I really want to get involved with photography as I keep seeing beautiful or unusual things and really wanting a picture of it! What kind of camera should I consider buying in order to get started, and how on earth do I go about learning?! I don't have much money to spare, I reckon I can spare £100 (£150 at a push). Also should I get a new camera or consider starting with a second-hand one? Any advice greatly appreciated please!!
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Starting Out
- Thread starter jess anderson
- Start date
Piano Player
Order of the Candle
At that price point it will be hard to find a decent digital camera suitable for a serious beginner. A friend of mine bought a used Yashica (or was it Konica?) screw mount SLR on E-bay for $20.00. He bought two screw mount lenses (45mm and 100 mm) for $10.00, and took excellent pictures. The advantage for a beginner with such an old system is that you have to set the shutter speed, aperture, and focus yourself. Many photography instructers require a camera capable of manual settings. Learning the basics will give you better control over your images when you graduate to a more automatic system.
A digital camera has the advantage of almost immediate feedback with little incremental cost for taking lots of pictures. If you take lots of pictures, a digital camera--hundreds more than you plan on spending--will pay for itself in saved film processing costs. The disadvantage is that an automatic digital camera encourages too many beginners to take too many pictures without thinking about what they are doing. As you look at the pictures, you don't know what the camera did to take the pictures you like, and you don't know how the pictures you don't like could have been improved. Your skill in photography will only improve when you actively think about composition, depth of field, exposure zone control, shutter speed, and color saturation.
A digital camera has the advantage of almost immediate feedback with little incremental cost for taking lots of pictures. If you take lots of pictures, a digital camera--hundreds more than you plan on spending--will pay for itself in saved film processing costs. The disadvantage is that an automatic digital camera encourages too many beginners to take too many pictures without thinking about what they are doing. As you look at the pictures, you don't know what the camera did to take the pictures you like, and you don't know how the pictures you don't like could have been improved. Your skill in photography will only improve when you actively think about composition, depth of field, exposure zone control, shutter speed, and color saturation.
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Ebay is a great place to find used cameras. You would certainly be able to afford an older manual SLR (single lens reflex) camera for that price, and maybe you could even find a newer automated one like a Nikon f60 or something that might come with a lens (make sure you don't spend all your money on the camera body or you wouldn't have a lens!). I am a poor college student myself, and I have bought used cameras off ebay several times.
The costs of getting a digital camera that would be any better than a 35mm film SLR is certianly prohibitive, even to me. You could buy a point and shoot digital camera, but if you're serious about learning photography that will not help you learn much.
The costs of getting a digital camera that would be any better than a 35mm film SLR is certianly prohibitive, even to me. You could buy a point and shoot digital camera, but if you're serious about learning photography that will not help you learn much.
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Piano Player said:
Hmm... useful information if I knew what on earth you just said! Technical words aint gonna help me if I don't know what they mean! Also why the assumption I want a digital camera? My sister has a digital camera and she just deletes most of them, which I don't really see the point of doing. I was thinking more along the old-fashioned lines of printing every photo I take and learning from my mistakes!
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Piano Player
Order of the Candle
jess anderson said:
Sorry for all the technical words. I will try again.
A film camera is an excellent choice. SLR stands for "single lens reflex" which means that when you look in the camera's viewfinder the camera (with little mirrors and prisms) routes your view through the same lens that will take the picture. The advantage of this system is that you can change lenses, and automatically see what the film is going to capture.
"Screw mount" stands for the now obsolete SLR system for changing lenses. To change lenses on a camera you unscrew it like a light bulb. Modern SLR cameras use a "bayonet mount" system which usually only requires a quarter turn to mount the lens.
"Konica" and "Yashica" are brand names like Nikon or Cannon.
50mm and 100mm lenses are two different sized lenses. The 50mm is considered a "normal" perspective lens, and the 100mm is considered a low "telephoto" lens. A 28mm or 35mm would be considered "wide angle."
While there certainly have been advances, lens technology was actually quite good in the 1950s and 1960s. Many of these cameras are still out there, and can be purchased on E-bay for a fraction of a modern camera. Since they use the same f-stops and shutter speeds, they are capable of taking just as good of pictures as a modern camera.
The most dramatic advances in the last 20 years all occurred in automatic metering, automatic exposure, automatic film advance, and automatic focusing. I believe serious beginners are not well served to let the camera computer make all these decisions until the photographer understands what is going on.
The $20 screw mount camera my friend bought did not even have a light meter. (By the way it was a film camera) You either have to buy a separate meter, or become good at judging exposure with the naked eye. When I started out in photography, a meter was a luxury. However, film used to come with suggested exposure settings for various light conditions, and it worked surprisingly well. After a while, you began to know it by heart.
