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What camera should I buy

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Trewimage Serious Fun Photography Classes

Level One Classes

Many folk ask...what is the best camera? What would you advise?

That's a big question and worthy of some thought.

These comments are based on our experiences of running classes and my lifetime experience as a professional photographer. Please read them through and if you would like to chat over your ideas feel free to give us a call.

There are four main types: Phones, Compacts,  Semi-compacts (sometimes called, Bridge) & DSLR's.

Each have pros and cons. There is no "right" camera for every situation.  

Camera Phones   Always with you and have their place. Fun but very limited.

Compacts              Small & always with you. Have some limitations.

Semi compacts    Larger with more functions and often better zoom ranges

DSLRs                    A huge family which can grown with you. Larger than semi compacts.

iphone

I bought an iphone just to see how it was. I had such fun with it when the views were general. However if I needed to zoom in or take a special image I found it all just so frustrating. I would not recommend a camera phone as your main camera.

Compacts

I went to Japan recently and bought a Canon Powershot S95.  I was just amazed how much fun it was. It was in my shirt pocket all the time. Because it was small it didn't intrude. I got some beautiful people images. It's easy to change the settings if you want some movement blur. It has a good program mode where it's Automatic but you can easily tweak the exposure. It shoots RAW so if you needed to fix any images back home you can. I loved it. It didn't have a very long zoom so I could not do any imaginative images that needed a long lens or any wildlife. Because the zoom function is a switch it is hard to make that zooming action smooth. 

S95 Amazon price June 2011   £309.00

Semi Compacts

The Canon Semi Compact SX30 IS  has a great zoom lens and would be wonderful for wild life. Doesn't shoot RAW which is a bit of a shame. These are great cameras, used at the longest zoom they might need a tripod. They are larger than the compacts. Because the zoom function is a switch it is hard to make that zooming action smooth.

SX30 IS Amazon price June 2011   £331.75

DSLR

Many of our students have the Canon EOS500D . It has everything you need on a DSLR. It shoots RAW and JPEG so you can work on your images if you want to. For a DSLR its quite small and light.  It's very easy to understand the menu system. The kit lens 18-55mm is fine for starting with. This zoom range 18-55mm is a good starting point but not good for wildlife. This camera will help you shoot lovely pictures of your children, landscapes and many other subjects.

E0S 500D Kit lens  Amazon price June 2011   £629.99

I would choose either Nikon or Canon. These are the preferred brands of professionals and as such have good credentials. Do not, however, go for the top end professional models. The entry level ones are just fine. All my life I have used Nikon but experiences gained through our classes have shown that Canon has much to offer.

Looking through the Nikon & Canon websites will give you a feel of the family of cameras. Be careful of cheap offers from the web which might not be covered by manufactures guarantees. Do not be tempted by wild offers from other makes of camera, stick to either Nikon or Canon.

--------------------------------------------

Whether its Nikon or Canon if your budget will stretch think about buying just the body and then getting a professional lens for it. The Pro zoom lens 17-55mm zoom lens has the same zoom range as the kit lens but has a much wider aperture of f/2.8 so you can shoot in really dark situations and get lovely images with low depth of field. Importantly the aperture does not change when you zoom.  Amazon price June 2011 approx £800.00 for the lens only.

I do hope this helps.

Call either of us if you want to chat about any  issues.  Jeremy