Wanna buy a DSLR? - Part 1

“Hey that’s a damn good photo, which camera?”
“Why do you carry that camera bag when you can have this gazillion megapixel pocket camera?”
“Should I buy this SLR thingy?”
“What SLR should I buy?”
“Why won’t your SLR zoom? Where is the Zoom/movie button?”
“What!!!!! your big camera can’t make movies? Why did you buy it then?”

Ever heard any of the above? Those are some of the questions I came across. If you read them carefully, you will realize that all of them are asked by someone who knows camera as a box with a click button. Some of these questions really cracked me up, some upset me. So I decided to write down my thoughts. Before we continue, a declaration is on the way.

Camera does not make great photo, photographer and light does.
A point and shoot is what my mother use.
Lens, viewfinder, aperture, ISO, Noise, shutter, exposure. All of them are important.
SLRs don’t zoom, lenses do.
No, SLR don’t make movies. Just like your car can not “make” coffee.

Phew. With that out of way, we can continue with more sensible discussion. First let us say that point and shoot cameras are not bad. In fact with the technological advances they have only become better. If you need easy to use, compact and lightweight camera, do not even think about DSLR. DSLRs are heavy, bulky and have a steep learning curve. You will not be able to slip DSLR in your shirt pocket and not notice it. If you want a good P&S go to the camera shop, try various P&S. Try different manufacturers, click test pictures without flash, see the pictures on a laptop at 100% size, then decide which is the camera for you.

When you are in market for buying a DSLR there are various factors which comes before you even start looking at a camera store. You would need to know the answers of following questions:

1. What kind of photography I want to do?
Travel, architecture, sports, fashion, wildlife, candid, walkabout… There are more than enough types to choose from. This is the most confusing question of them all as it is more of an artistic question rather than a technical one. You will be the best person to answer it as well. Just ensure that you are honest while deciding your shooting style. Shooting your son’s football game once a year does not mean that you want to do mainly sports with your camera.

2. What is my budget?
At least initially you will need to know what kind of budget you have allocated for photography. After you have started with the exciting world of DSLR, you will be broke anyways. As soon as you start understanding “sharp”, “IS/VR/OS”, “wide open”, “more reach” etc, your bank balance would be in serious danger.

3. How deeply you want to be involved in photography?
Though with time, photography has become cheaper than what it used to be, it still costs money, time and effort. If you go ahead and buy a top of the line DSLR for bragging right and use it only a few times in a year in full auto mode, you might as well donate that money to a good charity. A camera sitting on a shelf for months does not make you a better photographer. You have to give it some time and be ready to take efforts in learning various techniques.

4. Megapixels don’t not matter.
If you search the net, you will notice that people keep saying megapixels won;t matter. I can not agree more with that saying. You might want to consider that bigger sensor will result in better pictures. A compact camera with tiny sensor may have 10 Megapixel crammed on it, but a 6 Megapixel SLR with bigger sensor will almost always do better. Have a look at this article in DPreview.com.

5. Canon/Nikon/Pentax/Sony is better than Canon/Nikon/Pentax/Sony
Honestly, no. They are all fine. Still the DSLR market is dominated by Canon/Nikon as they have a huge lens lineup. When choosing what brand to go along with, consider what kind of lenses you will be investing into. Do a price comparison of lens prices on various sites. See the samples of various camera bodies/lenses. Go to the camera store, hold the camera, operate it, feel it and then may be you will have an idea on what camera feel “right”.

I will write the next installment of this article, in which we will explore various startup gears one can indulge into without causing a serious damage to his bank balance.

