nanonyous
Expert Member
Cropping and resizing are not the same thing.
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Question of the Day: Do you think Bafana Bafana will win tonight?
Photo Comps
- Thread starter Mephisto_Helix
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Cropping and resizing are not the same thing.
These competitions are supposed to be fun. There will always be people who disagree with the final ten selected but at least the forum as a whole gets to pick the eventual winner. If your photo doesn't make the cut this time around then try again next time, presumably with a different photo because we all learn as we go along. Submitting the same photo over and over just doesn't make as much sense to me as trying something new. Neither does submitting every image on your hard drive in the hopes that one will make it. Ten rubbish shots does not equal one great shot! 
I suspect the reason that we see so many photos taken with dslrs and advanced point and shoots in the final ten isn't simply because the photographers have better cameras but because the people behind them have invested time and effort into learning how to take a decent photo. Give a great photographer a cheap point and shoot and he/she is still going to be able to produce a great photo.
I suspect the reason that we see so many photos taken with dslrs and advanced point and shoots in the final ten isn't simply because the photographers have better cameras but because the people behind them have invested time and effort into learning how to take a decent photo. Give a great photographer a cheap point and shoot and he/she is still going to be able to produce a great photo.
nanonyous
Expert Member
^Like
Do I get any bonus points for only ever showing my bad side?
And out of curiosity, as you're a moderator, is the currently running photo competition also going to work on the aforementioned top10 -> voting basis?
Do I get any bonus points for only ever showing my bad side?
And out of curiosity, as you're a moderator, is the currently running photo competition also going to work on the aforementioned top10 -> voting basis?
I haven't the foggiest how the top ten will be chosen but I think there is a good chance it will be run along those lines. 10 is the max the polling system allows.
nanonyous
Expert Member
Doing that is a bad idea as in-camera processing has a lot to do with how a photo comes out when taken as jpeg, as well as whether or not any physical filters were used that could still give someone using any kind of camera at all an effectively unfair advantage.
As an example, I have on my DSLR by default a jpeg profile that gives a VERY dull, flat, lifeless looking image. The only reason I have it set like that is because it gives me the closest representation to the raw data I'm getting in my histogram for review on-camera. If I had to submit my photos with that profile applied they'd look terrible in comparison to the versions I could get directly out of the camera doing nothing but adjusting things like the in-camera jpegs' saturation, contrast and such. The same could be said of anyone else's photos.
That and there are people using things like Instagram on their submissions. Others could be using things like Picnik(sp), gIMP or some other photo processing programs. Hell, some people have probably gotten Adobe Photoshop Elements with their cameras and have used that to process them.
Or even just the software that came with their cameras, for that matter.
Here's an example of what processing, not editing, does to my photos. Left is straight out of camera version with some minor automatic profile adjustments during importing, right is after lens corrections, correcting for some contrast issues with the lens and applying settings that could have been done in-camera. Whether people take the time to learn how to use their tools or not should be their own responsibility.
Before procesing
After Processing
GreGorGy
BULLSFAN
I think he is complaining about the ref again...
I....shall....not....laugh.............
nanonyous
Expert Member
Brendan, I imagine that whoever does end up winning, assuming there is no poll among top10 as selected by a panel of judges, will be informed via PM within a week's time. If not, I'd recommend keeping an eye on the Photography and Announcement categories, as the former's most relevant and the latter's usually used for winner announcements for other competitions anyway.
Now give your eager beaver a rest, it must be getting tired ;p
Now give your eager beaver a rest, it must be getting tired ;p
I have a beaver??? Why did no-one mention this ages ago? Would have saved me so much money and here I thought it was just a growth. Explains a lot
johanopperman
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Reminds me of a story that did the rounds, apparently involved some Pullitzer prize winning photographer.
He was invited to dinner at somebody's home, when he arrived the female host said something to the tune of "You take great photos. You must have a very good camera".
After the meal, he remarked "The food was lovely, you must have a very good oven".....
'Nuff said.
He was invited to dinner at somebody's home, when he arrived the female host said something to the tune of "You take great photos. You must have a very good camera".
