Finding the best DSLR for an amateur

If we look few years back, DSLR or SLR world is limited only for professional photographers. People like you and me would never think of buying a DSLR at that time due to the huge cost and complexity of the operation. But the time and technology has changed everything and today most of the people (cool ones like you and me) are going for DSLRs instead of compact cameras.

If you have decided to upgrade from a compact camera to a DSLR there would be so many questions you may have. Buying a good and suitable DSLR is not easy task and you’ll need little bit of understanding about professional photography terms, technologies, trends … etc. to select the best camera for you.

DSLR world is growing very fast and you will find number of DSLR manufacturers, brands as well as technologies in today’s market which offers thousands of new features. Therefore buying a new DSLR has become extreme difficult task. I was one of the victims of this and the most difficult thing for me was to understand which camera suits me most. I started writing this post to share my experience and give you some tips as well as some important factors which I found really useful when buying a DSLR after few years in touch with the photography world.

This is a continual attempt of providing a best buying guide for a DSLR mainly for amateurs. Please feel free to send your comments so I can improve this blog.

Here are some of the questions you may have right now with DSLR world. See whether they are useful!

1. Why you would need a DSLR instead of compact camera?
2. What is a DSLR, Why it’s better than a compact camera?
3. Price
4. Why we should worry about brand?
5. The Megapixel war

Is Canon reaching the heights of Mega pixel war?

Canon Rumor told that there will be a development announcement of a high end DSLR from Canon. It seems that both 39 MP and 46 MP prototypes are among the candidates. If this will be a success in this year then Canon will be far ahead from Nikon where Nikons biggest achievement of this year, D800 will be with 36MP sensor.

Why we get different ads for different Google accounts?

Do you know that Google is storing our personal search preferences and other sensitive information to display the most relevant ads when a web page is loaded?

Here’s a cool way to check it.
To get successful results, you’ll need a Google account which you have put searches regarding a specific area for a bit long time. If you are a computer geek like me, who’s searching for code segments, ORA errors or similar things throughout the day you’re an ideal person to check this

Here’s a good example I found recently.
I have two Google accounts and one used for most of my work related things. Most of the searches performed related to technical stuff done with this account. Here’s the advertisement (left side) I got in a website which loaded with this account.

Then I opened the same web page with Chrome connected to my other Google account, the Gossip one! See the difference

Google Ads are primarily filtered based on the content of the web site and the preferences of the user. You can check/modify the ads preferences by logging into Ads Preferences Manager. If you don't want ads to be personalized, you can Opt out the ad preferences. If you want to check which companies have enabled interest based ads on your browser and Opt out the preference, you can do it by visiting http://www.aboutads.info/choices/.

Check this video about Ads personalisation

The Megapixel war

Major marketing weapon still used by DSLR manufacturers is the number of mega pixels in the camera. But do we have to really worry about this? Are you planning to enlarge your photo to large format poster or a sky scrape banner?? If not then don’t worry about the mega pixel of the camera. The least DSLR in today’s market has more than 10 MP. It’s pretty enough for enlarge into a 12 X 15 without distortion. Having large megapixels is sometimes become a headache. You’ll need more memory to store the pictures, super fast computers to process and take long time to transfer. So be careful when you buy. 15-18 MP is more than enough for you even your picture is nominated to display in an art gallery.

Why we should worry about brand?

There’s a never ending war in DSLR world between several companies. Nikon and Canon are the frontiers in the market but now Sony is also catching the market with the improved alpha-α range DSLRs. It’s quite important to get in touch with new releases form them for some period because then you can get an idea about the current market trend and what is best for you. I’m not force you to go for one of these brands but they have improved a lot than their competitors and products are reliable and easy to use. Most importantly there are lot of help forums available for these camera brands so it’s easy to search for an answer to your problems.

Price

Price is the main decisive factor when buying a DSLR. Basically there are three types of DSLRs in the market, Amateur DSLR, Mid-Range DSLR and Professional DSLR. You can identify the type of the camera by its product name and the price also tells what type of a camera it is.

Buying a DSLR is pretty different than buying a mobile phone or a laptop. Usually most expensive phone or laptop has the best configurations and super cool features. But story is different in DSLRs. In DSLR world most expensive cameras are the professional type ones. If you are very new to the field, don’t go behind most expensive cameras. Their operation is complex and you’ll need some knowledge before operating these alien machines.

If this is your first step in DSLR world, what suits you most is an amateur DSLR camera. You can buy an amateur type DSLR for comparatively lower price and you don’t need to have much knowledge in photography to operate this type of a camera.
Mid range DSLR are bit advanced than amateur type once but it’s suitable for a beginners as well. If you’d ask me what to buy, I’d say to buy a mid ranged DSLR because you can learn more and try out advanced photography techniques with these ones. Basically a mid range DSLR will be there with you longer time in your photography life than an amateur camera.

I’m not going to say many things about buying a professional DSLR because I’m also not there yet. If you know the field and need a professional DSLR, you should know what to buy better than me!

What is a DSLR, Why it’s better than a compact camera?

SLR (Single Lens Reflex) is a camera which typically uses a mirror and prism system that permits to view exactly the same what will be captured at the end. Photo capturing mechanism is almost the same in old days film SLRs and in modern DSLRs. But DSLR is equipped with a sensor and digital storage device instead of film to store the photograph. Most distinguished difference between a DSLR and a compact camera is the lens. In a compact camera, you can’t change the lens as you want. If your manufacturer says its 24mm-500mm, that’s it! You cannot go beyond that.

But in DSLR you are free to choose the lens as you want. In SLR world, lens should fit for the purpose. If you are taking portrait photographs, 50mm standard lens would fit it mostly. If you are into wildlife photography, you would need a telephoto lens for the job. Normally most of the amateur and mid-ranged DSLRs packed with a standard lens. But most of the vendors would give a chance to change the lens if you want or sell the camera with an additional lens. Therefore you should be extra careful when choosing the DSLR since your lens might not be suitable for your expectations with the camera.

Another main advantage with DSLR is the ability of changing the settings as you want. In all DSLR cameras it should possible to change the shutter speed, aperture and the ISO sensitivity. If you are not familiar with these words, just forget them. At least most of DSLRs have many different pre defined picture modes and processing techniques which you can use to snap a good picture.