Actually what I said in this article at the end of last year still applies.

 

The first thing, a good photo never comes from the camera but from the photographer. Great photographers can make amazing photos with whatever camera they have at hand, even with their cellphone.

 

Then, before buying a new camera you have to ask yourself what do you expect the new camera to do better than your old one. There are a lot of cameras for different purposes and you first need to define what you are looking for. I experience this a lot with people who ask me what camera to buy. Well, for me it’s hard to tell, because I don’t know what you want.

 

In most cases it will be a step up from the point & shoot digital camera or cellphone that everybody has. The main reason I am shooting bigger cameras is the bigger sensor that give you a shallower depth of field, allowing you to separate your main subject from the back- or foreground. With a big sensor camera you can have a sharp person for example and a blurry background. That helps making your photos stronger by emphasizing the main subject you pay want to get attention to.

 

The bigger the recording medium (sensor or film) the stronger the effect. Well, with a full-frame 35mm camera, which is really big by point &shoot standards but way smaller than medium format or even large format film, you can get very wide aperture lenses that help making the effect even stronger and let images look quite close to medium format in terms of depth of field. You will get much sharper results with medium format, though, because lenses have narrower apertures and still even less depth of field.

 

There are a lot of terms that some of you may not understand so I try to make it simpler. The bigger the sensor (DSLR, mirror-less cameras) the bigger the background-blurring capabilities of the camera that give your images an artistic look. If all you want is photos where everything is perfectly in focus even point & shoot cameras are good enough today. They still do have some limitations.

 

Point & shoot cameras, the ones you probably want to step up from, have tiny sensors with one advantage and many disadvantages. A small sensor gives a huge depth of field, means pretty much everything is always in focus. You can make great photos with those cameras you just have to be aware that you won't be able to emphasize by blurring parts of the image. In my opinion that can make you learn to take better pictures because you have to make them strong without the artistic cheating of making them just beautiful by blurring special parts in it.

 

That lets me come back to my second sentence, the camera doesn’t matter, the eye and imagination of the photographer do. Learn to make great images with your point & shoot and only reward yourself with a better camera when you reach the limit of the small camera. If your images suck with the point & shoot they won’t be any better with the bigger camera.

 

But point & shoots have some more disadvantages that might rule them out earlier. They are slow by comparison. You won't be able to focus fast moving subjects like kids or even track them. Something you can do with DSLRs or modern mirror-less alternatives. I’d still say DSLRs are my top pick when it comes to fast accurate focussing, because they use a separate autofocus sensor for that, but mirror-less cameras catch up. My Olympus OM-D is even faster than my Canon 5D Mark III which is as fast (AF-wise) as Canon’s top of the line 1D X.

 

Point & shoots also have a limited dynamic range, especially in the highlights, a reason why you often get washed out, white skies in contrasty situation, something you can recognize by that the photo comes from a point & shoot. A bigger sensor camera retains both highlights and shadows much better, with less blown highlights and less noisy shadows. To be honest, know these limitations and try to avoid difficult situations. I never had problems with dynamic range in a point & shoot. It’s the overall sharpness in the images that I don’t like. Advertising photos on the other hand are sharp all over most of the time, too. So, it’s just a matter of taste.

 

Last but not least the smaller the sensor the less light can hit it. You need good light to get noise-less photos with a point & shoot. In bad light or at night they are much worse than a big sensor camera. To be honest, I never had to dismiss a photo because it was too noisy. Film back in the days was grainy, too, so no big deal.

 

Ok, if you want to upgrade from your cellphone and just want a great little point & shoot I always recommend Canon ones. In my opinion they are the most advanced and well though-through little cameras you can get. Of course it’s always a matter of taste, too, and if you don’t like Canon for whatever reason I’m sure Nikon or Panasonic or the other ones are as good. If you don’t wanna spend much just grab one of last year models in one of the big boxes in your electronic market where they are on sale. If you want the best at the moment take Canon’s Powershot S120, it’s wonderful and although I own a couple of cameras and a very good Panasonic LX7 I’m always tempted to buy a Canon point & shoot. I had the S95 and it was gorgeous. With the great 24mm wide-angle lens now these Powershots of today are even better. Don’t bother buying a G16, it has the same small sensor, costs more and is much more bulky. You sacrifice on sensor size for having a truly pocketable camera, why buy a bulky one then?

