We continue with the second part of our article on "Factors to consider when buying a camera". If we were to express it with the main headings of the last issue;
• The importance of determining your purpose and how to narrow down the target set among the many models on the market,
• Pros and cons of sensor size,
• We have discussed in detail the high megapixel myth and how many megapixels are actually needed. Let's continue where we left off...
LENS
The two most important elements of the camera, along with the sensor, are the lens or lens. First of all, if you are just starting out in photography and want to advance in photography, I strongly recommend that you choose a camera with interchangeable lenses. You will have the opportunity to choose the different lenses you will need in photography over time, among different brands and models, without changing cameras. Below I have listed some important factors to consider when choosing lenses for our camera:
Lenses with Fixed or Variable Focal Length
Fixed focus lenses (such as 35 mm, 50 mm, 85 mm) are more affordable and provide better quality images than variable focus lenses (such as 18-55 mm, 28-300 mm, 16-35 mm), although there are exceptions. On the other hand, since it is not possible to zoom in with fixed-focus lenses and get optically closer to the subject without changing your location, if you are using this type of lens, you will have to walk towards the subject or change lenses frequently. If you are buying your first lens, it would be a more reasonable choice to choose zoom lenses that cover a range below and above 50 mm, as you can experience the effects of different focal lengths on photography. (such as 24-70 mm, 18-70 mm, 24-105 mm or 24-120 mm)
Sharpness
How sharp the lens you are purchasing is another factor to consider. To compare lenses in this respect, there are many websites that provide reliable and serious analysis, you can use them (for example; www.dxomark.com/lenses ). Lenses with good optics and high resolution and light transmittance are often thought to be expensive, but rest assured, prices for both fixed and zoom lenses are very reasonable, and on the other hand, you can find many old and new lenses with quality optics.
Aperture (f) Value
Maximum aperture value (f value written on the lens) shows the light collecting capacity of the lens and is perhaps the most important issue to consider when buying a lens. If you are buying a fixed focus lens, you will see a single f value on the lens, such as 1.8 or 2.8, and if you are buying a zoom lens, you will see two f values such as (2.8-4) or (3.5-5.6). Two different f-numbers will indicate how much the aperture can be maximum opened at the lower and upper ends of the focal length. Choosing lenses with apertures that can naturally be opened wider (1) is a great advantage in many situations, but these lenses are both more expensive and larger and heavier in terms of volume and weight.
(1) You can see the aperture main stop values in the lenses above. In this scale, the smaller number means the diaphragm that can be opened wider. You may also see numbers other than the following on the lens: These different numbers represent intermediate stop values, like 1.8 or 3.5... (1 - 1.4 - 2 - 2.8 - 4 - 5.6 - 8 - 11 - 16 - 22 - 32 – 45)
Anti-Vibration System
Anti-Vibration system (Different camera brands use different coding for this, such as VR, IS or OIS) is another factor to consider when buying a lens. Although many models of Pentax and Sony have this system on the camera, in brands such as Nikon and Canon we see this feature as an additional feature on some of their lenses, not generally on the camera. If your camera does not have an anti-vibration system, having this system on the lens provides the photographer with an advantage of up to 3-3.5 stops in many handheld shots. With the exception of photographs taken deliberately blurred for very special occasions and different artistic concerns, it is vital that the photograph taken is clear; Being able to take a photo clearly, thanks to the anti-vibration system, that you normally cannot take with a 1/15 or 1/30 shutter speed, will make a photo that would otherwise go to waste usable.
Manual or Automatic Focus
Most of the lenses produced today provide both manual and automatic focusing. Old production lenses and even some new lenses from Zeiss and Leica only provide manual focusing; This is another issue that needs attention. Being able to focus manually requires some habit and experience, I do not recommend lenses that only focus manually, especially for those who are new to photography.
Apart from these, the amount of chromatic aberration of the lens, the vignetting it creates and the distortion rate it creates at the image edges (barrel distortion) can also be considered among the performance criteria worth examining before buying a lens. However, it would be appropriate to state that these are technical flaws that can be corrected with a single click in many image processing programs after shooting.
AUTOFOCUS PERFORMANCE
Autofocus speeds of digital cameras are largely related to the sensor used. For some reason, camera manufacturers love to present the abundance of autofocus points as a huge added value. Actually, this information does not mean much on its own. We will go into some technical details here: Having many focus points on the sensor is beneficial when watching moving images in focus tracking mode, but it is also very important how many of these focus points are cross-type and how many are vertical-type focus points. On the other hand, most photographers, myself included, use the focus-recomposing technique by focusing only from the center point, so having many focus points is not that important. Let's talk about the issue that is much more important than the number of focus points on the camera. Today, two basic types of technologies are used in the focusing systems of digital cameras:
- Contrast Detect
- Phase Detect
While contrast-detection focusing systems focus more successfully in low-light environments, phase-detection focusing systems are more effective in moving images. While some of the cameras produced only have contrast detection focusing systems, some have both systems. When you examine the camera features, you will see that compact cameras, and especially many entry-level D-SLR cameras, only have a contrast detection focusing system. Having both contrast and phase detection focus points on the sensor of the camera you will purchase will help you focus much more effectively and accurately with your camera.
