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Camera Body vs. Lenses

Camera Body vs. Lenses

Old Apr 1, 2015, 5:06 am
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Camera Body vs. Lenses

Hey guys, newbie here looking for advice. Going to be taking some amazing trips this year and 2016 which will allow for some truly spectacular photo possibilities.

I've been told to spend less on a camera body and more on lenses. Do you agree? And if so, can you possibly help get me started with what I need. I don't need the "best of the best" but I certainly don't want the "worst of the worst" either.

Thanks.
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Old Apr 1, 2015, 9:32 am
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Originally Posted by TMM1982
I've been told to spend less on a camera body and more on lenses. Do you agree?
It depends on your needs. What do you like to take pictures of? Shooting, for example, pro football games might require a super-expensive 400/f2.8 telephoto which might cost as much as a nice used car. But shooting candid shots of your kids or of people on the street in faraway lands might be better with a wide angle prime lens or zoom. Lots of people shoot portraits using an inexpensive 50/f1.8 lens. Don't rush in to buy something expensive until you know where your needs lie.

But the good news is - even if you do eventually buy an expensive lens, its likely to last you a very long time and even if you later buy a newer camera body, the lenses will still work on it.

I like to recommend people start off with a nice camera body with its kit lens and shoot with it for awhile (shoot a lot!) and see where your needs take you. If you decide you need a longer lens, or a wider one, then that's the time to buy one.
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Old Apr 1, 2015, 10:52 am
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Gone through numerous bodies/lens (and film!!) in 30 years. Good lens will maximize the body's potential, poor lens will put it to waste. Agree with above, start off with a inexpensive fast lens to discover your shooting habits before taking the plunge on the fastest lens your budget allows.
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Old Apr 1, 2015, 12:46 pm
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Originally Posted by TMM1982
Hey guys, newbie here looking for advice. Going to be taking some amazing trips this year and 2016 which will allow for some truly spectacular photo possibilities.

I've been told to spend less on a camera body and more on lenses. Do you agree? And if so, can you possibly help get me started with what I need. I don't need the "best of the best" but I certainly don't want the "worst of the worst" either.

Thanks.
Definitely spend your money on a nice lens vs. a "pro" body. A not so serious, maybe outdated test done by digital rev on youtube is entertaining if nothing else.

I would say get a really nice wide to mid zoom, while fast primes are amazing I would say get your hands on a nice zoom and find what focal lengths you like working with and then take the plunge into a fast prime. You don't want to be limited when your first starting out and while primes are still superior in the IQ dept. good zooms have closed the gap in recent years.

Not sure what your budget is, but I would look at something like the Canon 24-105 f/4 L (or the better, faster, and more expensive 16-35L and/or the 24-70L) and then pair it with a midrange Canon xxD body. The Canon 6D represents a pretty good value in the full frame category. The Sigma Art line is also worth checking out.
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Old Apr 1, 2015, 1:35 pm
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Definitely not talking National Geographic for my needs but most of pictures are of people with very nice backgrounds, either historical monuments or scenic shots in the background.

So thinking maybe the wide zoom lens would fit the bill here?
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Old Apr 1, 2015, 2:10 pm
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24-105 $600.00 EBay, but them it is the photographer and not the camera that determines the quality of the picture.
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Old Apr 1, 2015, 2:20 pm
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I always encourage people to get better lenses rather than stepping up bodies. The glass will have a much greater impact on your IQ (image quality) than a slightly better body would.
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Old Apr 1, 2015, 2:48 pm
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I have been playing with the new Sony A7R with my good Canon lenses. The focus peeking on the Sony helps me get the focus exactly where I want it. And it's very, very sharp.

I think both the camera and the lens are important in getting really sharp pictures (and, of course, technique). If you are going to share on the web, then it probably doesn't matter that much.

There are companies that rent cameras and lenses. LensRental here in Memphis is one (they ship anywhere). I tend to rent the camera/lens and play with it before I buy to see if it's what I want. That might be a way for you to do. I rented the Sony A7R and was really blown away with how much sharper it was than my Canon 5DMarkIII. I don't think the two sensors are really that different; it's just that it was so much easier for my old eyes to determine whether the focus was exact. (Tho, probably the Sony is a better sensor). Autofocus can help with that but sometimes the autofocus is off.

Everything system has its drawbacks. As far as I can tell there is no perfect camera or lens. Everything is tradeoffs.

I do think good equipment, both camera and lens, can make a good photographer better, but a good photographer can take decent pictures no matter what the equipment.
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Old Apr 1, 2015, 3:45 pm
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Unless you're planning to buy used equipment, most interchangeable cameras come with a kit lens which is a good choice for most kinds of photography.

So the kit lens will typically be a zoom with wide enough angles for landscape and architecture photography and enough telephoto focal length to catch some up close portraits.

That might be a good starting point and then later on, look at getting longer telephoto if you want to photograph sports or wildlife or wider angle if you find the kit zoom lens wasn't wide enough.

Primes will be lighter and faster (wider aperture) to photograph interiors, such as cathedral interiors.