 

You want bigger? Ok, now it gets a bit more complicated. If you just want a great camera that is versatile, fast and gives great images I would buy a DSLR. If you don’t have the money for a full-frame one with a sensor the same size as old 35mm film, which will give you the exact look depth-of-field-wise, you should buy one of the half-sized sensor (APS-C) DSLRs like a Nikon D3300 or Canon 100D. But which one? Well, to be honest they are all the same pretty much. Something to consider might be that with a DSLR you also buy the ability to choose lenses out of the particular line-up. So you might want to think about potential lenses that you can use on an upgrade model later on. But on the other hand APS-C cameras are a good bit smaller than full-frame equivalents and have their own particular lenses. I would stick to those as long as you don’t upgrade to full-frame, something you probably won’t do anyway. So why buy big, heavy full-frame lenses when you will never shoot full-frame?

 

Which brand should you buy? I’d say take Nikon or Canon because they have the widest selection of lenses and they are probably the best camera brands in the DSLR market. But if you don’t plan to upgrade to full-frame in the future and probably will shoot only with 1-3 lenses I also like Pentax cameras. I don’t like Sony but that’s personal taste. My advice, when you want to invest some money in a DSLR, go into a shop and have a look at the different brands. They all feel and look a little different and in the end you should pick the camera that you like to take in your hands and shoot with it. They are all the same in the end. They all have different models for different budgets. I would probably take a Nikon, either a D3300 or D5300. But I like the Pentax K-3, too. It has some really cool and unique features that separates them from the big brands. I also like a Canon 100D because it is just so small.

 

Now, today you also have the chance to buy a mirror-less or system camera like an Olympus OM-D that I have. The great thing about those cameras is they are much smaller than even the smallest DSLRs because they don’t have a complicated mirror box that adds bulk to the body. Instead they have an electronic viewfinder or just the rear LCD to frame and compose. They have tinier, simpler lenses that often have better image quality because they are not designed for a camera with a mirror box in the way. But those mirror-less cameras which attract especially women because of their small size are often a bit more expensive still. This might change soon but for the same money you’ll get a DSLR with much better autofocus and a viewfinder for mirror live-framing.

 

If money was no object I would probably buy an Olympus OM-D EM-5 or a similar model. The new Fuji X-T1 seems to be great, too. They are smaller than an equivalent DSLR, especially the Olympus, because it has a slightly smaller sensor and smaller lenses for the special Micro-4/3 system. I love the Olympus. It’s small, fast, gives great images and looks totally cool. Only downside, full-frame images just look even better. But as I explained above this is down to depth of field reasons and just my taste.

 

If you want full-frame by the way, the Canon 6D is quite affordable, a bit smaller than the rest and with absolutely fantastic image quality, especially noise-wise.

 

My main sites to read reviews and get tips and inspiration tech-wise are Ken Rockwell, he is the last big site that is totally independent, Ken just writes what he thinks. Imaging-resource is a really good site for in-depth reviews, and dpreview, latter being an Amazon site now and they have lost most of their quality, they are good but not amazing anymore.

 

Happy shooting!

 

If you want to support NIKOLAIKIKI and contribute to keeping all this information and content costless and without ads at all I'd recommend you having a look at my shop and especially the NIKOLAIKIKI ethical clothing collection.

 

Thanks!

 

KIKI

 

 

 

 

Christmas is over but one or another might have received some money to spend on a new camera. So today I want to help you with your decision.