After the meal, he remarked "The food was lovely, you must have a very good oven".....
'Nuff said.
FaSMaN
Expert Member
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Reminds me of a story that did the rounds, apparently involved some Pullitzer prize winning photographer.
He was invited to dinner at somebody's home, when he arrived the female host said something to the tune of "You take great photos. You must have a very good camera".
After the meal, he remarked "The food was lovely, you must have a very good oven".....
'Nuff said.
In that case would you mind swapping my 5 year old kodak 8 megapixel point and shoot for your DSLR?
Sorry but in some cases having a better "tool" does lead to better results
PS Not whining about it, I think the judges will take into consideration on what it was shot, hence why they asked you to list what camera you used
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nanonyous
Expert Member
In that case would you mind swapping my 5 year old kodak 8 megapixel point and shoot for your DSLR?
Sorry but in some cases having a better "tool" does lead to better results
PS Not whining about it, I think the judges will take into consideration on what it was shot, hence why they asked you to list what camera you used
Sure, if you pay the difference. Seriously, you can take amazing photos with the crappiest of camera, you just have to learn how to work with it. I know of at least one person that has a Canon 1DX that takes snapshots that look no better than cellphone camera photos. Why did they even bother? They wouldn't stand a chance in a competition run on merit of the photos' aesthetic quality - hell, ClintZA with his Nokia N8 beats the socks off of their photos bigtime.
In essence, an amazing camera does not make crap lighting amazing.
A crap camera does not make amazing lighting crap.
An amazing camera does not make crap composition amazing.
A crap camera does not make amazing composition crap.
An amazing camera does not make crap subject matter amazing.
A crap camera does not make amazing subject matter crap.
An amazing camera does not add to a scene's emotional value.
A crap camera does not detract from a scene's emotional value.
Let me give you some specific examples. Let's compare a Canon 1100D to a 500D to a 60D. All three, at roughly the same time of release, are at R3.5k, R6.5k and R10.5k for their body-only prices. Let's also throw a then R15.5k 7D body and R24.5k 5D Mk II body into the mix.
The 1100D is a very capable camera. You can control your settings and can shoot in raw. You can do this with most of the Canon Compacts too if you install CHDK, but moving on; by getting a 500D over the 1100D you have a slightly larger buffer for RAW photos shot in burst, gain slightly better though still fairly crappy video options, gain some megapixels. Realistically, that's all you gain. Aside from the body becoming slightly less chunkier and of higher build quality.
Going up to the 60D you're gaining FPS, the ability to control your flash better using the camera body, a more robust body, a slightly larger viewfinder, a tilty-swively screen and better video, but we're again focusing on photos, not video. You also gain slightly better weather sealing, though the camera is still not marketed as weather sealed.
On the 7D you get a slightly larger viewfinder than the 60D again, gain many more focus points, gain the electronic level, weather sealing of a caliber that's marketable, higher FPS again, a more sturdy all-metal body and... that's it. You lose the tilty-swively screen.
5D Mk II? Your DoF is narrowed by the larger sensor, your FPS drops, you lose full weather sealing, you lose focus points. But it costs almost 50% more than a 7D.
The net result? At the end of the day, with the exception of situations where you were trying to get as narrow a depth of field as possible to bokeh-whore, which does not automatically make a terrible photo any good, you could have taken exactly the same photo with a compact and the 5D Mk II, processed them the same and come out with the exact same photo. This of course assumes you were capturing equivalent depths of field.
The primary differentiating factors boil down to the more expensive DSLRs being easier to control. You can more easily control your manual settings since you have dedicated controls for them. You can more easily control your zoom and focus since you have dedicated controls for them.
The only other differentiating factor is which has more megapixels, which in reality matters fairly little, and which has the better performing for the task lens, which again in reality has fairly little impact except where you're comparing a genuinely **** lens to one that costs a small fortune on its own for sharpness and no-CA critical tasks.
