Which Camera ?
When I teach a brand new class learning digital photography, over 75% of the new students comes armed with the latest camera sold to them by a salesman in a camera shop.
Guess what? They soon find out that it’s the wrong one for them. This invariably can be a very expensive mistake. So the big questions are which the right one for me to buy is and will I be able to use it correctly.
The main things to consider are:
- How long will it take from when I switch the camera on to when I can take the first shot? In the consumer market this can vary between one to 5 seconds most taking around 3 seconds.
- How long does the camera take to focus on the subject? (Not to get the image) most cameras take between one to 3 seconds.
- How long does the camera take to actually take the photo once you have pushed the shutter button completely? Once more, most cameras take between 1 to 3 seconds this can be referred to as shutter lag time.
- Most digital cameras will take up to 5 seconds just to turn on and up to another 3 seconds to focus in and up to 10 seconds just to be ready to take the photo.
In a cheaper camera, but not necessarily cheaper it will be up to nine seconds to take a photo from when the camera is turned on. You may say “yes but I can leave my camera on” ok that’s fine, however you may still have a lag time of up to three seconds just to prepare to take a photo. Simply imagine how annoying it will be now that you’ve just purchased your new digital camera costing you around €400 – €500 that you just can’t catch your child blowing out the candles of their birthday cake because your camera takes 9 seconds just to be ready to take a proper shot.
Will you be able to set the white balance on your camera? What’s the white balance?
60% of digital cameras don’t have this adjustment, you have to buy one which allow this to be set manually, not simply one that has an “auto white balance” as they are not as good as they may seem.
Does your camera have different exposure modes?
Exposure modes are simply explained as where does the camera take a light reading? The cheaper cameras simply do an all over reading which can be very limiting to say the least. A smart camera will have a “spot”, “centre weighted” and “matrix” metering system, which allows you to take great photos in any poor light situation.
When shopping for a digital camera, purchase it for the fact that it’s a camera not a video camera as well. One student showed me all the options her camera had and “that’s why it was a lot more expensive” – the only thing that it didn’t do well was take still photos!