 

First of all, and I can’t emphasize it enough, a good photo never comes from the camera. It comes from the vision and ability of the photographer. A talented photographer can get great photos with every camera, the more fancy cameras only make it easier for him/her. I would even say 90% of the time you take better photos with a little point & shoot camera that you always have with you compared to a big DSLR. The reason is the point & shoot lets you focus on what’s most important, the image, instead of fiddling around with settings, choosing the right lens or even worrying about others who may be disturbed by a big camera. With a little point & shoot camera I find myself really only thinking about light, framing and composition and the moment. And you can act much more discretely. Plus you don’t expect amazing pictures from a little camera, which makes you much more relaxed ;-)

 

That said I would frankly recommend to use whatever camera you have and try and learn to take great pictures in the first place. I shot my most successful photo with a little Fujifilm F30 from 2006, it's this one ...

 

 

But on the other hand I’m also using fancy cameras and for good reason, so I will give actual recommendations now for those of you who really want to buy a new camera.

 

Before buying a camera you need to define a couple of things, because there are hundreds of different models that serve for different purposes and they have different prices as well.

 

I start with my top recommendation for people who love photography, love to look through a big viewfinder to frame and who love the images to look like shot with a film camera. It’s also the camera that I would buy if my budget was limited to something between 1.000 and 2.000 € including a lens. I would go and buy a used original Canon 5D, you can find great camera reviews here. Ken Rockwell is one of the last independent reviewers, only telling what he really thinks. For more in depth testing I always go to imaging resource, it’s here. I also go to dpreview, but I don't like that they've been acquired by Amazon. The 5D was introduced in 2005. It sold till the end of 2008. You can find them on ebay for maybe 500 € sometimes. I would add a Canon 50 1.4 to it and a Canon 24-105. I love a two lens setup, the zoom to walk around and the 50 for creative stuff and low light. The 50 is actually the more important lens, because you can shoot in every possible situation, the slow zoom will have trouble with moving subjects in low light, but I love wide angles and a zoom is so handy for daylight shots.

 

Why an over 8 year old 5D? Because it’s a great camera, it gives spectacular images, has enough resolution for every possible print size, its viewfinder is nice and big and it has this classic feel to it.

 

If money was no object I would of course buy a new 5D Mark III, but it’s over 2.500 € new and doesn’t give better images, it’s just so much easier to use.

 

If you want a new great full frame camera (the sensor has the same size as 35mm film back then) but don’t have 2.500 € to spend on a body I would take a Canon 6D, it’s a superb camera, lighter and smaller than a 5D Mark III with even better low light abilities, it’s just lacking some pro features 90% of the time you don’t need anyway.

 

What about Nikon? Nikon is as good as Canon, you may as well take a Nikon D610 if you want the newest and greatest or a D600 if you’re out for a bargain. The Nikons are actually the better cameras compared to Canon's competitor the 6D. They have 100% viewfinders (so you see exactly what you get in your finder), dual SD card slots, can shoot faster and have a more sophisticated Autofocus system. I would take Canon because they still have some artistic lenses in their lineup which you wouldn’t find with Nikon, especially the Canon 85 1.2 and the 50 1.2, both of which let you take incredible looking images with sharp subject and blurry backgrounds even with distant shots. This is about art and less about technically perfect and sharp images. If that’s what you’re after, take a Nikon, they actually seem to have more sharper lenses in their lineup, especially super wide angles. I was also asked to say something about video. To be honest, I don’t shoot video but I know that all DSLR do pretty well, a dedicated camcorder, though, is better and much faster focussing. But, with a DSLR you get more of a cinematic look with shallower depth of field due to larger sensors. A full frame DSLR actually gives even shallower depth of field, resulting in very blurred backgrounds. A crop DSLR/camera gives a look similar to 35mm motion film cameras. You won't get that look with a camcorder because of their smaller sensor, much more is in focus.

 

If those beasts of cameras are too big for you and you want smaller I would buy a Canon 100D, it’s their newest DSLR with a crop sensor (less than half the size of full frame). It’s tiny and still takes all lenses in Canon’s lineup. What you lose compared to full frame is the ability to throw backgrounds out of focus and draw attention to your subject. It’s my main reason to shoot full frame. You also lose the big viewfinder, crop cameras have much smaller finders. Crop cameras are also a little worse in low light and have a little less dynamic range (the ability to retain details in highlights and shadows of an image). 

