I often get asked what would be a good camera as the first digital SLR camera. My answer is that is often doesn’t matter much, but that is only part of the truth. I will recommend that you start as simple as possible to learn digital photography.
I think its most important to learn the basics and I really mean learn the basics. This mean you need to learn how to adjust the aperture, shutter speed and how the perspective changes when changing the zoom on the lens. Starting with a simple camera you will not get distracted by millions of options and buttons. Even the most “basic” cameras have plenty of things that can distract you but it will not be too overwhelming – and in the beginning you will take lots of “not-so-good” images and it hurts let if your camera has not cost you your whole salary. Basically you can focus on taking images and not about all the switches and have fun.
Any new digital SLR camera is all you really need to get a good start. You cannot say it’s a simple Camera but it is easy to carry around and it’s easy to operate after a quick look in the manual. With this camera you can go from complete automatic mode to manual mode with a simple turn on a button.
Starting with a camera like this you can capture really good photos and learn all the basics. I suggest you start in automatic mode and gradually learn how you change control over shutter speed and aperture. Also you have to learn a bit about the ISO setting but after this you know the basics. Even with the least expensive SLR cameras you will have all the Mega pixels that is necessary for printing large images and cropping the images to get better composition or zoom in on details, but it can also be a bit bulky to work with RAW images on an average computer.
Next on the list is a good memory card that can hold all your images you take being away from home. For an 18 mega pixel camera I will recommend a large one for example a Sandisk 16GB card. This is a fast card, can store a lot of pictures and from my experience SanDisk make reliable memory cards.
Viola and you are done… now it is just about getting out and get those shots.
Read my more in-depth article on shutter speed, aperture and ISO setting. I will show how you can control these to obtain different images in different situations and get the photos you want.
Enjoy,
Martin Bay
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