The reason I'm saying all of this at all? Not even in the context of this photo competition or future MyBB specific ones. It's in the context of 'learn that your compact or phone camera only limits the scope of what you can do and how easily you can do it'. Yes, if you can't control your shutter speed and ISO combination on a compact camera you're going to run into limitations as to what kinds of photos you can take.
It's something most people that seriously begin learning about the capabilities and limitations of their DSLRs eventually learn. I'd like a 5D Mk III or 1DX as much as the next guy, but not because I believe they're inherently better cameras than what I have right now (500D), but because there are situations where I have actually needed more rapid control over my flash and would have benefited greatly from a weather-sealed body.
I can get both of these qualities from a 7D. If I'm not dealing with a downpour, I can get the same out of a 60D or 50D, the latter of which has better weather sealing than a 60D and in reality just loses the tilty-swively screen and out of the box video functionality.
So do I need a 1DX, 5D Mk III or 7D? No. I can get their inferior models and do everything I want to with them.
I could get one of the two waterproof compacts and use those when it comes to weather-sealed shooting, but then I'd be dealing with a control scheme that slows me down. The cameras themselves are greatly capable, though no off-camera flash for me (not that I own one, I can only borrow my uncle's).
So yeah, I could go on and on about this and get into the nitty-gritty of it, but the tl;dr of it is that the camera doesn't make the photo, the photographer does. Look at the below for examples of how a better camera does not make you a better photographer.
1D X with 24-105 f/4L didn't make this photo any more interesting/visually appealing
Nor was it at all necessary for this snapshot
Or this one
Or any of these photos at all
Then you get people like this guy
He's used the following cameras to take his photos:
Canon: 1D X, 1D Mk II, 5D Mk II, 5D Mk III, 7D, 70-200mm f/2.8 USM II, 70-200mm f/4 USM, 24-105mm f/4L IS USM
Sony: A55, A77, NEX-7, RX100
Fuji: Finepix X100
And this is only the gear he's used that I care to look up. And his photos when aggregated are no better than what you could go out and take with a R1.5k compact if you spent a few days reading your camera's manual, learning how to use it and then learning some basic things about composition and working with light. Hell, if you do that, you'd be able to take better photos than him.
Super cereally.
[video=youtube;h05YfP_8UsU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h05YfP_8UsU[/video].
Thanks for all the comments. Bwana’s comments reflect exactly how we feel about the photo competitions. Maybe just a few points from my side:
- The competitions are aimed at creating a fun way for people to display their latest cool photos, and with the chance of winning a prize
- The current voting system to select the winner is not flawless, but it is the best way for us to to get the community to select the winners. I think we are lucky to have mods who are knowledgeable photographers to create a shortlist, and with the final round of voting the members decide.
- For some reason (I suspect Bwana has something to do with it) there are more photo competitions than other competitions. We really try to mix it up with different types of comps.
nanonyous
Expert Member
The voting system, with two variants, I know of isn't at all easy to manage and takes a bit of time and effort on the part of the judges going over the images, but basically,
Assume you have 1k photos to go through and 10 judges bringing them down to a pool of finalists. In these 1k photos' case there is only one photo per entrant so there's no issue of multiple qualifying images from the same person or selecting the single best image from their lot to make it to the finals.
The judges will first skim through the submissions and look for images that have severe technical or aesthetic problems. They'll pass this image around the other judges and ask if it should be eliminated by default. If 5 or more of the judges agree, it's removed. Often this can bring down the total lot of images by as much as a third. Thereafter they do a similar thing and look for images that simply don't look like they're all that interesting, are too snap-shotty or simply don't have anything of interest to external viewers.
This usually involves photos of peoples' own kids, their pets or centered flowers from their back garden. For those of you reading this bit and getting annoyed by it, consider that you are proud of your kids and would like to show them off to the world, but that your kids are not anyone else's kids and people generally don't care as much about other people's kids as their own kids. Similarly, your pets don't mean as much to others as they do to you, though a beautiful photo of either could still easily present a visually appealing image. Similarly, a snapshot of a rose from your garden is as likely to look exactly the same as a snapshot of someone else's rose from their garden. Trust me, virtually everyone almost immediately begins taking photos of their pets or plants in their garden if they don't have kids to take photos of first, when they first get a new camera or lens.
