Tips and Advice for buying a new camera:
While buying a new camera, one feels happy and excited. The technology of digital cameras improves every year just like most electronic products. The leading DSLR manufacturers – Nikon and Canon have cut-throat competition, therefore, when you are buying a new camera, you have more options than ever.
Get the camera which is right for you:
Your main aim is to buy a camera which is within your budget and is suitable for the photography of your subjects. It is better to create a list of the controls, physical size, features, etc. that you wish to have in the camera.
Extra Costs:
In addition to the camera, don’t forget that you might need to make a budget for the additional accessories as well:
- Lenses
- Memory Cards
- Camera Bag
- Tripod
- Flash
- Lens Filters
- Photo Editing Software
Types of Cameras:
There are basically three types of cameras:
- DSLR (Digital Single-Lens Reflex)
- Compact (Point and Shoot pocket cameras)
- Medium Format
A DSLR body with two lenses (some people might prefer three), built-in metering and a flash unit can be a good starting point. You may want to get a flash unit which can mount to the top of your camera, since the pop-up flash unit attached to the camera’s body is useful only in a few situations. If your budget is flexible, then three lenses would be perfect – Normal (50mm), Wide Angle (21-28mm) and a Telephoto or Zoom lens (70-200mm).
The newer and smaller digital cameras are easy to handle and also wonderful in terms of technology. But, if you want to use your camera for photographing your kids’ activities, be it general play or organized sports, or plan to use the camera for coverage of any event, then take a better look at the cameras which offer a built-in zoom lens. The leading camera makers – Nikon, Canon and Olympus, mostly have very fine small cameras which come with optically excellent zoom lenses.
Put your camera to test:
When you are buying a camera, get a memory card and start taking photos before filling out the registration card of the camera. This should be done to ensure that everything is functioning properly, if not then, you can ship it back to the site where you bought it from so that they can either exchange or return it. If you have filled out the card and/or waited too long, and something is wrong with the camera, you will have to ship it back to the manufacturer.
If you wish to buy a video camera, try to get the model which has an ‘optical zoom lens’ instead of digital zoom. Digital zooms aren’t yet perfected and shooting at longer focal lengths might give disapproving results.
If you want to use telephoto on either video or still, you will need some kind of support to stabilize the camera. Tripods are good for this. Yet, if you have to cover events that involve moving around (weddings, sports, rock festivals, etc.), you should definitely use a monopod. Monopod is a collapsible, light-weight and one-legged support that provides excellent support and allows great mobility.
