Photography Tutorials
How the camera works
Types of camera
Exposure
Aperture and depth of field
Focus sharpness shake and blur |
Types of Camera
Choice 1: Film or Digital
Whilst a lot of people would not even view this as a choice anymore simply because it is such a hassle to get a film developed and is also somewhat costly to do so these days, it deserves a little mention.
Digital cameras have a major advantage over film cameras simply because you can change the ISO at the press of a button, or even let the camera do that for you, there is no worrying about the fact you only have one sensitivity level, which in low light conditions is a definite draw back of film.
What film does give you, is a genuine one off, and this is why a lot of art photographers use it.
There is also an increasing trend towards using old fashioned, even old toy film cameras to gain the vintage feel you don’t get with the clinical perfection which digital seems to offer.
Choice 2: Compact, Bridge, SLR?
Compact Cameras: exactly that, they are small and convenient to carry around, which is a major advantage, but their disadvantages are:
Most digital compacts don’t have an old fashioned viewfinder.
Very small, lower quality lenses and the distortion problems that go with them.
Limited functionality in terms of zoom and aperture.
Lack of customization options (non detachable lenses, lack of options for different filters etc.).
That said in the right hands a compact camera can yield very good results and as mentioned above a lot of people interested in photography from a more artistic point of view are now using compact film cameras for their retro effect.
You can get compact digital cameras for as little as £50 brand new, and if you want an old film compact just go hunt around the charity shops, where you can pick one up for a little as 50p!
Bridge Cameras: This type of digital camera, is kind of a half way house between the compact camera and SLR. They usually have much greater functionality, certainly a lot more in terms of manual override on the controls, an eyepiece, which instead of letting you see straight through the lens is actually a small view screen showing what the sensor sees, this is very useful in bright light, also if you have the camera against your face looking through the eyepiece rather than holding it further away looking at a screen, you get an awful lot less chance of camera shake(a major contributing factor in blurry pictures). They also have a much larger zoom range than compact cameras.
However whilst they may have a lot of features SLR cameras boast there are a few drawbacks,:
You still can’t change the lens (though some do accept filters)
Whilst they may boast large mega pixel counts, they usually have smaller sensors than SLRs which means that the quality of the image you get is nothing like as good on a technical level.
Bridge Cameras are generally still smaller than SLRs but larger than compacts, they tend to cost as much as really expensive compact cameras but still well short of SLR money |
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SLR Cameras: SLR stands for Single Lens Reflex, what that means in short, is you are literally looking through the lens on the camera, and what you see is what you get in terms of framing (well almost!) The SLR has the greatest versatility in many terms, from the fact that you can swap lenses, put different filters on the lenses and have the option of fully manual control.
Whilst they are much larger than bridge or compact cameras they are still exceptionally portable, and very high end digital SLRs are now capable of image sizes that rival the old medium format film cameras.
In some cases it is also possible to use the same lenses on both film and digital SLRs so you don’t necessarily have to use just one or the other, I use a Canon EOS 20D and a Canon EOS 1(film camera) and since both use the EOS mounting system I can swap my lenses between them thus avoiding the need for 2 lots of lenses (which gets rather expensive).
The drawbacks are that you cannot just slip an SLR in your pocket or handbag, if you carry a lot of lenses it starts to get bulky and heavy to transport, and they are not cheap, the old film SLRs go reasonably cheaply now, but reasonable digitals are still expensive, then there is the cost of the lenses.
The range in quality of optics is something to take into consideration when deciding what you want
It’s not necessary to spend megabucks on top quality glass if you don’t intend to ever go pro and this can greatly reduce costs.
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