Teach me about photography

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Chemical Ollie
2 Megapixel is enough for any amateur application. Any higher resolution is only useful for enlargements above A3, which I doubt you can even afford.

Landscape photography with anything less than a 4 x 5 view camera is just a big disappointment.

2 Megapixel is OK for the oyster model of photography, where you lay half a billion eggs and hope a couple make it long enough to perpetuate the species. That's a good start, and good to see if you have an interest that really sticks, but that's the limits of it.

There is only one digital camera I'm aware of that is truly competitive with even 35mm film, and that's Canon's seven grand top end 11 megapixel model. It is the only one where the recording limits of the medium are at almost at the optical limits of the lens family.

In all 35mm professional film cameras, with the exception of ultrafast films and a few specialty lenses, and common lenses used at maximum aperture, the image quality limitation is imposed by the lens, not the film. In digital cameras except the Canon EOS-1Ds, the resolution of the CCD is the image limiting factor long before you reach the performance limits of the lenses.

As you go down in quality/price, digital performance drops faster than that of film camera.

No digital camera made has even close to the subtlety, depth, detail, and image controllability of large format, but large format is a hell of a lot of work.

I would start with digital, but if you really get into landscape photography, large format is the way to go. You also won't have the 1 in 100 photos is worth a **** blues, either - large format takes time to set up, to compose, it requires a lot of patience, and you bring home a much higher percentage of good images, and the quality is phenomenal.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Landscape photography with anything less than a 4 x 5 view camera is just a big disappointment.

Yeah, but newbies shouldn't mess with 110 and 120 cameras or they will be just wasting film.

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
There is only one digital camera I'm aware of that is truly competitive with even 35mm film, and that's Canon's seven grand top end 11 megapixel model.

Leaf makes very good high-end digital cameras. They can be enlarged into posters without becoming pixellated.

[Tingkai]

Some starter tips
- Look at the four corners of the viewfinder before you take the photo. Most people tend to only look at the centre.
- Take your time. Think about the picture before you take the shot.
- Kneel down. It will give you a different perspective. Most tourist snapshot are taken when people lift up the camera and shoot.
- Use low-speed film. Just try it. You'll notice a difference. Richer colours, less contrast.
- Shoot early in the morning or late afternoon. The light is better.
- Try black and white film.
- For compostion, think of letters like O, C, Z, V. The photo should draw your eye along the lines of these letters.
- Understand what f-stop (aperature) does. A photo taken with an f-stop of 1.4 will create a blurry background which makes the subject of the photo stand out. f-22 creates long "depth of field" which means everything in the photo will be in focus.
- Buy a cheap manual camera and learn the basics.
- take a photo course.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger


Yeah, but newbies shouldn't mess with 110 and 120 cameras or they will be just wasting film.

110 and 120 are radically different film types though. 110 is instamatic crap, 120 is 6 cm medium format roll film. I started with 120 as a kid, but "worked" at it, with some good references, lots of exposure (no pun intended) to work by Weston and Adams, etc.

[Urban Ranger]

Adams

[Dis]

point and click

that's all you really need to know

[NeOmega]

well MTG says 11 pixels is the only thing that can compare to film, and Oliie says 2 is good enough.

Of course I assume your monitor is 1024x768.... roughly 1 Megapixel. A 2 megapixel would be twice the resolution on your screen, compressed down to a 4x6(inches) or 3x5(inches) snap shot. In prints this small, it is indescernable to the naked eye, (allthough it still can be picked out as digital, by looking at fleshtones... sometimes) Your screen is probably around 8x10(inches), and even at that size, the print would look not too bad, (allthough if you got really close, you might notice slight pixelation in high contrast areas, like iris vs. whites of eyes) A 20x30(inches) poster, and you would see that it doesn't look too great.

With 4 megapixels, a poster would have the same resolution roughly, as the 8x10(inches) photo.

Also unmentioned is the fuji digitals. They have a better ccd (the electronic film, so to speak) technology, that uses tessalating hexagons instead of lined up circles, which gives better color accuracy.

Honestly, since you seem to like photography, spend some good money and get a good camera, that way you will not want to replace the $200(American) camera with a $400(American) dollar one two years from now. Secondly, once you get your camera, especially w/ landscape photography, always bring it with you everywhere!

[Joseph]

A friend of mine is a pro. He sell his stuff to magazine. He told me that it is the lens that make a picture. You can have any on the camera below or the other listed in this thread and have a cheap lens and you will take cheap pictures. The better quality of the lens on any good camera body will make a difference.
The guys on this thread gave you some good advice, so start taking those pictures.

Guys which of my cameras would be the best taking a good quality picture?


I have 4 camera.

1. Olympus C-3020, 3.2 megapixe, seamless zoom 7.5X, and a 6.5 to 19.5 mm 1.28 lens. The cost was just over $500.

2. Canon EOS Elan II, 28-80mm 1:3.5-56 Macro made by Aspherical. Also 70-210mm 1:4-5.6 UC II and a 50 mm 1:1.8 canon lens. The body & 50 mm was around $500. The other lens were $300. to $400. for both.

3. Canon EOS 700 with a 28 mm 1:2.8 canon lens. Camera and lens around $600.

4. Canon AE-1, with 28 mm 1:2.8, a 50 mm 1:1.4 S.S.C., a 28-135 1:3.8-5.2 len, a 85-210 1:4.5, a 500 mm 1:8, a 2X converter, a 52 mm +10, +4, +2, and +1 close-up lens. Have no idea what the cost was. I brought them a long time ago.

[NeOmega]

I really don't know what any of those models are.... but I don't think there is a lensmaker called aspherical is there? As far as I knew, aspherical lenses were/are used for fisheye view....

[Pekka]

Excellent answers everyone. I got more than I dared to wish for.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Joseph
Guys which of my cameras would be the best taking a good quality picture?

Any of the canon SLR cameras are about the same, and all the lenses should be interchangable. They aren't bad, but you can use better ones, particualrly wrt aperture. At least a 1:2.8 is reasonable, and 1:1.4 is excellent.

One of my camera is a Yashica mechanical. It's pretty bare-bones, but the good thing is it can use Contax lenses. I have also got a 1500mm 1:2.0 Soviet lens that weighs a ton, but it's very good, and it uses coated glass lenses inside.