Camera suggestions

[peteski]

I'll make this short and sweet...
1. I will never ever ever own another Nikon product, ever. 

Care to explain what seems a total hateret of Nikon?  What could be so bad?  Quality?  Limited range of accessories?  Ergonomics?  Price?  Bad sales or customer service experience?

[Santa Fe Guy]

Scott I have a Canon EOS 650 D with a Tamron IS 15/65 lens along with a Canon 300 zoom and love it. My Canon IS 18 /85 lens died a few years ago. I have had cameras all my life and this is good for an amateur like me. It is a good all rounder, great for scenery and fast action.
If I had the money I would purchase a Canon 5D mk3 they are superb.
There are so many choices out there today it gets down to personal preferences.
Try to try them out before you purchase.
Rod.

[Chris333]

Is there a trick to get good macro shots on a Galaxy S5?

[robert3985]

Is there a trick to get good macro shots on a Galaxy S5?

Use "Magnifier"

When I'm at my LHS and I want to read the build dates on N-scale cars, I use "Magnifier" combined with "flashlight" to handily read everything that's printed on the sides...

"Magnifier" has a zoom also, and allows you to take a photo then save it if you like it.

"Good" macro shots, like any other photo, will depend on composition, depth of field, lighting and your subject.  However, for documentary shots where you're just recording something for reference, storing it, and posting it on a forum..."Magnifier" works great.  Whether it's a "good" shot or not...that's up to you.

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[Chris333]

Ah thanks I had to look it up. It's in "widgets".

[Denver Road Doug]

[C855B]

I have a pretty old Canon DSLR and have a love/hate relationship with it, but will reiterate the point made above that it's not the camera, it's the nut behind the viewfinder that (mostly) makes the difference. And maybe lenses. I'll stick with Canon when and if I upgrade, mostly not to drop more coin on lenses.

HOWEVER, I have to take exception with the notion that smartphones are sufficient. As a maybe-better-than-mediocre photog, I can get OK shots from my iPhone, but with 90% of the image quality determined by the software, too often it makes exposure and focus assumptions that are simply not what I want, and DOF is crap. What's sad is that many people's baseline for imaging these days is based on phone or point-and-shoot. Case in point, I had a recent project doing architectural shoots, and was getting raves over the results. I protested that this was just with a too-old camera with middling lenses. The difference, I guess, was framing, lighting and timing. And lenses large enough to gather sufficient light for the job, IMO the major weakness of phones and point-and-shoot.

As to Doug's issues, I don't doubt it. Back in "the day", Nikon was the favored brand among railfans who shot primarily to be published (Ted Benson, for instance), so a lot of guys wanted to emulate that. Nikkor optics were arguably slightly better than Canon at the time, so I have to hand them that 1% bias. What they didn't tell you was the customer support for Nikon was inconsistent - if you were a pro, or published, you got great support. If you were the guy on the street, get in line. And while my impressions are entirely second- and third-hand, the gist of mutterings in the photo lines were a lot more Nikon backs in the shop than Canons, the implication being that Nikons were very fine instruments that needed to be treated with care, where Canons were everyman's SLR, and tended to survive more tosses into the camera bag.

Sony was Minolta and Konica back then. They were considered "also ran" brands at the time for the budget-minded. As was Olympus, who pioneered the compact SLR back.

But that was the 1970s. Forty years later, as far as I'm concerned this whole Ford vs. Chevy thing is a tossup. Go to a real camera shop and try things out, and get what's comfortable for you. Personally, I would shy away from Sony DSLRs because of the smaller selection of branded lenses, and even more so for Olympus. While you're standing there in the shop, take a mental survey of the lens selection for each and you'll get a better sense of the support for each brand.

[Paradise275]

If you have Canon lenses that were not damaged, then it would only seen reasonable to get another Canon body, either new or used.
I have a Canon and my son has a much more expensive Nikon. He says mine takes better pictures. Go figure.