In Search…

 

I Search … for those memory lanes.. where I can get lost again…

I search … for those moments.. where I can live again…

I search … for you … to find myself

 

Hummer … Now everyone knows

Stumbled across this link last night…. Funny as hell and so true

The Original Link: Hummer, Now everyone knows

Ground Zero

Hmmm …. I have not posted anything for a long time. Though whenever I see something, I compose a scene in my mind. But somehow I can not bear to do the same with the camera.  It just one of those times when I can not think straight. Guess it’s a low time in my life. Hope tomorrow brings a better day. Currently life is back at Ground Zero

Simple Life

Everyday people in Rajasthan

A prayer

Came across this one from my old emails… It sure cracks me up even now

Our Father, who 0wnz heaven, j00 r0ck!
May all 0ur base someday be belong to you!
May j00 0wn earth just like j00 0wn heaven.
Give us this day our warez, mp3z, and pr0n through a phat pipe.
And cut us some slack when we act like n00b lamerz, just as we teach
n00bz when they act lame on us.
Please don’t give us root access on some poor d00d’z box when we’re
too pissed off to think about what’s right and wrong, and if you could
keep the fbi off our backs, we’d appreciate it.
For j00 0wn r00t on all our b0×3s 4ever and ever, 4m3n.

Sands of time

Its a slugs life

As an example of things that you may be missing when you are looking at the big picture. I came across this guy when I went to the local park and decide to take a break and lie down a bit. After noticing this guy next to me, first thing I did was to check if there are any that I might have killed without knowing. Luckily no one was hurt

Now, I am not an expert on bugs/slugs/worms/larva, heck I did not even study biology but I liked this fella to be quite fascinating. Like someone said, life is what happens when we are too busy to notice. Right now am in the middle of sorting through pictures of my recent India trip. Will post some when I am done processing them.

Canon EOS 20D Part III

I thought long and hard about why did I buy a 20D when I could have bought a 400D (10 Mega pixels, self sensor cleaning etc). To tell the truth, the most important factor was the fact that 20D felt much better in my hands than 400D. Xti or 400D felt too small and flimsy in my hands. Of course it is an excellent camera, but me being someone who prefers cf cards over sd cards cause they feel better in my hands, I found 20D feels just right in my hands.

Another factor was speed. 20D had great reviews about its 5fps shooting. Though I am yet to use that kind of burst, I decided its better to have that.

Then the most important factor. High ISO performance. 20D is known to have a good performance at high ISO. My shootings are generally done during the evening. Low light situations are a fact of life for me. So I decided to test the performance of my 20D and at the same time test my 50mm F1.8 cheapie too. So here goes

ISO 100, F1.8 (Full size image can be found here)

ISO 400 F1.8 (Full size image can be found here)

ISO 800 F1.8 (Full size image can be found here)

ISO 1600 F1.8 (Full size image can be found here)

As you can see clearly from the images above, even ISO 1600 is usable, it just needs a good whipping through the noise reduction software. Actually you can get perfectly usable images for 8×12 prints. BTW, all the shots in the test were taken on a tripod, captured in RAW, resized to 8×12 and white balance corrected in CS2 and saved for web. No NR and no sharpening was applied.

Lets continue with the images taken at different aperture. At this point, I have no doubts about ISO performance, I am just checking at what aperture my 50mm is sharp.

ISO 400, F2.8 (full image can be found here)

ISO 400 F4.0 (full image can be found here)

ISO 400 F5.6 (Full image can be found here)

ISO 400 F8.0 (Full image can be found here)

Now, I have teh following two conclusions from my little test.

1. I do not have to worry about ISO performance. ISO 1600 is no problems for this baby.
2. My 50mm gives a great background blur (*i don’t know what it is called*) and is quite sharp from F4 onwards.

One gripe I have with 20D is, I always smudge my LCD whenever I am taking photos. I would love to have a plastic protector like Nikon D80 has.

Anyone planning to buy a DSLR should look into refurb 20D units. If you check Adorama or B&H, you will get a decent canon refurb unit for @ $700. Obviously with the introduction of 40D a lot of 30D/20D are going to be sold and their prices are going to be affordable as well. All in all, Canon DSLRs buyers are going to have a lot of choices.

How American intelligence is gathered

Was going through my old data and came across this picture I saved long time back. I do not know the original source for it, but I am quite sure it must have been one of the email forwards. Kudos to the original creator

This is how Americans intelligence is gathered