I'm wanting to take up photography as a hobby and I'm shopping around for schools that have photography classes so I can learn more to get better but for now I just want to do it as a hobby and make a portfolio for my pictures. I've heard from someone I sort of know that Nikon's are the best camera's but I just wanted a second (or more lol) opinion on which one. Thank you in advance.
Depends on if you want to do digital photography or if you want to make your own prints, which can be very costly
Its either Cannon or Nikon, nothing else. Make sure it can shoots in RAW which is a digital negative and can be processed on the computer, I'm a cannon person and like L lenses, Nikon has their equal. The Canon Rebel is nice , I like the full size sensor
Ive taken really nice pictures with a crappy little nikon pocket camera that cost me $2...and ive taken crappy pics with my better but still not great $500 canon my point is that spending money is not always the best,,,sure you might get more control and more features but cheap ones can take great pics too...its 90% photographer and 10% equipment imo
I remember someone saying that you don't TAKE a photograph, but you MAKE a photograph. It's not so much about a snap of something but the image you create of it. So really you have to be in control of the process so this means that you will need a camera that has a manual over- ride. Do a bit of research and get a good SLR to which you can add a selection of lenses. Do a course to get a bit of technical background and try out a few cameras. I.M.H.O. the better Cannons & Nikons. Outasight.
Sorry for the very late response I've been very busy lately. And I want to thank everyone for the feedback. =)
Mickie has nailed it on all points. Unless you want to just shoot "snapshots", Canon and/or Nikon are the only way to go, bar none. You definitely want to go full-size sensor, so you won't have to constantly do aperture and distance conversions in your head (plus the resulting image is so much more WYSIWYG.) Like Mickie, I'm also a Canon enthusiast and swear by their L-series lens. Regardless of what you ultimately select, get out and use it! Use it immediately and use it a lot! It's like mastering a musical instrument. The best way to become good at it is practice, practice, practice! Don't ever worry about taking too many pictures. Remember: you can immediately discard anything you don't like. It's only electrons.
This^ You can't go wrong with either Canon or Nikon. Now I shoot Nikon, so I really can't comment much on Canon bodies or glass. Anyhow, starting out, you got two types of sensors, a Crop (DX) and Full Frame (FX). DX bodies are cheaper to produce and generally top out around $1200. FX cameras are typically used by Professional photographers and start out around $1700 and run as high as $6,000 or more. They both have their pros and cons and bigger or more costly doesn't necessarily equate to better. Professional Bird photographers tend to use DX bodies for example. Personally, I would start off with a good entry level DX body that includes manual modes such as M, A, S, & P (this is slightly different for Canon). Then start out practicing with something like Shutter Priority or Aperture Priority. I would probably leave the ISO set on Auto until you start getting the hang of things.
Not necessarily true. I'm a semi-pro bird photographer and I much prefer FX bodies. My experience with other bird photographers (and wildlife photographers in general) is that the serious professionals prefer FX bodies over DX bodies (unless they simply can't afford them) as much as wedding and portrait photographers do. While a DX body will ostensibly give you "more bang for the buck" with telephoto lens (e.g. a 400mm lens actually giving you the equivalent magnification of a 600mm lens on an FX body), they also introduce a number of disadvantages. I won't try to list them all, but the ones that have (in past) affected me the most are: Noise at high ISO levels – the small size of pixels results in noisy pictures and much less sharpness and detail in higher sensitivity levels. So, if you shoot in a lot of low light situations, you'll experience this problem frequently. Smaller dynamic range – compared to FX, DX cameras have a smaller dynamic range, largely due to pixel size and density. So, if you frequently shoot bright subjects against really dark backgrounds, or you shoot a lot of very high contrast landscapes, your result may suffer when using a DX body instead of an FX body. Problems with wide-angle lenses - The DX advantage with telephoto lens becomes a marked disadvantage with zoom lenses. Just as a 400mm lens behaves like a 600mm lens on a DX body, a 14mm lens behaves like a 21mm lens on the same body. That's fine until you want the field of view that a 14mm lens normally offers. Yes, FX bodies cost more that comparable DX bodies and, yes, they tend to be larger physically, but you get what you pay for. If you plan to just shoot pictures for flickr and facebook, a DX camera body will serve you just fine. If you plan to hang big copies of your prints on a wall somewhere, or sell them to Audubon magazine or National Geographic, FX bodies are a better choice. Here's an article that says it all much better than me: Why DX has no future As you might expect, there are lively discussions on the pros and cons of DX in the comments section. I encourage you to read it and decide for yourself which suits you the best.
A new Nikon 400mm 2.8 runs around $8,000 and a new Nikon 600mm is about $10,000. The cheapest new production Nikon FX body is the D610 for $1,900. A decent tripod for all that will set them back another $400-600. DX offers DX offers one an affordable way to achieve similar ranges for a fraction of the cost. Anyhow, I never said all bird watchers use DX. It's also non of my business and something I consider rude and that is questioning one's finnacial status.
My apologies. I didn't mean to suggest that you were stating an absolute. Also, I had no intention of questioning anyone's financial status. If I gave that impression, I'm sorry. What I was trying to get across was that my philosophy has always been to buy the absolute best that you can afford and then hang onto it for as long as possible, rather than having to "trade up" every year or two (which I really hate doing.) I know plenty of folks (including close friends) that prefer doing just the opposite. As always, YMMV.
Sorry about that. I don't know what came over me. Oh man, I could probably stand to adopt your philosophy. I mean in hindsight, I'm on my 3rd DX body and thinking about trading up to an FX body. I figured I could sell my D7100 w/17-55mm 2.8 and buy a D610 or refurbished D800. I already have the FX glass (Nikon 28-70mm 2.8 & Nikon 70-200mm 2.8 VRII). So ya, I should have just started out buying an FX body.
Theres no such thing as the best camera. The best camera is what fits you most. Look for a camera that has features that will be useful for what you shoot. Don't judge only on make(although definitely don't get a chinese knock off or something!), but rather judge it by the model. For example, I shoot a lot of skateboarding, and I often need to change my settings quite often, so I have a camera with dedicated dials that I have set to shutter speed and aperture. If you're 100% unsure of what you want to mainly shoot, that's fine, just make sure you get a camera you find is easy to use daily. If you have a local camera shop, it would benefit you to check out some of the options there and talk to the employees just to get a feel of what you're looking for. Unless you have a lot of money to blow, I'd suggest buying used. Just make sure it's in good condition, I'm pretty sure theres a few articles on the web on what to check for. If not, you can PM me if you want. I've saved over a thousand buying used, and as a relatively broke teenager, I don't have much to spend on camera equipment in the first place. If it's just a hobby, I see no reason to spend thousands upon thousands on equipment. If you go professional, you'll already be good enough with your camera to have the skills needed to generate extra money to upgrade your equipment. Oh, and megapixels. The count of them is meaningless, it's the size of them that makes things clearer. As a DSLR sensor is large, the sensors are relatively large compared to other types of cameras. That means that a DSLR at 10MP is way better than a cell phone at 10MP. Unless you're going to be making pretty large prints, megapixel count won't matter much. As BBAD said on the first page, "its 90% photographer and 10% equipment". All of this applies to film SLRs as well except megapixels. The film is the sensor
The sad thing is that technology is obsoleting our camera gear as fast as we can buy it. When I bought my Canon 5D, it cost me over two grand (with the accompanying L-series lens), was considered state of the art, and had a 12.8 megapixel sensor. Now, less than half a decade later, my sister owns a SMART PHONE with a 40.2 megapixel built-in camera! It's like the red queen said in Through the Looking Glass, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"
