So you want to buy a camera......

[Tkraz]

Right,
Ive recently decided I want to take up photography myself and aside from being almost entirely new to the whole world of it bar browsing the net for a good few months on the subject, Im vastly inexperienced.

Is there any beginners equipment you could recommend for digital photography at a fairly proffesional level?

I currently have a kinda standardy digital camera thats about 4 Mpixels and has a pretty decent optical zoom on it.

Would this suffice for now or should I really invest in a better one before starting?

Thanks

 

[voodoocat]

Well unless you plan on spending $1000 on a DSLR I would just stick with what you have. That, or purchase a film SLR.

My interest in photography started with a 2.1 megapixel point and shoot. Then I wanted more quality and I wanted to learn how to shoot pictures with a manual SLR camera. So I've spent the last couple of years shooting with that. In the next week or so I'm going to move back to digital and purchase a D70. Though, I will always shoot film to some extent (black and white and medium format)

 

[Big Mike]

You will be able to do a lot of things with your P&S digital...what model is it? What options & features does it have?

To really learn about photography, you will want to have control over both the aperture and the shutter speed.

Some people say that the best way to learn photography is to use a fully manual camera where you have to set the shutter & aperture yourself, all the time. But with digital, you have instant feedback which is a huge advantage.

I'd say, shoot lot of pictures and test out everything you can with your current camera. Once you find your style and the limitations of your camera...you will have a better idea of what to upgrade to.

 

[Chase]

If your current camera gives you the ability to manually adjust exposure (set your own shutter speed and f-stop), you should have enough to experiment with and get a good feel for photography with.

Moving into a digital SLR (Nikon D70, Canon 10D or Digital Rebel) will give you more flexibility by giving you a choice of lenses and generally a wider range of f-stops and shutter speeds with an overall higher picture quality. The downfall is the initial cost which will probably be at least $1,000 to get a basic kit together.

Are you already finding yourself wishing that your current digital had various features, or that it could do certain things that it doesn't offer? If so, you may want to take the leap towards a DSLR now...otherwise, I'd spend a little more time experimenting with what you have and that will give you a better idea of what you really want. If you're lucky, the prices will drop a little by the time you buy as well.

Just my 2 cents! Hope it helps a little.

 

[Tkraz]

OK thanks guys, Im honestly not to sure if I can alter the shutter speed etc with my current camera but my gut feeling is no , i cant.

Heres the model perhaps you can help me or is there anything or anywhere in particular I should be looking with it?

KODAK EasyShare DX6340

 

[Tkraz]

Ok guys after a little research I have managed to work out how to alter these settings manually on my camera *yay*

Now if only i understood them

 

[markc]

I highly recommend this book. It goes over the things you need to know about making an image in a very easy-to-learn manner.

From looking at the stats, you have both shutter-priority and aperture-priority. It also has a max-aperture of 2.2, so you can play with limiting depth-of-field. None of that probably makes sense right now, but I think this is a fine camera to start off with.

 

[Tkraz]

Thats fantastic news mate.

Thanks for your help and I will get a hold of that book