Example of a good photo of your kid(s)
Example of a bad photo of your kid(s)
Example of a good photo of your pet(s)
Example of a bad photo of your pet(s)
Example of a good photo of a flower/flowers
And another good example just for good measure
Example of a bad photo of a flower/flowers
If you're thinking "but the flower photos have blurred out backgrounds and I can't do that with my compact!", you're wrong. Yes, it's more difficult to blur out the background with a smaller sensor, but it's far from impossible. Use a longer focal length, get closer to your subject and get your background further from you. If your subject is too large to get too close, find a different subject that will fit into the frame the way you want it to.
This is why I said it's the camera users' responsibility to learn how to use their tools. You can't expect to enter a racing competition when you don't know how to drive your car to its fullest potential yet and to be able to compete if you were simply unwilling to learn how to use it properly. If you didn't have the time, then you need to make time if you want to compete, then wait for the next competition to come up so you can take part in that with a better chance.
So moving on to the judging stuff, genuine snapshots and photos with issues have been eliminated. From there the panel of judges have, for argument's sake, 200 photos left out of the 1k to go over. At this point they begin rating the images, halving the amount that make it to the next round of elimination with every go.
How many points they give per photo depends on whether they want things to be complicated or easier. A simple 1-10 for how much they like the photo in general or a 1-5x3 for aesthetic quality, technical quality and 'wow factor' for the subject matter. When using the latter system things still come to 15 points in total to keep it easy, but that's how they weight their criteria individually.
200 images become 100, 100 become 50, 50 become 25 and 25 become 10 or remain 25 if the audience is varied enough that you can stand to have that many options up for voting.
For a limited, community oriented audience like MyBB's forums a poll is a potentially bad concept as it can have heavy bias involved from friends voting, and there's little way to control that without it being unfair on its own. There could be a call for votes in a newsletter for the site with thumbnails included, which could bring users of the site that don't commonly use the forums in to vote as well (and draw their attention to the fact there may be photography competitions for them to partake in in future). Voting could be done off of the forums so that these people needn't individually sign up, though this can again give rise to the issue of Facebook-whoring style votes since they can bring friends in from there as well as other communities they may be members of as well.
So what could be done for this is that the images could be distributed among the non computer inclined family and friends of the competition's judges and those in the offices. They also vote and their quantity of voters is weighted against that of the forum's or site's voters. The unrelated voters' votes would carry more weight, in this case, than the forumites or site viewers', and be worked to a points system accordingly;
If 2.5k forum/site votes are given and 100 unrelated votes are given, the 100 unrelated votes carry a 25x weighting multiplier. If 3.1k vs 75, the 75 votes have a 41x multiplier. If 4.5k vs 50, the 50 have a 90x multiplier, etc. In this way, there votes' strengths are roughly 'equalized', giving the greatest potential for a balanced, unbiased and 'neutral' outcome that isn't in the direct control of whoever has the most friends. They can still get their friends to rally to their side for votes, but it won't guarantee they win anymore.
In the situation where multiple entries from the same person would qualify, that person is contacted and asked to choose a single image from their qualifying lot to go through to the finals. The remaining spots are taken up by whichever photos were the highest scoring that were initially eliminated. If multiple from the same person again come up, the same is done as before.
/wall'o'text
Assume you have 1k photos to go through and 10 judges bringing them down to a pool of finalists. In these 1k photos' case there is only one photo per entrant so there's no issue of multiple qualifying images from the same person or selecting the single best image from their lot to make it to the finals.
The judges will first skim through the submissions and look for images that have severe technical or aesthetic problems. They'll pass this image around the other judges and ask if it should be eliminated by default. If 5 or more of the judges agree, it's removed. Often this can bring down the total lot of images by as much as a third. Thereafter they do a similar thing and look for images that simply don't look like they're all that interesting, are too snap-shotty or simply don't have anything of interest to external viewers.
