How to take better-than-average photos Part 2: Equipment

You really need two cameras - one for the spur-of-the-moment always with you captures like I mentioned in Part 1, and one for when you have decided that whatever you are doing justifies having a better camera with you. For me that's often time with my family, visiting new places, and sometimes old places that I want to view in a different light.

For this second camera, you have already made the decision that photos will be taken, so I don't see that you want to skimp on the sort of camera you choose to lug with you just to save a bit of size. Your $200 point-and-shoot camera is no huge improvement over decent phone cameras these days, and you still have to make the active decision to pick it up and take it with you. If that's all your budget extends to, then save until you can afford $600 or so for a basic DSLR, and keep shooting with your phone camera in the meantime.

Here's the the three main reasons why your second camera should be a Digital Single-Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera:

• Larger sensor size - The biggest problem with phone and point-and-shoot cameras is that the part of it which captures the image is physically too small to gather enough light to enable you to avoid using a flash. Smaller sensors are "noisier" than bigger ones, which means you get little speckles everywhere, especially in low light photos. NOTE: Do not confuse sensor size with megapixels! Megapixels (MP) mean practically nothing for the sort of photos most people want to take and print. My main camera is 6MP on a big sensor, which is infinitely superior to 10MP on a tiny sensor like most point-and-shoots have these days. I have no intention of upgrading in the near future, until I can get an even bigger sensor with a higher number of pixels.


• Interchangeable Lenses - DSLRs separate the bit of camera that captures the image (the "sensor") from the glass in front of that sensor (the "lens") into two separately purchasable and interchangeable pieces. In your bag of photographic tricks, you really want to have a "fast" or "wide-aperture" lens. What this does is two main things - allows you to capture even more light at dark times, which is especially important to allow you to avoid using your flash, and at all times allows you to have your subject only in focus, with the background a nice blur. Humans like this in photos because it's the same way we see the world through our eyes.
  These types of lenses don't exist for point-and-shoot or phone cameras.


• Fast auto-focus - The best photos are of things that happen very quickly, captured forever visually rather than as a passing moment in time in your memory. The auto-focus systems on DSLR cameras are second to none, meaning that the camera doesn't get in the way of you capturing what you want while it "hunts" around looking for the object in the frame to focus on. This is hugely important with photos of children!

By the time you have pressed the button on your point-and-shoot camera, waited for it to focus, startled the subject with your flash, then seen it displayed on the screen at the back, I have 5 or even 10 good natural-light, in-focus images to choose between later stored on my memory card.

Laws of physics dictate a few things here too - you want to be capturing as much light as possible, so to do this you need a lens that lets lot of light in (which is what a wide aperture means) and a big sensor to store as much of that light as possible at any given time.

Upcoming technology like "micro four-thirds" seeks to provide a camera with interchangeable lenses and a sensor size bigger than point-and-shoot cameras but still physically smaller than DSLRs, however current incarnations lack fast auto-focus, and their sensor sizes are still significantly smaller than even low-end DSLRs.
To me these compromises don't make sense given that I've already decided to take my second camera along - I just think about what one or two lenses I might need in any given situation, put one on my camera and the other in my pocket or bag and off I go.

I've deliberately left my specific equipment until the end - unfortunately camera brands are largely not compatible with each other so you do have to choose a brand up front when getting into DSLRs. In all honesty you are best with either Canon or Nikon as they have the largest range of lenses available, and have the biggest userbase to swap lenses with and learn from. At the low end of the market they are no more than $100 more expensive than any other brand and this is a very small price to pay for their years of experience.
I chose Nikon for no good reason over Canon other than I have a pro photographer friend who also uses Nikon who gave me a few pointers to get started. Unless you do too, choose either, it doesn't matter in the long run.

I have a Nikon D40, their most inexpensive DSLR camera. The fast lens I use mostly is the 35mm f/1.8. Combined, these two were under $1000. Go and get something like this (today probably a D3000 and the same lens in Nikon, or a Canon with their 50mm f/1.8) and start taking better pictures! Nothing else is required other than practice to take your pictures from average to well above average.

Spend any extra budget on more/better lenses, not more expensive cameras. Your DSLR will be worth nothing in a few years and you'll want a newer one, but your lenses will keep on working and may even outlast you. Just connect your old lenses to your new (same brand) camera and they will work happily together, whereas your point-and-shoot and the lens permanently attached to it will be worth nothing and useless when you upgrade.


A quick note on what is known as "focal length" - a lens has a millimeter (mm) number which represents how much of the picture your eyes would see the camera is "zoomed" into. 18mm is a reasonable width for "normal" pictures of buildings, rooms, etc., through to 200mm which is for enlarging things far away. Most lenses are "zoom" lenses which offer a choice of more than one of these focal lengths (eg. a range like 18-135mm), but not all. Specifically, the fast lenses I use (which are the ones I can afford!) are not zoom lenses, as they have only one focal length like 35mm or 50mm. These are also termed "prime" lenses.

I find 35mm a good useful focal length for the camera I use. 50mm is a bit more difficult to fit everything in that I want for many shots.

Purely for interest's sake (none of the following gear is really needed, and you don't actually need zoom lenses at all - that's what your feet are for!), I also have for other use:

• 18-70mm lens - this is a well-built zoom lens with great image quality and a wide aperture at full zoom (f/4.5, which is quite a bit more light getting in than most other similar lenses at this range which are only around f/5.6). I use this second-most often when I want the versatility of a zoom. I purchased it second-hand off eBay for about $200 and repaired it with information I found online.


• 55-200mm lens - this is for visiting zoos and things where your subject is far away. It has image stabilisation for reducing shaky pictures that you often get when zoomed in a long way, and cost about $250 new.


• 50mm f/1.8 lens - I got this fast lens before the 35mm f/1.8 was available and still use it for portrait shots where I have time to focus manually (It won't autofocus on the D40 or other low-end Nikon DSLRs like the D60, D3000, or D5000). It cost about $200 new and takes technically the best pictures of any of these lenses.


• External angle-adjustable flash - For the situations when you really really want to use flash, at least bounce it off the roof so you emulate natural light with one of these. Cost me $65 brand new. Note that I use this far less than I thought I might have - I just got better at increasing ambient light and use fast lenses.


• Remote control - Handy cheap little remote shutter button that's much easier to use when taking self portraits than running around setting the timer.

I used to have a 18-135mm lens - This is a handy travel lens which Liz took overseas. It zooms further in than the 18-55mm but is quite a bit bigger and heavier and if you are picky, the images it captures aren't as good. Cost about $280 used. I used it so little that I sold it - the compromises in weight and image quality just weren't worth it to me.
(If you have piles of money and don't mind the weight, get the $1000-ish 18-200mm instead, it's fantastic).
I still have as a spare the 18-55mm lens - this lens was practically free with the camera, so you get it for your $1000 total kit price too. It's light and remarkably good, but the 18-70 is better.