 

I show you what I mean with those things … 

 

With a full frame 5D and a 35mm f/1.4 you can nicely blur backgrounds and emphasize on the subject.

 

It's much more difficult and not as beautiful with a crop camera, here an Olympus OM-D with a 35mm equivalent lens at f/1.8 ...

 

With a point & shoot, even at f/1.4, everything is in perfect focus ...

 

A really great little camera that is even smaller and lighter than the 100D is Olympus’ OM-D E-M5, it’s a marvelous, great looking little camera. I just don’t bother to pick it up when a 5D is around because of its creative potential. There are a couple of other great crop options, like a Fuji X100s, but you will only have a fixed 35mm equivalent lens. Fuji’s interchangeable lens cameras are pretty good, too. I just find their ergonomics a bit awkward, but you may get used to that.

 

You could also buy a Nikon D7100, but I would prefer a full frame camera, it’s not that much smaller, actually a Canon 6D is the same size and nearly the same weight, a no brainer in my mind.

 

Ok, you find DSLRs and interchangeable lens cameras too bulky and just want a great little camera? I don’t recommend bridge cameras because their sensors are as small as of point & shoots but they are bulky as well, vanishing the main point of not buying a big sensor camera.

 

Again Canon’s point & shoots are the best. First the negatives that are the flipsides of a pocket camera: you are unable to blur backgrounds, everything is always sharp and in focus, giving you no possibility to draw attention to special parts of the image (makes you compose much more carefully on the other hand, actually often leading to better images). Point & shoots are not very good in low light, but there are some options that stand out of the crowd. Point & shoots are terribly slow in operation, especially autofocus, making them pretty much useless for people shots, it’s more like a hit and miss.

 

Here are low light shots, real world samples, the 5D and OM-D picked ISO 6400, the LX7 3200 ...

 

5D,

 

OM-D and ...

 

LX7! To get a better idea, let's look closely ...

 

Clear?

 

I also want to show you what better dynamic range with a big sensor means. Have a look at three images taken with the three competitors ...

 

The window is washed out in every image and you have to decide on what to compromise, highlights or shadows. With a bigger sensor you can pull back more detail, particularly in the shadows. I've exaggerated by pulling the highlights and shadows back all the way, only to see what we get. Check this out ...

 

Highlight detail in those shots is about the same (the LX7 is a bit worse), but you get cleaner shadows the bigger the sensor, have a look ...

 

Canons aren't as good as Nikons for deep shadow detail but it's still better than crop sensor cameras. When you keep highlights in check you can pull a lot back from the shadows, even with a point & shoot, much more with a big sensor camera, though.

 

Anyway, for walk around photos point & shoots are great and much better than your smartphone camera (although you can even make great photos with that, Chase Jarvis has shown), even the cheapest Canons like this one.

 

If you care about low light photos a bit more, you may take a Canon S120, it’s a super camera with a nice zoom lens, that is fairly bright at the wide end. I’m always drawn to buy one of those, just because they are so small and you can take them everywhere. I once bought one of the predecessors, the S95, and loved it.

 

Last year I bought another more exotic premium compact, the Panasonic LX7, it has a little wider lens than the rest. It's also a Leica lens, one with an extremely bright f/1.4 at the wide end. The great thing is it only darkens to f/2.3 when fully zoomed in, giving it a huge advantage even over the Canon S series. I’d probably buy it again, the only annoying thing apart from it being a little bit bulkier is the fact that you have to detach and attach the lens cap manually, making it arguably more sluggish compared to the Canons.

 

Well, I think that’s it for today. And don’t forget to go into a camera shop and play with the different models that you’re interested in. You may find out some things that you love or hate when you have them in your hands. That helps with your decision as well.