This usually involves photos of peoples' own kids, their pets or centered flowers from their back garden. For those of you reading this bit and getting annoyed by it, consider that you are proud of your kids and would like to show them off to the world, but that your kids are not anyone else's kids and people generally don't care as much about other people's kids as their own kids. Similarly, your pets don't mean as much to others as they do to you, though a beautiful photo of either could still easily present a visually appealing image. Similarly, a snapshot of a rose from your garden is as likely to look exactly the same as a snapshot of someone else's rose from their garden. Trust me, virtually everyone almost immediately begins taking photos of their pets or plants in their garden if they don't have kids to take photos of first, when they first get a new camera or lens.
Example of a good photo of your kid(s)
Example of a bad photo of your kid(s)
Example of a good photo of your pet(s)
Example of a bad photo of your pet(s)
Example of a good photo of a flower/flowers
And another good example just for good measure
Example of a bad photo of a flower/flowers
If you're thinking "but the flower photos have blurred out backgrounds and I can't do that with my compact!", you're wrong. Yes, it's more difficult to blur out the background with a smaller sensor, but it's far from impossible. Use a longer focal length, get closer to your subject and get your background further from you. If your subject is too large to get too close, find a different subject that will fit into the frame the way you want it to.
This is why I said it's the camera users' responsibility to learn how to use their tools. You can't expect to enter a racing competition when you don't know how to drive your car to its fullest potential yet and to be able to compete if you were simply unwilling to learn how to use it properly. If you didn't have the time, then you need to make time if you want to compete, then wait for the next competition to come up so you can take part in that with a better chance.
So moving on to the judging stuff, genuine snapshots and photos with issues have been eliminated. From there the panel of judges have, for argument's sake, 200 photos left out of the 1k to go over. At this point they begin rating the images, halving the amount that make it to the next round of elimination with every go.
How many points they give per photo depends on whether they want things to be complicated or easier. A simple 1-10 for how much they like the photo in general or a 1-5x3 for aesthetic quality, technical quality and 'wow factor' for the subject matter. When using the latter system things still come to 15 points in total to keep it easy, but that's how they weight their criteria individually.
200 images become 100, 100 become 50, 50 become 25 and 25 become 10 or remain 25 if the audience is varied enough that you can stand to have that many options up for voting.
For a limited, community oriented audience like MyBB's forums a poll is a potentially bad concept as it can have heavy bias involved from friends voting, and there's little way to control that without it being unfair on its own. There could be a call for votes in a newsletter for the site with thumbnails included, which could bring users of the site that don't commonly use the forums in to vote as well (and draw their attention to the fact there may be photography competitions for them to partake in in future). Voting could be done off of the forums so that these people needn't individually sign up, though this can again give rise to the issue of Facebook-whoring style votes since they can bring friends in from there as well as other communities they may be members of as well.
So what could be done for this is that the images could be distributed among the non computer inclined family and friends of the competition's judges and those in the offices. They also vote and their quantity of voters is weighted against that of the forum's or site's voters. The unrelated voters' votes would carry more weight, in this case, than the forumites or site viewers', and be worked to a points system accordingly;
If 2.5k forum/site votes are given and 100 unrelated votes are given, the 100 unrelated votes carry a 25x weighting multiplier. If 3.1k vs 75, the 75 votes have a 41x multiplier. If 4.5k vs 50, the 50 have a 90x multiplier, etc. In this way, there votes' strengths are roughly 'equalized', giving the greatest potential for a balanced, unbiased and 'neutral' outcome that isn't in the direct control of whoever has the most friends. They can still get their friends to rally to their side for votes, but it won't guarantee they win anymore.
In the situation where multiple entries from the same person would qualify, that person is contacted and asked to choose a single image from their qualifying lot to go through to the finals. The remaining spots are taken up by whichever photos were the highest scoring that were initially eliminated. If multiple from the same person again come up, the same is done as before.
/wall'o'text
Deckert
Well-Known Member
@nanonyous: I agree with the spirit of what you said, e.g. that the camera you use should not matter. I do agree mostly, but my road with cameras has shown me that the kit you have can enable you to explore a wider range of parameters and capture moments that I see with my eyes the way I want.
