Street Art, Belfast
(Nikon D7000 / 16 to 85 mm f3.5 to 5.6 - 35 mm / 1/160th / f6.3 / ISO 125)
Getting Serious - #3 - The Perfect Camera for You
Unfortunately - despite the title above - there is no such thing as the perfect camera. Sorry!
However, a good camera for you is one which will have a few useful characteristics.
1 - It will be fun to use - if it isn't, you won't use it - and thus it obviously is not a good camera for you.
2 - You are happy to carry it around / have it nearby / ready to use lots of the time. If you're not, it's not the camera for you.
3 - It suits most of the sort of photography that you like doing.
Let's unpick this one a bit. All cameras do general photography very well. If they didn't, they wouldn't sell. So pretty much any camera will take good pics in good light of family, friends, kids, pets, beaches & sunsets. That's a given.
But what really floats your boat in terms of your type of photography? If it is typical, general photography as in the paragraph above then you are sorted. And indeed, it might only be after having had your camera for a while that you think it would be great if it was good at wildlife photography or macro photography (photographing bugs & creepy crawlies) or concert photography.
Certainly, use your camera for your general photography - enjoy using it - and use it lots.
Now, as I've already said, there is no such thing as the perfect camera. I use my phone or my 'point & shoot' Canon S120 for much of my general photography but for certain circumstances I strap on my considerably larger & heavier Digital SLR.
So no one camera will do it all. And indeed, at the moment, you might not know what sorts of photography you want to get into outside of the general photography that we all do.
I mentioned in a previous post that a good starter camera is a Bridge Camera (borrow one if you can rather than splashing out your cash). And such a Bridge Camera will help you explore any 'specialist' areas that might appeal.
If you find yourself mostly using maximum zoom to photograph wildlife, or birds, or aircraft - that is one area of interest. If you frequently use the camera's macro-mode (if it has one) to photograph creepy crawlies, then that is another. If you turn down the zoom to get the widest angle possible to take in landscapes, then that is another.
But bear in mind that if you want a camera (or more correctly a camera & lens combination) that is optimised for wildlife / aviation - then that will be different from one which is optimised for macro photography and different again from one which is optimised for landscapes.
So, a Bridge Camera, with say a zoom range of 28 mm at the wide end (good for landscapes) to a telephoto max of say 300 mm (or more) is a good place to start for you to flex your photographic muscles.
No camera can be perfect at everything, but a 28 mm to 300 mm Bridge camera will let you find out what sort of pictures you like taking. And it might be all the camera you ever need.
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