 

Alright, happy shooting, see you next week

 

KIKI

 

Update: I have shot three night shots with the three cameras to give you an impression of noise levels with different sensor types, all shot at ISO 6400, f/1.8, 1/30s, full frame first, Olympus 4/3 second ...

 

 

And now crops of the dark parts of the image ...

 

 

And last and least ;-) the point & shoot ...

 

 

Good night! ...

 

 

Last week I was talking about cameras and which camera to use. Before I tell you what gear you need to post process images I will first give you some more recommendations on cameras and round it all up. I will also post links to my favorite sites to read in depth reviews and compare sample images if you feel like.

If you just want a camera better than the one in your cellphone I recommend taking Canon‘s point & shoots, they are great. My most favorite ones are from the S-line like the S100 or S110, if you want the newest. I still have an S95 and it takes really good images and is super small. You may as well take any of the less expensive models, but you will get an even smaller sensor which means more noise in most any light. And you won‘t get an as bright lens as on the S-line, means even more noise when shooting in dim situations and longer shutter speeds resulting in possibly blurry images.

If you want better than a point & shoot my first recommendation is to get a DSLR, there are more stylish options, but DSLRs have everything you need and the entry level models are much cheaper than fancier cameras like a Fuji X100 or X100s for example. What a DSLR can do much better than a point & shoot is: first, you see a real life image through the finder via a mirror, means there is no lag time between what‘s really happening and what you see in the finder, like on a display of point & shoots. Second, DSLRs have much bigger sensors means you get cleaner images with much less noise, especially in dim situations. A bigger sensor also means you‘re able to separate the subject you‘re taking a photo of and the background, you‘re actually able to make use of different depths of field. Fourth, DSLRs have a super fast autofocus, means you can chase your kids and the focus keeps up with their speed, something you wouldn‘t get from a point & shoot. Fifth, you can change lenses for different styles of photos or types of photography. You may for example buy a super long tele lens to shoot animals in the zoo up close and in the evening change to a fast prime lens to shoot on your friend's birthday party without flash. Sixth, DSLRs are classics and with them you‘re able to make all possible settings to aperture or shutter speed manually to give the image the exact look you want. That's important to understand and learn about the camera techniques and photography in general. What DSLR to buy? Pick a Canon or Nikon, they are the best and always come up with the newest inventions first and they have the largest selection of lenses available by a good margin. If you pick Canon my top pick is an EOS 550D, which is discontinued already, but it‘s got all you need in a little smaller package than the newer 600D-700Ds. Of course the super new 100D is even smaller, but it‘s also more expensive. If you want Nikon take a D3200 or D5200. More expensive DSLRs are even faster but also heavier and don‘t give better image quality, at least if you don‘t take a fullframe one like the Canon 6D or Nikon D600 for example. They start at 1.700 €, though, for the body alone.

If you want stylish you may also take a Fuji X100 or X100s. They also take wonderful images but operate generally slower than a DSLR and you‘re not able to change lenses for different shooting situations.

I happen to shoot for Olympus and they gave me their best camera, an OM-D, to take pictures with it. It‘s an amazing little camera but a little on the pricy side. It‘s autofocus is incredible, it‘s faster than the one in my 5D Canons. And I think the OM-D looks fantastic.

My most favorite site for extensive reviews are Ken Rockwell and imaging resource, check them out. I will show you some more and tell you how to use them in the future.

Alright, that‘s it about cameras for now, let‘s talk about what other gear you need to create great looking images.

Actually you don‘t need any more than your camera to take amazing looking images. Modern cameras have enough settings to let the images look great and to tweak them to your personal taste. If you want them to look even better, though, and to use some helpful software you need a computer with some programs I am going to talk about now.

What computer do you need? The great thing about digital cameras is that you can set them to record so called RAWs, imagine this format compared to ready jpgs as like the negatives in old film cameras. You‘re able to develop those files on the computer like you did with the negatives in the dark room. You can adjust exposure, white balance, lens corrections, noise reduction, sharpness, contrast and much more. You may even apply special filters or preset looks to make them look like film for example.

