The advent of digital photography changed everything but the art itself. Those of us who were happy and comfortable in the knowledge that we had the finest lenses (and more of this in subsequent months) and camera bodies and that all we needed to do when we wanted to upgrade the image quality was to get hold of Fuji or Kodak’s latest film and voila new, bright, colourful, high resolution images! For most of us, we shot a pile of trannie film and then mounted the individual frames in little plastic mounts and captioned these using sticky labels that seemed to prefer sticking to the emulsion rather than to the slide mount. If someone needed to use a pic in a book or magazine or whatever you sent them a trannie, they did what was necessary with scanners and such like and it appeared in the publication, most of the time looking pretty good. Some times the results looked awful and then we would grumble amongst ourselves, moaning about #@#$*&^ repro houses, printers and paper…

Digital cameras changed that in no small way. And for the better I feel, although there will be a bunch of people out there who would disagree. Yes I know that when you need to upgrade image quality it involves a pleading and grovelling session with the bank manager, but you don’t have to buy film again. Ever! And when you head off on a 2 month trip through Africa you don’t attract attention to yourself by carrying around enough film to supply a small country. And no more messing about with tiny sticky labels, each one with a mind of its own. And, most importantly, I feel that we’ve reached a stage where the image quality is spectacular. (Again, I’m sure there are many that would disagree but …) Digital photography too, has made the photographic pastime much more accessible to the man in the street than it’s ever been. In the past one would need to spend hours in the dark fiddling with noxious chemicals and now you can do very similar things on your laptop during lunch time (or whenever).

So, what camera? This decision is really critical now because of the prices of cameras and so you really need to get the purchase right the first time.

Here’s the question: “What do I want to do with it?”

Answer 1: “Do some pix of the family on holiday, the new baby, and gran when she pops in for a visit.”

You need one of the small point and shoot cameras like the little Nikon S210, S18, or if you’d like to splash out a little, the S550. Canon does the Powershot A480, the A210 and the compact Ixus range. In terms of pricing, you should be able to get something very nice for under about R3 000 or under R2 000 if you are willing to settle for a camera a little less flashy. Forget about pixels here. All digital cameras that you buy today have more than enough in the way of pixels to cater for all your needs. I still sell images that I shot on my old 3mp digital SLR - some of them used full page in magazines. The cameras above (and there are many others available – not just the Nikons and Canons) will be more than adequate for general family photography, the images easily enlarging to A4 and larger.

Answer 2: “Similar to the above but we visit the game reserves and I do like to play with the images on my computer, doing a bit of “darkroom” work like changing the colour balance, cropping, masking and so on.”
The visit to the game reserve changes things a little. The 3 or 4 X zooms on the above entry level cameras simply won’t cut it and so you need to look at Nikon’s P80 and Canon’s SX10. These will do the job beautifully as that 18 or 20 power zoom will be the equivalent of about a 480 or 500mm lens on a 35mm camera – very useful in the game reserve and the 10 mp images will have more than enough “meat” to play around with the images in Photoshop. Pricing is around the R5 000 mark.

Answer 3: “I love photography and I am looking for the best in terms of quality but I really couldn’t be bothered with a DSLR. Henri Cartier Bresson is my hero.”
 
Both Nikon and Canon do little “pro” cameras that would fill this niche perfectly - the P6000 and the G10 respectively. You should be able to pick up either for under R7 000 and both shoot RAW images as well as the normal jpegs. We will delve into the “To RAW or not to RAW” debate at another stage but very briefly if you shoot RAW images it maximises the amount of control you have when manipulating them and results in the highest quality pix. The above cameras are light, small and best of all you do not look like a pro photographer when using them so no one notices you. We’ve had double page spreads in some of the country’s top magazines using this type of camera so image quality is superb. I cart one around with me wherever I go just in case…

Answer 4: “I’ve had a little point and shoot camera for a number of years now and I’d like to pursue the hobby, taking it up seriously. Budget is a little limited though.”

Now is the time to start having a look at the digital single lens reflex cameras and the range is huge, starting at Nikons D5000 and D60 and Canon’s 1000D and 500D. (Remember, other manufacturers do make some very nice equivalents but I cannot list them all here.) Pricing starts at about R7 000 and goes to about R12 000 or so for body only.  Most of the cameras do come in kit form with a (usually adequate) standard zoom lens and you can easily add lenses (buy the very best you can – don’t skimp on lens quality) as you go along. The beauty of DSLR’s is that you can buy very good quality lenses and then upgrade the bodies as they and your budget improve. The quality produced by these cameras is astoundingly good, lacking a little of the dynamic range of the higher end cameras but very usable anyway. They have bigger sensors than all of the point and shoot cameras so noise levels (a little like film grain for those that don’t know) are generally very low even at higher ISO levels (still very usable at ISO 800 or so).

Answer 5: I’m serious!

You have to be looking at the Nikon D90, D300 or D700 or Canon 50D and 5D Mk II. All these cameras are capable of spectacular results. I use the D300 as my backup camera and for when I don’t want to lug the monster (D3x) along and with its 18-105 VR lens makes a wonderful “travel” camera. The D90, D300 and 50D are all “APS” sized sensors (as are the DSLR’s above) and as such are smaller than the D700 and the 5D which are what are called full frame cameras and have a sensor the same size as the 35mm format. In terms of out and out image quality the D700 and the much higher pixel count 5D Mk II are better but, because of that smaller sensor, there is an effective increase in focal length (by 1,5 times for the Nikons and 1,6 times for the Canon) when 35mm lenses are used on them. The way this works is that the smaller sensors use only the centre portion of the image circle projected by the lens and as a result the lens appears to be longer than it is. Obviously, a 300mm lens is just that and nothing can change it but if you are using one on a Nikon D300 it would be the same as using a 450mm lens on the full frame D700. This is really great if you are using long lenses often and can be a huge influence if you are trying to decide between the two cameras – just imagine, that 300mm f4 lens you have now effectively becomes as 450mm f4. What a bargain!

Answer 6. Even more serious! Well, if you are that serious you probably know more than me so I won’t even go into it!

I haven’t been able to go into as much detail as I would have liked because of space but be careful of being influenced by the pixel race and by people analysing images to the nth degree. You will invariably find that you need fewer pixels than you think and that all those horror stories about excessive noise in images don’t translate into a visible difference when the image is printed. A little while back a camera was released amidst huge criticism that the noise levels in the images were unacceptably high. Just to get things into perspective in my own mind, I did some pix of flowers at ISO 100 and 1600 and then had them printed at about A4 size. I knew what to look for and yes I could see a bit of grain creeping in at ISO 1600 but a friend who is a reasonably experienced photographer couldn’t until I pointed it out to him and neither could the participants of the photographic workshop I held a few weeks later!