Friday, September 07, 2012

Why "better" camera

Perhaps the biggest revolution of photography is the invention of digital cameras. Now, everyone can take photos either with their mobile phones or a digital camera. In fact, every household has an appliance which allows them to take photos.
Many people saw my cameras and asked me what is the difference between one camera and another, or why buy a more expensive camera. I find it difficult to answer except by giving them an analogy that they are all familiar with.
Imagine you have to travel from point A to B which is a few hundred miles by a car. If the condition is ideal, you can use any car and you will arrive in quite a good condition and with a skillful driver the passenger will arrive feeling reasonably good, ie, not giddy/tired. Therefore, in ideal condition, any camera will take a reasonable photo. With some skill, the photos actually turn out very good. However, life is never ideal!
The problem arrives when there are patches of road which are sandy, or smeared with oil, or not level, or badly designed, or encountering heavy rain or wind. Using a cheap car with no fancy electronic, etc, the journey may be interrupted, delayed, accident, etc.  Translate this to challenges in photography like poor lighting, strong back light, poor weather, fast moving object/subject, etc, you now need a better camera and also skill to operate in order to get better photos.
I compared high end camera with a high end car. I leave it to your imagination what you are going to do with them. Why someone buy high end car as oppose to a cheap ones? You tell me.

6 comments:

William said...

You have a good analogy. I bought reasonably priced camera. I am not a professional photographer and nor I require a top end camera that will cost a fortune. Digital camera is a fast evolving technology. A high end camera might become outdated within two years superseded by cheaper and more advanced model. Nowadays entry level DSLR has become so cheap and it include most features found in previous high end camera. I just ordered a D3200, a two generations improvement from D3000 which I presently used. It will be decent enough for a serious photographer who don't mind a bulky piece of equipment.

lasapka said...

hmmmm sounds like you are getting and gotten a highend car lately :)

William said...

Hi William, you don't need to be pro to buy good camera. Just like you don't need a pro/rich guy to buy a high end car. Just appreciation what the hi end can offer will do. In fact, most RR owners leave the car at home to pamper themselves when opportunity arises. Of course having said all these, having $$ is still the major factor.
It is true that many "features" in pro version is available to low end/entry level camera. But they are just "baby" version. Camera maker will never be stupid enough to offer the full hi end stuff to low end market as it will kill their own market.
Eg, I tried Nikon D800 with huge resolution. But the result is no better than my D3. Compared to my H3D, it is miles apart.

Lasapka, I will not buy hi end car lah... maybe a D4 will do me more good. hehehe... but if I have lots of $$ to throw, I may buy a hi end car.

William said...

Camera maker like Nikon are throwing more technology than ever before into their entry level DSLR thanks to competition from mirroless interchangable lens camera that have stolen a big chunk of pie. The D3200 has the second highest megapixel count in Nikon family of DSLR. I still have to test how the camera perform under low light condition and high ISO setting. Hope that it won't be a dissapointment. I ordered it from an online store for a mere A$604 including a kit lens. It is a bargain.

William said...

William

William said...

William, what you say is true. But don't get fooled by higher pixel. They are meaningless other than chewing up huge amount of storage. Normally, higher pixel also equate to lower ISO. All Physic here... unless there is major technology breakthrough. See what I mean. Photography is all talking about light. The amount of light falling on the sensor is the same and cramping huge pixel into the same space means less light for each pixel.