Choosing a Camera for ERS 318

You probably already have a camera with you at all times: the one in your phone. You can definitely use your phone camera to make pictures for ERS 318, but you also need a "real" camera because there are things I want to teach you that you won't be able to do with a phone camera.

Fortunately, you don't need the latest, high-end digital camera for ERS 318. Many cameras from the past five years, or even older, will be more than enough. However, it’s very important that the camera you use in this course has key capabilities that we're going to use (e.g., the ability to make RAW files).

Below are some considerations to help you decide if a camera you have will be appropriate. Advice on buying or borrowing a camera is at the end of this document.

General Considerations

First and foremost, you should have a good camera, but it can be an older camera if it was a good camera when it was new. A brand new camera that isn’t a good camera isn’t necessarily better than an old but good camera.

If you have an older camera and you’re not sure if it was a “good” camera when it was new, read a credible review. I use Digital Photography Review and have found it to be quite reliable. They have reviews of cameras going back as far as 1998. If the reviewers thought it was an excellent camera in 2017, then it will probably be just fine today.

The brand doesn’t matter. All the major camera companies make good cameras and lenses (and also some bad cameras and lenses…). Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, Fujifilm, Sony, Panasonic… they all make some great cameras.

Why can't I just use my phone camera?

You can make excellent photographs with many modern smartphones. There's more than enough resolution in newer smartphone cameras, and image quality can be outstanding. In fact, we've reached the point where most of the billions of photographs that are published on the Internet every day were made with camera phones. Many people will never use a "real" camera to make pictures. 

Nonetheless, most smartphone cameras still have some built-in limitations that make them unsuitable as the only camera you'll need for this course. For instance, I want to teach you how to work with RAW files, and some phone cameras only make JPEG images. Also, most phone cameras have a fixed aperture, and many only have a single, short focal length lens. You'll need more flexibility to make the kinds of pictures I want you to make. However, you'll probably be able to make some of the pictures you'll make in the course with your phone.

Specific Considerations

Sensors and Megapixels

Some people obsess about how many megapixels their cameras have. In reality, cameras today have vastly more resolution than most people will ever use. We're going to be making lots of prints in ERS 318, up to 12"x18". Depending on the camera, an 8 MP (mega pixel) sensor might be just barely be good enough for that size. For example, a Canon EOS 20d from 2004 had a resolution of 3,504 x 2,336 pixels (which works out to 8.2 MP). Older iPhones (from versions 4 through 6) have phone cameras with 3,264 x 2,448 pixels. Both of these cameras can make 12" x 18" prints that will look good if you're careful. Current phone cameras have more than enough resolution for the prints we're making. If your camera offers 16 MP or more, you should be just fine.

The native sensor size and aspect ratio are largely irrelevant for our purposes. Full frame (equivalent to the area of a 35mm film frame), APS-C, APS-H, DX, CX, M43… they’re all fine. There are some advantages to larger sensors, but they don't matter for our purposes. Aspect ratios of 4:3, 3:2, 16:9, 1:1 are all fine. It’s nice to have some choice in the format your camera can record, but it’s not essential. For example, for some images I like to make square images, and it’s much easier to compose a square image when the camera can use that format directly. However, you can still make the picture using a rectangular aspect ratio, and then crop to square during post-processing. Composition is more difficult, but it's manageable.

Lenses

A poor quality lens will eliminate any benefits that come from more pixels. Some lenses are excellent under all circumstances – wide open or stopped down, close up and far away, etc. All lenses have limations under some circumstances. Experienced photographers learn the limitations of their cameras and lenses, and then work with or around them.

It’s handy to have a camera body that will take different lenses, but it’s not essential. If you only have one lens, a standard zoom lens gives you flexibility. Some cameras have fixed zoom lenses that give you a range of focal lengths. Some focal lengths are more useful than others in this course. You’ll probably get more use from normal to wide lenses than you will from telephoto or ultra-wide. A zoom lens that covers wide, normal and short-telephoto will give you a lot of flexibility. If you have prime lenses (each lens covers only one focal length), then try to have something on the wide side, and something on the normal side. A short telephoto prime lens combined with a normal and a wide lens will make a very useful three lens set.

Because camera sensors come in so many shapes and sizes, there's a lot of confusion around focal length. Most camera manufacturers will report the actual focal length of the lens in mm, and its equivalent if the lens was used on a 35mm film camera. This is entirely arbitrary, but it's the convention.

ISO and Stabilization

One of the ways today’s cameras are much better than older cameras is in their ability to make good quality images in low light. All digital cameras will give you a range of ISO speeds, e.g., from ISO 100 to ISO 3200 is common in cameras from the early 2000s. Contemporary cameras allow much higher speeds (e.g., I've seen ISO speeds of 409,600). More importantly, the quality of high ISO speed images is better in many (but not all) contemporary cameras.

With many older cameras, you may have to be prepared to work at their ideal ISO setting (which is usually around 100 or 200), and you may have to accept that images made at their faster ISO speeds are lower quality. Is this a serious problem? Consider that people who only ever used film cameras – and who made incredible photographs with them – viewed ISO 400 as quite fast for film.If your camera only works well at low ISO speeds, you will have less flexibility to shoot in low light conditions.

In-camera or in-lens stabilization is more common in new cameras than older. If your camera has stabilization (in the body or the lens) then it will be easier to make hand-held images using lower ISO speeds at slower shutter speeds. Stabilization is certainly not essential. You can always use a tripod if you need slow shutter speeds.

Autofocus and Manual Focus

As long as your camera has a way to let you choose where the focus point is, it will work fine for this course. This could be manual focus, autofocus control points, or simply a "half press" of the shutter that lets you focus on something and recompose.

Live view is another nice (but not necessary) feature. If your camera has a "live view" feature, you'll be able to see on the screen or in the viewfinder what the image would look like if you pressed the shutter button at that moment. If it doesn't, you'll be fine; you can always review the picture after recording it to your card.

Exposure Modes

If you're new to photography, your camera should also have an automatic exposure mode so you can focus on making pictures; most cameras can do this. However, you also need a way to make decisions about exposure. Therefore, your camera should have some options to let you control aperture, shutter speed and ISO.

Exposure compensation control through a dial, lever or wheel is very useful, but not essential.

Image File Format

Digital cameras can save images as JPEG (compressed and processed files), or RAW (uncompressed and unprocessed), or both. Your camera must allow you to shoot in RAW. That gives the most flexibility in post-processing. There are numerous different RAW formats specific to each camera manufacturer. Check your manual if you're not sure.

Not only does the camera you use in the course have to be able to save files in a RAW format, but also those files have to be readable by Adobe Lightroom. The version of Lightroom that we're using in the course should be able to read RAW files from any camera you can find.

Other Considerations

You’ll also need some basic accessories.

• A tripod that you can carry around might be handy, but isn’t essential unless you need to work at slow shutter speeds (where it will be required).
• A bag to carry your camera and other bits and pieces is important; it doesn’t have to be a camera bag. Anything that protects your gear is fine.
• We’ll concentrate on available light photography so you don’t need a flash – but if you have one, great.
• Cleaning equipment is also handy.

Feature Summary