One feature for travel photography which seems to be dropping off is GPS or geotagging. For awhile, manufacturers were putting in GPS in their cameras but in the latest models they've removed them.

For instance, Nikon put it in their midrange DSLR the D5300 a couple of years ago but I think they removed it in the D5500 which replaces the D5300. But you might still be able to find good deals on the D5300.

Once you geotag, a program like Adobe Lightroom will display the location where the photo was taken on a map, provided that the camera or the GPS device locked into enough satellites when the picture was taken. When you take thousands and thousands of pictures over years of travel, you may not always remember where the picture was taken, unless you're putting keywords on each pic you take and retain in your library. So geotagging or embedding the GPS coordinates of where the picture was taken could be useful for identifying some of the pictures years on.

Of course, if you take pictures with a smart phone and have a data connection, it's geotagging those pictures. But for dedicated cameras, you have to look for certain models or get peripherals to get the same GPS data.
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Old Apr 4, 2015, 8:06 am
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Originally Posted by TMM1982
Hey guys, newbie here looking for advice. Going to be taking some amazing trips this year and 2016 which will allow for some truly spectacular photo possibilities.

I've been told to spend less on a camera body and more on lenses. Do you agree? And if so, can you possibly help get me started with what I need. I don't need the "best of the best" but I certainly don't want the "worst of the worst" either.

Thanks.
hate to sound like a cliche but education goes wayyy longer than equipment. that is, entry-level modern equipment is so good the bottleneck is the operator.

what matters on a body is ergonomics, size, weight, your familiarity with its controls - access to the settings that you need. this is a personal topic and learned through experiment. canon, nikon, pentax, samsung, fuji, etc will do it all differently.

the only reason to stray away from kit lens is that they are typically slow. this limits the creativity in the render of your shot, and also can induce motion blur in low light. you can fall into the trap of getting into primes, specialty lenses, ultra-fast lenses, but really all you need is a relatively fast wide-short tele zoom.

olympus 12-40/2.8
panasonic 12-35/2.8
samsung 16-50/2-2.8
fuji 16-55/2.8
fuji 18-55/2-2.8
pentax 16-50/2.8
pentax 17-70/4
sony 24-70/4
sony 28-135/4
canon or nikon 24-70/2.8 or 4 or 24-105 or 24-120
etc

so: a camera body youre comfortable with, and a fast aperture standard lens will do it

the rest of the nitpicky differentiation that companies market: 20% more dynamic range, 10 more autofocus points, 2 more frames per second, less chromatic aberration, flatter focus field.......... its like trying to upsell grandma on PDDC, PCCB, and PASM for her Porsche so she can lap the racetrack faster
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Old Apr 4, 2015, 1:19 pm
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if you do not have too much camera experience, and/or you plan to travel with it, and/or you do not plan to do pro pics at the moment, i think either:

Panasonic Lumix DMC-LX100 or a Sony Cyber-shot RX100 Mark III. both are $7-800 cameras, and will do a lot with a low frustration level.


we have heavy iron, but do not take it on travels. either of these two point & shoots make quite good pics, and are pretty easy to use.
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Old Apr 4, 2015, 1:35 pm
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I agree with those last two comments. Learn as much as you can and practice a lot. The most important part of the equation is the photographer.

Personally I've settled on Micro4/3 as my system of choice, especially for travel. The bodies and lenses are smaller and lighter than a DSLR would be and there's a huge assortment of lenses available for whatever your situation.

But if you don't think you're really going to get immersed in photography a better quality P&S (as noted above) could be a better investment.
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Old Apr 5, 2015, 4:02 am
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If you wanna travel light with good quality on the other hand I'd go for an Olympus MFT. There are various lenses which are pinsharp wide open thanks to the even smaller sensor. Unless you want to print them in large sizes nor taking super high-iso shots you probably won't see a difference to a FF.
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Old Apr 6, 2015, 9:00 am
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This is a hard question to answer without knowing more about what you enjoy shooting, but I don't regret buying a cheap used body and good quality lenses, because when I eventually upgraded the body the lenses could come with me. If you go down the Canon EOS route, bin the kit lens that comes with any prosumer junk and get the 17-40mm (which will be nearly-wide to nearly-telephoto on a crop-sensor camera, and the most versatile wide lens you could wish for on a full-frame-sensor camera when you inevitably upgrade :-) ), and get a cheap fast 50mm prime (which will be a great portrait lens on a crop camera, and a fantastic night-time lens for you on full frame).

A
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Old Apr 10, 2015, 11:30 pm
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Not that you would necessarily need a full frame camera, I carry along in my travels a couple of Canon 5D3s, 16-35mm, 24-105mm, 70-200 lenses, along with a couple of external flashes, and a tripod. But this is overkill for most people. A second body isn't necessary. You could opt for the less expensive Canon 6D (which is actually slightly better in low light than the more pro and versatile 5D3) along with the 16-35mm ultrawide for architecture/interior and the 24-105mm for general purpose shots. A Canon 430EX II external flash might come in handy as well. A compact tripod also if you're planning on taking night long exposures.

Though if you're going to be travelling with a large group of impatient people, forget everything I wrote and just bring along a premium compact.
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