I started out with a 35mm Pentax film camera which has served me exceedingly well, but cost of film and developing kept me from experimenting too much. The first digital camera I worked with was the Canon Powershot Pro70 (a 1.6MP cam). It was a large/bulky camera which only had contrast focusing (which was terribly slow and unreliable). Shutter lag was terrible. But at least this camera allowed me to play - test stuff, see if angles looked the same on the camera than what I expected them to look when I imagined a scene in my head.
I cycled through some compacts from 2004-2009 (the tiny Canon A75, Canon Powershot S3, Canon SX10). Each time I learned more and more about techniques and that the best camera you have is the one you're carrying with you. But I kept running into some limitations with these devices, specifically on shutter lag and noise in low light situations. No matter what I did, I could never reliably capture movement the way I saw it in my head with my compacts and even with the bridges.
Using low-light film I could capture some scenes better with my old Pentax than with my compacts.
In 2009, having saved up enough, I got the Canon 500D and chose a lens that was very new at the time (the 15-85mm). A whole new world opened up for me. The wide angle, fast focus, negligible shutter lag and ability to add remote triggers (for camera and strobes) allowed me to place the camera in spots that would not normally be possible. Side-lighting subjects introduced depth to scenes and I've experimented a lot with different home-made lighting setups. It took me a while to grasp the advantages of shooting RAW and gaining more dynamic range, but it's all I ever shoot in these days and I cannot image going back to JPG. I added a 'long' lens to allow further reach and (partly) to compete with what I was used to on the SX10 with it's 20x zoom lens.
So has my road finished? I always used to say "never a DSLR, my SX10 does everything I need". I said the same with my 500D. But I find myself wanting to do more. When I photograph a parkour member doing a stunt I wish I had faster than 3FPS. The parkour guys are patient with me when I ask them to repeat their stunts over and over so I can get the "just right" shot, but they are human and they get tired. So the story goes. Next for me will probably be something like the rumoured 70D - dunno yet. But I'll never get or need a 5D ... right? ;-)
By the way, the 1000D series lacks spot-metering which makes taking a picture of the moon difficult and the 5D Mk2 is definitely weather sealed (albeit not as good as the 1D), which is really nice if you have an L-lens to go with it. I agree that the tilty-swively screens are less useful and I prefer them fixed.
I still sometimes reach for the SX10 when traveling (esp. when flying to some African countries) and it's very convenient not to have to swap lenses or schlep a big camera bag all over the place while documenting my trip. But, when I have only the SX10 with me I still encounter some situations where I simply let it hang over my shoulder, knowing I won't be able to capture a specific moment the way I want to.
After everything, I have a massive amount of fun with photography and I consider myself very lucky that it can be my hobby.
--deckert
I started out with a 35mm Pentax film camera which has served me exceedingly well, but cost of film and developing kept me from experimenting too much. The first digital camera I worked with was the Canon Powershot Pro70 (a 1.6MP cam). It was a large/bulky camera which only had contrast focusing (which was terribly slow and unreliable). Shutter lag was terrible. But at least this camera allowed me to play - test stuff, see if angles looked the same on the camera than what I expected them to look when I imagined a scene in my head.
I cycled through some compacts from 2004-2009 (the tiny Canon A75, Canon Powershot S3, Canon SX10). Each time I learned more and more about techniques and that the best camera you have is the one you're carrying with you. But I kept running into some limitations with these devices, specifically on shutter lag and noise in low light situations. No matter what I did, I could never reliably capture movement the way I saw it in my head with my compacts and even with the bridges.
Using low-light film I could capture some scenes better with my old Pentax than with my compacts.
In 2009, having saved up enough, I got the Canon 500D and chose a lens that was very new at the time (the 15-85mm). A whole new world opened up for me. The wide angle, fast focus, negligible shutter lag and ability to add remote triggers (for camera and strobes) allowed me to place the camera in spots that would not normally be possible. Side-lighting subjects introduced depth to scenes and I've experimented a lot with different home-made lighting setups. It took me a while to grasp the advantages of shooting RAW and gaining more dynamic range, but it's all I ever shoot in these days and I cannot image going back to JPG. I added a 'long' lens to allow further reach and (partly) to compete with what I was used to on the SX10 with it's 20x zoom lens.
