how to pic out a new camera

huntsforpictures

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hello i am brand new at this, i am as much of a begginer as you can get. i am an outdoor enthusiast and am out hiking every weekend and after work as much as possible. i figured i might as well get a camera and start shooting some outdoor and wildlife pics. at some point i wouldnt mind even trying to sell some photos to try to break even on my fuel and equpment costs. so first is is realistic to sell enough pics to pay for expenses? and second what would be a good camera? must be durable enough to be with me in the woods, and also take "profesional grade pics".(obviosly i would need to do my part as well, but im 21 and have a long time to learn) so can anyone point me in the right direction? thanks :mrgreen:
 
Sounds like a Advanced SuperZoom Bridge camera would be the best choice for you. What's your budget?
 
1000 ( USD I assume - best to specify, we're not all from the US ;) ) would get you a camera that would do the job with ease.

An advanced superbridge would work but might ultimatly be limiting. As your hiking out and about I expect the camera is likely to be subjected to dust, probably damp etc. so would need a degree of ruggedness.

That points straight at what is, ironically, my favourite camera and to no-ones surprise ( who've read my posts before ) I'd say you should look at a DSLR and in particular the weather sealed Pentax K200D.

In the UK I can get Pentax K200D Digital SLR Camera Megabundle with Pentax 18-55mm MK2, Tamron 70-300mm Lenses, Case & 4gb Card for £469 which is comfortably under the $1000 budget.

Heck the better Pentax K20D Digital SLR Camera with Pentax 18-55mm, Tamron 70-300mm Lenses, Case & 4gb Card is £669 which is about $1000 USD.

Both will suit your needs, are rugged well built camera's and the lenses will do the job. The 18-55 for landscapes and the like. The 70-300 good start for wildlife.

Both choices will produce proffesional quality prints up to at least A3 in size (probably A2). As for selling your work, if it's good enough quality ( in terms of your composition skills ) sure it's feasible but selling prints is a VERY intensive and competitive market so you may well find it hard to make much money purely from that.
 
It usually takes a long time and a lot of shooting to get to the point where you can start meeting or beating expenses, but that depends very much on your expenses and how good you are. :)

It's certainly worth trying if it interests you, though. There are so many interesting ways to "get your stuff out there" these days... flickr, smugmug, etc.

One thing is that nature photography is crazy saturated and it's hard to be unique in that space. It also tends to take some hard-core equipment to get the shots you really want, so expenses tend to go up quickly over time. Not that this should dissuade you, just keep it in mind.

There are a couple solid nature photogs on here. Overread obsesses over it, I think. :) They can shed more light on specifics than I can.

Good luck with it.
 
Olympus makes something that might be attractive. I'm not a fan of the 4/3 mount but their reps are apparently more than enthusiastic enough to dump a bucket of water over their cameras to prove a point.

But, with the 4/3 sensor you get a 2x crop, which means any lens you use with it will appear to be 2x the focal length as on a normal film body.

That's if you want to do wildlife, birding etc...

Landscape? It's expensive, but full frame is the way to go. You can't touch a used full frame camera for much under $1300 though and that's usually just for a body with no lenses.
 
Landscape photography is fairly cheap. FF is nice, but not required. They make enough lenses to allow a crop body to do it well. Here is what I reccomend:

Nikon D80 kit- $500
Tokina 12-24 F4: $350
Maybe a 70-300 if the budget allows.

$1000 is a meagar budget for both wildlife and landscape photography. $1000 is a great amount for doing landscapes, but wildlife gets very expensive very fast.
 

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