Other very capable cameras include "range finders" and "twin lens reflex." However, many of these are collector and high end pieces that are difficult to find cheap.
Given your interest and serious questions I would highly recommend you go to the library or local bookstore, and get a book on photography. There are many. Another great way to start is with a class.
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F-stop - the aperture of the opening in the lens through which the light passes into the camera. This used to be chosen with a little knob on old cameras. New cameras with automatic features change it for you.Piano Player said:
Shutter speed - the speed at which the little curtain (shutter) inside the camera opens and shuts. Obviously, the longer it is open, the more light gets to the film. Again, on an older all manual camera you will have to set this yourself, but newer SLR cameras have automatic or program modes where the camera picks it for you.
Piano Player said:
Automatic metering - newer SLR cameras probably have this feature. the automatic meter looks at the object being photographed and decides just how much light needs to be taken in so that the picture on the film will look as it does at that moment in real life
Automatic exposure - taking the light reading from the automatic meter, the camera adjusts the aperture and the shutter speed so that it can take a good picture
Automatic film advance - since most newer cameras are powered by batteries, they use this power to advance the film to the next frame, and rewind it all the way back when the roll is finished. Older, all manual cameras don't use much battery (if any) and so the film wind is also manual
Automatic focusing - Newer SLR cameras usually have the option of focusing manually or automatically. Using the information it gathers from the lens, the camera decides how far away the subject of the picture is, and adjusts accordingly.
I don't know if you needed that information, but I wasn't busy and thought it might be helpful. Buying a manual setting camera will certainly make you learn from your mistakes, and you will quickly learn things about shutter speed and aperture that the average person doesn't understand. However without a light-meter this is incredibly difficult. If you were able to buy a newer SLR, like a Canon Rebel G2, or Nikon N65 (just examples), you would be able to use Manual mode to set the shutter speed and aperture yourself but you would have the advantage of using the light meter in the camera to get closer to the right exposure. You could even turn off the autofocus, and focus yourself. That is the main thing to consider. I'm not saying an old manual camera wouldn't be good, but you will have to invest a bit of time in it before you can work it well. With a newer camera, if you wanted to take some pictures of a birthday or something you could always use the Automatic modes to help you, and you could learn at a time when there is less rush to take a good picture.
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I own a middle of the range FujiFilm s5000, which has a lot of nifty features, and it takes quite good photos - and the more I learn about the controls the better they come out. I am now looking at moving back to 35mm with a second hand camera, probably off ebay, just because I want to play with it old skool style. I would also like to be able to make bigger prints, which aren't always available with digital resolution. 
I came by some photography books on both digital and film photography, which I have started to read. I'm an amateur amateur photographer, who is trying to study and practice to get better.
I came by some photography books on both digital and film photography, which I have started to read. I'm an amateur amateur photographer, who is trying to study and practice to get better.
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whatever camera you get you will probably move on to digitaljess anderson said:
i use 35mm but am going on to digital soon
check out
http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/3/xx/xx/1/1/criteres.html?articleId=0
http://www.dabs.com/uk/
dixons
jessops
my first choice will be 3Meg capacity with a 3x zoom...all i need to snap and take portraits...
this is £92 at pixmania...just an idea...browse some..there are bargains
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This is the same camera that I got my fiancee for Christmas, it is a great entry level digital clicker. However, if you want to learn anything about proper exposure, or manually focus a picture yourself, you simply cannot do it with one of these. About the only settings you have total control over are the flash and the exposure compensation (fancy term for how much light goes to the picture...+ compensation means more light, - compensation means less).mrcrow said:
The picture taking modes only allow you to choose a pre-programmed situation (for example "Nighttime") and not to actually change the aperture and shutter speed. So you have to decide what you really want to pursue: easy digital pictures that will be compatible with many things in the future, or a film camera that gives you the ability to make settings changes yourself, and to focus the image yourself.
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http://digitalcameras.kelkoo.co.uk/b/a/c_124901_digital_cameras.html has some good comparisons on price for various brands. I'm a beginner myself, so I can't really tell you about the various features that you should be looking for. I got a digi camera recently, and still take the photos mostly on the automatic settings, and even then they've turned out superb. I must try to read the manual a bit more so I can play around with the manual settings.
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i agree with you on that...Ouch said:
i spent all my life using manual and semi auto 35mm bodies and some medium format as well
having to choose makes you understand exposure and depth of field..both contribute to sharpness..or lack of it and good compositional differentials..
i still hack away with my minolta x700 and manual lenses...
oh..
and filtration...you need an slr to 'see' whats going on there...
but
i will get a digi ...probably the further up the line olympus with manual and macro and a BIGGER card.
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