Anyway, you need a computer for all that, a tablet won‘t cut it. Any modern computer is fast enough for most all files, but you need more computing power when you‘re working on a lot of files, like for a wedding or when you use cameras with really a lot of Megapixels, like 22 or 36. It‘s possible with an older computer as well but it takes much longer. If you have 600 images to process a couple of minutes per image adds up to a lot of time. I was processing a wedding at the beginning of 2011 for example with a 2007 MacBook Pro with a 2,2 GHz Core 2 Duo and only 4GB of RAM. This wedding nearly took me two weeks to post process. When you‘re working with file management programs like Adobe Lightroom you also want the most RAM you can get. In my case I am using a 2011 QuadCore MacBook Pro with 16GB of RAM. This amount of memory makes processing much more fluent with less stuttering and least time waiting. I am also using SSDs instead of traditional hard drives as internal storage in my laptops. SSDs consist of chips like in an SD card, there is no moving parts and they are super snappy. Programs open instantly and you don‘t have to wait for files to be read from a hard drive any longer than necessary. When you‘re working with programs like Adobe Photoshop the computer‘s processor becomes the bottle neck. When you‘re working with single files, though, it‘s not a problem at all, it becomes important when you‘re doing projects with hundreds or thousands of images, then seconds or minutes add up to hours or days.

Why do I use Mac? I have a lot of problems with my Macs but it‘s still less than I had with my Windows computers and to be honest, software wise the Mac just gets my work done well. I am also heavily invested in Mac software by this time.

What Mac should you buy? Actually every new Mac is good enough for everything but the biggest jobs. I am considering getting a new MacBook Air soon as my day to day writing machine and image processor on the go. They are just gorgeous and super light. I need 256GB of storage, I have all my images on separate hard drives. 8GB of RAM is a must have and not enough for big jobs but fine for everything else.

What software to use? I am using Lightroom 4 (130 €) to import files from the cameras and to make basic adjustments like exposure, white balance, noise reduction, lens corrections, highlight and shadow correction and very important, to apply film emulsions from VSCO.

 

 

Those are plug-ins available for Lightroom or Photoshop separately (look left on the image above). I chose the Lightroom version becasue this way you can apply the looks to a lot of images at once before sending them to Photoshop. I bought all three available Film Packs 01, 02 and 03, they cost around 100 dollars each. After applying all those settings to the RAWs I send them to Photoshop CS6 (800 € regularly and 200-300 € for students or teachers). Photoshop is my most used program but you actually don‘t need it necessarily, Lightroom is sufficient, too, Photoshop just has one million more options. When you prepare images for different purposes and resize to different sizes Photoshop actually becomes your time saver. I use Photoshop to apply special curves to the images, desaturate, resize most of the time. In contrast to most other photographers I pass on using layers mostly. Somehow I just found I don‘t need them, I work on the files directly. Sounds totally weird to some, but maybe it fits my style of photography. I don‘t manipulate images too much, instead I rely on getting a great shot first and then apply “minimal“ post processing.

When I‘m finished with Photoshop I am finished with the job ;-)

Update: Adobe today announced Lightroom 5. I will tell you about the advantages and disadvantage of Adobe's new Cloud solution soon. There's a big problem with working on files offline, when you're not subscribed to the Creative Cloud anymore. So Adobe literally forces you to subscribe for the rest of your life. Lightroom 4 is still offline, anyway, so you may buy it instead as long as you can.

Update: Apple released new Haswell MacBook Airs today. Battery life is supposed to be nothing short of amazing with my top recommended 13" MacBook Air lasting 12 hours! That's so cool and fits right with my plans to add a new Air to my setup for mobile computing. Actually I need a new computer soon as my second machine just broke entirely last week. I also need one for my two and a half month trip from October through Russia, Central Asia, China and Southeast Asia. It's also cool that Apple lowered prices by 100 € making a 128GB 13" available for 1.099 € already, pretty good ...

Alright, more next time ...

KIKI