If you have been bitten by the photography bug and you want to produce the best quality photos possible, what are your options when deciding which camera to use?
Well, a lot depends on your budget and what your photography goals are. For instance, if you have very little money in your equipment budget, some of the latest phones on the market can turn out some pretty impressive results. In fact, just the idea that we can seriously include phone cameras at all as a viable means of taking high quality photos is simply amazing, compared to the quality that these kind of cameras were producing just a few years ago. And if you doubt that amazing photos can be taken with a camera phone, there is plenty of evidence these days to the contrary.
But, if your budget allows it and you want to have much more creative control over your photo results, you will need to at least consider what is called a "bridge" camera. These cameras often look very similar to a DSLR (digital single lens reflex) camera. They also can do a lot of the same things that a DSLR can do. In fact, they can be quite sophisticated electronically, but they do not allow for interchangeable lenses. The reason for this is that the digital sensor, the device that actually records the scene when each photo is taken is much smaller than what you will find in a typical DSLR. Because the sensor that records the photo is smaller, the lens on the camera can be designed to do amazing things. Many of these cameras have a single lens that will take the angle of view through the lens from very wide-angle to super-telephoto in a matter of just a few seconds.
These cameras are called "bridge" cameras because they fill a gap between point-and-shoot and phone cameras on the one hand where most exposure and creative control decisions are limited and made by the camera itself, and DSLRs on the other hand that will let the photographer take charge of the scene being photographed instead and give him a plethora of options to choose from.
Many of these cameras can be had for $300 - $500, which includes your camera and all lenses in one nice compact package. So what can be bad about that? Why do we even want to have DSLRs that are bigger, bulkier and can require larger, heavier and more expensive lenses?
Well, for some, the output from a bridge camera is fine. The fact that they are compact and light means that you can more easily take them with you and use them in a wide variety of situations where a larger and heavier camera would be cumbersome. And if the kind of photography that interests you most does not require a lot of image detail in the photos produced, it may be just what you need. The fact that some very fine used bridge cameras can be bought on Ebay or Amazon for just $100 - $200 makes them even more attractive.
However, (you knew this was coming, right?) there are some drawbacks to bridge cameras that you should be aware of and almost all of them have to do with the size of the digital sensor that records the actual photos you take. For instance, because the sensor is so small, it often suffers from excessive "noise" or random dots in the photo that can give the image a grainy appearance. The way that bridge camera manufacturers try to deal with this problem is to apply noise reduction techniques to the digital JPG files that are produced by the camera. The unfortunate effect of this is a muddying of the details in many cases so the photo just does not appear very sharp. This problem usually gets worse when shooting in low light situations too.
Secondly, even when noise is not an issue, the digital images that are produced, are noticeably less crisp and defined when compared to those from a DSLR. I didn't want to believe this was true. So I bought some highly recommended bridge cameras and made my own comparison. The best way that I can describe what I found is simply saying that the bridge camera images appeared more "thin" than those produced by a DSLR. They lacked the depth of rich detail that I prefer for nature photography. Once again, if the photography you enjoy most does not depend on this kind of detail, then you may be very happy with a bridge camera, and you can save a ton of money and energy from not having to lug all those heavier camera bodies and larger lenses around with you. But for my style of photography, even the best bridge camera could not match the results that I wanted to see in the digital images I produce. After all, the proof of satisfaction with any camera is in the finished product, the photo itself.
So, that leaves us with DSLR cameras. Simple, right? Not necessarily! There are still many more choices to consider , such as what brand to buy, how many megapixels should it have and other considerations.
But, I'll leave that for another blog post.
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