Rick

[Jesse6669]

Agree completely that it's more about the photographer than the equipment, but the right tool for the job helps.  Budget also need to be considered but there are good, yet less-expensive, alternatives.

I've had Canon and Nikon products over the years, from film to digital, and good experience with both. 

Today I use the Nikon J1 which isn't a DLSR, but a "compact" more like a rangefinder camera, and has a decent selection of interchangeable lenses, and is very reasonably priced.  The only thing I don't like is you have to frame photos from the LCD screen, not through an eyepiece, but I can live with that.

[tom mann]

Mike's post reminded me of how I learned photography (at least, the technical aspects of it).  I was biking around Harper's Ferry in May of 2006 and took photos of an old red lock house in fully automatic mode.  The sky was blue and the trees were vibrant green.  When I looked at the photos on the computer back home, the house was pink, the sky white, and they trees a washed out green.  The camera was attempting to compensate for shadows around the tree line by bumping up the exposure.  Artistically, this was unnecessary. 

I read up on aperture, ISO, and exposure time and their relationships to one another and went back the next week.  Under similar conditions, I took 1000s of photographs in manual mode that Saturday and would continue to shoot in manual until I got my first DSLR. Occasionally, I revert to manual if want a specific type of photo.

Today's point-and-shoot cameras (and phones) do a better job in automatic.

I just looked at the Sony a7r review and would buy this camera if money wasn't a concern: http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sony-alpha-a7r/18 . They don't have nearly the amount of lenses that other brands have, but all are quality and there is enough of a selection (with the exception of a 50mm macro).

Edit: but I'm not a monster.  This also is great and more mainstream: http://www.dpreview.com/products/nikon/slrs/nikon_d600

[nstars]

If you consider a camera for taking pictures of the layout and models I think it is important to mention that for this kind a bigger depth of field (DOF) is preferable. There are several ways to achieve this. The first possibility is to close the aperture. However, anything above about 8-11 will create a 'soft' picture where everything is not 100% sharp. Most lenses are at their best at an aperture between 5.6 and 11. Due to difraction the lens will become softer above these apertures.

The other possibility is to use a camera with a smaller sensor like f.i. a point and shoot camera. This is the reason why suprisingly enough most point and shoot can provide sharp pictures of a model/layout. THe problem with this solution is that they need more light as the pixels are smaller and without enough light the noise becomes an issue.

For this reason I'm quite happy with my Olympus camera's, which features the relative small micro 4/3 sensors. It forms a good balance between the small point & shoot and the large SLR's from Canon and Nikon. And the Olympus lenses belong to the best available especially when you cnsider the prices. Either the Olympus E-M10 or the E-PL5 are great camera's

Marc

[robert3985]

Although I consider myself to be a "Nikonian", I am not a fanboy, and I use my Nikons as a pro photographer and because they fit my needs.

Like a lot of you, I learned photography at first back in the film days...waaaaay back in the film days (anybody remember the Argus C-3??) when I was a little kid.

Now....I've already posted my reasons to choose Nikon, but stated that Canon is also a viable contender...and truthfully, there are a lot of DSLR's that fit the bill, especially if you're not a pro and your accessory use is limited.

Truth is, a lot of what I do with a DSLR is what I've learned over the years...starting way back when I was a kid with my Argus C-3.  Maybe some of that learned behavior is keeping me (and us) from looking at photography in a way which utilizes really up-to-date technology...since neither Canon or Nikon or Olympus or anybody else but Sony is using the most modern technology...

That said, I am seriously considering going with Sony as a second "carry" camera...and maybe as more.   

This video by pro photographer Gary Fong (also a flash accessory manufacturer) was a real eye-opener for me, and I think the handwriting is on the wall....the DSLR is an obsolete technology, and will be replaced within a decade.  Go here and watch: 

especially if you want a high-end, carry-able camera with a pretty good system and ultra-quality lenses (Zeiss) available if you can afford 'em.

Maybe this is the ONE camera that will fit all of your needs of both portability, quality and versatility....