So has my road finished? I always used to say "never a DSLR, my SX10 does everything I need". I said the same with my 500D. But I find myself wanting to do more. When I photograph a parkour member doing a stunt I wish I had faster than 3FPS. The parkour guys are patient with me when I ask them to repeat their stunts over and over so I can get the "just right" shot, but they are human and they get tired. So the story goes. Next for me will probably be something like the rumoured 70D - dunno yet. But I'll never get or need a 5D ... right? ;-)
By the way, the 1000D series lacks spot-metering which makes taking a picture of the moon difficult and the 5D Mk2 is definitely weather sealed (albeit not as good as the 1D), which is really nice if you have an L-lens to go with it. I agree that the tilty-swively screens are less useful and I prefer them fixed.
I still sometimes reach for the SX10 when traveling (esp. when flying to some African countries) and it's very convenient not to have to swap lenses or schlep a big camera bag all over the place while documenting my trip. But, when I have only the SX10 with me I still encounter some situations where I simply let it hang over my shoulder, knowing I won't be able to capture a specific moment the way I want to.
After everything, I have a massive amount of fun with photography and I consider myself very lucky that it can be my hobby.
--deckert
nanonyous
Expert Member
Had another massive wall'o'text typed up, but I guess it's essentially pointless given I've tried to teach people on this matter (not referring to you, Deckert, referring to people in general) before and pretty much none believe it since they simply haven't had a DSLR themselves and so don't have a frame of reference to compare with.
If you don't know what you're doing and want to learn, get a half-way decent bridge camera, not a DSLR. I've got at least three photography books here that state the opposite, but the joke is that the same three authors of those books are terrible photographers themselves (got the books as presents).
A bridge camera with manual controls and raw files will give you what you need to experiment with as you learn about light, composition and processing, specifically when combined with general self-critical quality control and redaction of less-worthy shots. Even a compact will do this. A DSLR is not, in any way, going to make that learning go quicker, it's only going to be a potentially more expensive venture. By the time you're truly ready for a DSLR and can justify actually 'needing' one, the chances are good you'll be able to get a drastically better body than you're worried about getting right now in terms of its performance and functionality - not that that's going to mean you aren't having to buy lenses for it as well anyway.
Personally I'd not mind using a compact since I could more readily have it with me at all times, but I can actually justify manual controls on a DSLR and already have a DSLR, which is why my requirements of any compact I'd get are higher.
Anyway, trying to convince people to learn first rather than simply throw money at things, or be overly concerned about what they're afraid they might not win in a competition that may run on merit of capability over equipment, isn't going to get me anywhere. These videos should serve as a far better example, and they're only a small example to the effect of.
>>Especially this one<<
If you don't know what you're doing and want to learn, get a half-way decent bridge camera, not a DSLR. I've got at least three photography books here that state the opposite, but the joke is that the same three authors of those books are terrible photographers themselves (got the books as presents).
A bridge camera with manual controls and raw files will give you what you need to experiment with as you learn about light, composition and processing, specifically when combined with general self-critical quality control and redaction of less-worthy shots. Even a compact will do this. A DSLR is not, in any way, going to make that learning go quicker, it's only going to be a potentially more expensive venture. By the time you're truly ready for a DSLR and can justify actually 'needing' one, the chances are good you'll be able to get a drastically better body than you're worried about getting right now in terms of its performance and functionality - not that that's going to mean you aren't having to buy lenses for it as well anyway.
Personally I'd not mind using a compact since I could more readily have it with me at all times, but I can actually justify manual controls on a DSLR and already have a DSLR, which is why my requirements of any compact I'd get are higher.
Anyway, trying to convince people to learn first rather than simply throw money at things, or be overly concerned about what they're afraid they might not win in a competition that may run on merit of capability over equipment, isn't going to get me anywhere. These videos should serve as a far better example, and they're only a small example to the effect of.
>>Especially this one<<
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