aunt gave me for high school graduation back in '62, an instamatic with a telefoto and normal lens, a disk one that I won in a contest, the instant one that was like the Polaroid ones that Kodak had to withdraw because of the lawsuit they lost to Polaroid and my 1st 35mm without zoom capability where I was almost immediately sorry that I hadn't spent a few dollars more and got one with a zoom.

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Terry (Only my mother, brothers & sisters call me Teresa) Forrest


Terry (Only my mother, brothers & sisters call me Teresa) Forrest
Re: Recommended Starter Camera? #186670 03/04/02 01:29 AM
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Believe it or not I just had to go look at my point & shoot camera to see what kind it was! I used to take quite a few pictures starting with the old brownie too Terry and then had a couple of other cameras. After not taking many photos for some time I decided a new camera was in order so I got my first 35mm, a no zoom Kodak that cost around $35. That was around 1989. I couldn't believe the difference. The pictures were generally very nice and I have not noticed a significant difference in my two succeeding cameras which were Fuji's. At some point cameras must have been vastly improved. And the film quality has probably improved as well. Although I am envious of those who have cameras with lots of do-dads and have the patience to learn how to operate them I feel I am most comfortable with a simpler camera. Sometimes the photo opportunity would be gone before I figured out how to work the camera! Chances are if you get a bad photo it's the person behind the camera not the camera itself.

Re: Recommended Starter Camera? #186671 03/04/02 03:27 AM
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Mombo, truer words were never spoken... the best pro camera going won't make photos any better than any point and shoot if the person driving it doesn't know what they're doing with it! On the other hand, a highly versatile camera in the hands of a good photographer opens doors that would otherwise be closed, enabling his/her vision on film.



[This message has been edited by lighthouse_photo (edited 03-04-2002).]

Re: Recommended Starter Camera? #186672 03/05/02 01:04 AM
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1of3trees@prodigy.net Offline OP
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Wow, Mombo, I bought my first Kodak 35mm with no zoom in 1989 also, just before my daughter and I went on a 9-day National Parks tour. That's the one I was sorry I hadn't spent a few more dollars on and bought one with a zoom, but even so, I got a lot of what I consider memorable photos with that camera. I'm going to start scanning the negatives on them (in between scanning my mountain of slides) so I can digitize them. As Gary told me recently, the sooner the better since the color starts to fade on them.

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Terry (Only my mother, brothers & sisters call me Teresa) Forrest


Terry (Only my mother, brothers & sisters call me Teresa) Forrest
Re: Recommended Starter Camera? #186673 03/08/02 12:49 AM
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This photo was taken last Winter as we were still in the midst of a blizzard in Massachusetts. I took it with my daughter's Kodak point and shoot camera from an opened high bathroom window after I had taken a stepladder and made it stable enough in the bathtub for me to climb the ladder without falling and breaking my neck!



This is another one taken with the same point and shoot camera a few minutes later:



This was was taken with a Fuji one-time use camera on another day during last Winter:



and another one taken the same day with this one-time use camera:



I know they're not lighthouse photos, but the idea was to show photos that can be taken with any camera, not necessarily a more advanced one.



Terry (Only my mother, brothers & sisters call me Teresa) Forrest

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