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[Scottl]

I really need to think about the things I use my camera for.  As some have pointed out, DOF is often better with small sensor cameras, while the flexibility and superior optics, the ability to use filters and the flexibility of SLRs (and the ability to shoot RAW) are of great interest, especially for landscape photography.  My solution might be one of each.  As much as I would like a higher end SLR than my (deceased) Canon Rebel, I have buried two in the past three years due to harsh settings, so the thought of bringing $2500 worth of camera into the field has limited appeal.

Marc pointed out something quite new to me.  I had been shooting my layout with a Canon Rebel 4Ti and cranking the aperture down to f25-29 for DOF.  Even with a tripod and remote trigger, I found a certain softness to the photos that eluded me.  This is a revelation.

[robert3985]

I really need to think about the things I use my camera for.  As some have pointed out, DOF is often better with small sensor cameras, while the flexibility and superior optics, the ability to use filters and the flexibility of SLRs (and the ability to shoot RAW) are of great interest, especially for landscape photography.  My solution might be one of each.  As much as I would like a higher end SLR than my (deceased) Canon Rebel, I have buried two in the past three years due to harsh settings, so the thought of bringing $2500 worth of camera into the field has limited appeal.

Marc pointed out something quite new to me.  I had been shooting my layout with a Canon Rebel 4Ti and cranking the aperture down to f25-29 for DOF.  Even with a tripod and remote trigger, I found a certain softness to the photos that eluded me.  This is a revelation.

For model railroad photography, DOF doesn't mean anything anymore with Helicon Focus...or the equivalent (whatever that may be).  I just shoot at my sharpest aperture nowadays and combine the stacks with HF in my 'puter.  Gives me both ultra sharp photos plus virtually unlimited DOF...if I want. 

So, the sensor size really doesn't mean anything anymore either as far as DOF is concerned because of HF and others...go for the sensor you can afford and which will give you the best overall DxOMark score.  Yeah, a few years ago it was certainly true that the individual sensors on the chips worked better if they were larger, but that is exponentially not as much of a "problem" nowadays because of the firmware which compensates for aberrations of all kinds on better cameras...and some cameras getting rid of the anti-aliasing filters yielding even sharper photos. 

In some photos you don't want a large DOF, and the small sensor limits you to maybe more DOF than you want for other photography such as portraiture or anything where you wish to isolate the subject from the background.  Of course, a lens with an aperture of 1.8 or above also really helps! 

Another example of "old" thinking that modern technology has obsoleted at least for still photography.

Just for chits and giggles, here's an example of a photo that simply cannot be taken with just stopping down a lens.  Both the DOF and the sharpness (due to diffraction) would never approach what I easily get using f8, then focusing along the length of the train (18 photos total), then combining the results in HF, and Photoshopping the result to my satisfaction, then converting to a JPG for publishing.  Sensor size had NOTHING to do with DOF when I took this photo, but being able to mount the camera on my tripod, turn off image stabilization, focus manually, and set my time and aperture manually, and set my WB manually...which a lot of point and shoot cameras as well as smartphone cameras cannot do....made this extreme DOF shot possible...



Here's a shot of the same subject, still using HF, but not putting the shots where the background was in focus into the stack.  The subject is in razor-sharp focus as is the foreground...but the background is very fuzzy and doesn't distract from the subject...exactly like I wanted it, and impossible to achieve without HF



Even though Marc is correct that smaller sensor chips give you greater DOF, that fact has been rendered irrelevant by HF and other similar software.

Just sayin'....

Cheerio!
Bob Gilmore

[Ed Kapuscinski]

No, I really don't.  I'll explain exactly what happened, and you guys will justify some way it's my fault and essentially call me a liar.  No thanks. #ThatsHowRailwireWorks

And no it's not "unfair" at all.   Nikon could have easily prevented this.   Talk to them about "unfair".  Let me know what they say.

It might not be unfair, but it sure isn't helpful.