Camera Considerations

One of Matt's big dreams is to get better at photography. I also feel like I need to get better at photography to be a better blogger. Therefore, we are looking into options for purchasing a fancy camera.

Our friend takes amazing photos, and he uses a Nikon. Here's what he says about it:

I have the Nikon D60 camera body only (the link has an included lens, but you can find body only prices).

Note that the D60 cannot take video. You can do this with the new D90. If you want to know why I chose a nikon over a canon. There's this great saying about the essential difference between the design approach by the two companies:

Canon makes the best camera as designed by engineers.

Nikon makes the best camera as designed by photographers.

Not sure how true it is, but I've used both and they're both great, so don't fret over it too much.

Here are two of the lenses I got from Amazon:

Sigma 30mm f/1.4

This is the only lens of the ones listed here that will let you do decent low light photography without a flash. It's a great portrait lens and people do use it for multiple purpose stuff if you don't mind not needing zoom action (just walk up to your subject) and aren't going to be doing lots of landscape photography. It is the equivalent of a regular film 50mm fixed lens.

Sigma 10-20mm

I use this for landscape, architecture and catching an entire room in a small space (also nice in cars). 10mm is as wide as you can get without resorting to a fisheye lens.

I also have a third zoom lens that I think is a Nikon 70mm-300mm.

For a memory card, I use this SDHC card.

Be sure to get a class 6 because that means it does the fastest kind of memory transfer.

However, if changing lenses isn't for you, this one is definitely the one to get.

I recommend this option to almost all of my friends that aren't as interested in getting hardcore right away but still want to get a wide variety of images. It is a bit expensive but it does go from relatively decent wide angel to a nice zoom and pretty much replaces using three different lenses. While the 18 - 55mm lenses you see most commonly packaged as a kit with the d60 is a mediocre lens, it won't be terrible.

If you're interested in a very easy to understand introduction to using a digital SLR, I highly recommend The Digital Photography Book.

After all that is said and done, there is a new type of camera that isn't as bulky as traditional SLR but still can use interchangeable lenses and do great video. For about the same cost, it can do some amazing stuff (low light images are amazing with their F1.7 lens and ridiculous ISO). Here's a great review done as a travelogue showcasing images from the camera.

http://craigmod.com/journal/gf1-fieldtest/

I am actually considering getting this camera as a much lighter alternative to my Nikon when I'm on the go.

I've been stalking a few of my favorite blogger/photographers to see what they use (cakies, Lovely Morning, Superhero Journal, and fresh365). I definitely want to get a refurbished model of whatever we decide on, since that will be better on the budget and the earth...

Any recommendations from your experience?

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