FILE FORMAT
Actually, I wasn't going to write this as a feature, but it still wouldn't hurt to mention it: The fact that the camera you will buy can also shoot in RAW format is a huge plus. Leaving aside simple compact cameras, cameras on the market today now provide the opportunity to shoot in RAW format as well as JPEG. As it is known, RAW format stores much more data than JPEG and has great advantages in post-shooting processing. Especially if you are seriously interested in photography, you will always need a camera that can take photos in RAW format.
CONTINUOUS SHOOTING SPEED
Continuous shooting speed indicates the maximum number of photos the camera can record per second. Nowadays, shooting speeds of 5-6 frames per second have become commonplace, but you can see these shooting speeds go up to 12-13 frames in upper segment and more expensive machines. This feature may not be very important for every photographer, but if you are producing photographs in a field such as sports or wildlife photography, that is, if you are concerned about freezing very fast moving objects at the right moment, the high shutter speed of your camera is definitely a plus and makes a difference during shooting.
VIEWER
The viewfinder is a must-have feature as it allows better control of the shot to be taken. In fact, almost all middle and upper segment machines have a viewfinder. The camera you will purchase may have two types of viewfinders: optical (on mirrored cameras) and electronic (on mirrorless cameras). If there is an optical viewfinder, the viewfinder's coverage area and magnification are the two most important things to look at. We can explain the coverage area as the percentage of the image that the camera will record in the viewfinder (that is, how much of the frame it cuts off from the edges of the frame to be shot and show us), and the magnification ratio as the ratio of the size of the image we see in the viewfinder to the size we see in real life. Therefore, the greater the coverage area and magnification, the better. When you look through the viewfinder while shooting, the closer you look to what you actually see, the more easily you can control the shot you take. In the table below, you can see how different the coverage areas and magnification ratios of different camera viewfinders can be. (In camera advertisements, pure magnification rates are usually given. In fact, the multiplier rate of the camera also affects the magnification rate of the viewfinder. Therefore, the actual magnification rate of the viewfinder will be divided by the "crop factor". (2) For this reason, I have also shown the real magnification rates of different models below.)
(2) As an example, if we calculate the actual magnification of the viewfinder on the Nikon D5500:
Actual Magnification Ratio = Magnification Ratio/Crop Factor = 0.82/1.5 = 55%
If your camera will have an electronic viewfinder, the criteria change slightly. Electronic viewfinders do not have the problem of "not being able to show the entire image that the camera sees to the photographer" as in optical viewfinders; whatever the lens sees, the photographer sees the same image without any cropping when he looks through the viewfinder. However, in electronic viewfinders;
• Resolution of the viewfinder (because we can actually consider such viewfinders as very small LCD screens.)
• Delay time of the viewfinder (EVF Lag - It is the time between the moment when the image is actually formed and the moment when it is displayed in the viewfinder, it is a certain fraction of a second and the shorter it is, the better.)
• The maximum number of frames it can display per second. (refresh rate - the higher the better.)
issues should be taken into consideration as the most important performance indicators.
LCD SCREEN
Let's talk about LCD screens, which are indispensable for digital cameras... Many criteria can be mentioned regarding LCD screens, but I will only mention a few that I think are important here. First of all, I must say that I see the size of the screen as the most important criterion. Among the digital machines on the market, machines with LCD screens of three different sizes are generally sold: 2.8, 3 and 3.2 inches. The second important criterion is the number of dots on the screen. In this regard, different machines have LCD screens with very different numbers of dots. Naturally, the higher the number of dots, the sharper and more detailed it will be possible to see the image on the small screen.
The third and last criterion I determined is whether the LCD screen is fixed or moving. None of the machines I personally used had a moving LCD screen. However, it is worth saying that the floating screen is a very useful feature, as it makes it possible to take photos using live preview in many difficult environments or from unusual angles.
BATTERY POWER
Lithium-Ion batteries are used in almost all of the digital cameras produced today (if we do not count the pen batteries in very basic compact cameras). However, you can find in the product features how many frames these batteries can take in accordance with CIPA (Camera Imaging Product Association) standards each time they are charged. However, it is possible to encounter very different values here, for example, while the Canon EOS 70D can take 920 frames of photos with a single battery, the Canon EOS 7D mark II, which is a higher class camera, can only take 670 frames.
Another important thing to know about batteries is that the battery life of mirrorless cameras is generally much shorter than that of D-SLR cameras, especially since the electricity consumption is higher due to the electronic viewfinder. For example, while the battery life of the Fuji
INTERNAL FLASH
Having a built-in flash on the camera always adds value to the camera. Although it is not possible to use it in different ways and as powerfully as the overhead flashes purchased later and installed on the camera, it is also possible to use the internal flashes on the camera as fill flash or slow sync.
WATER AND DUST RESISTANCE
Being able to use the camera without worrying in rainy weather and dusty environments is definitely a feature that should be taken into consideration when buying a camera. However, when I say water resistant here, I am not talking about submerging the machine in water! The machine bodies, which are weather-sealed, can be used in all weather conditions without any problems, unless under very heavy rain. To give examples of cameras that are very good in this regard: Nikon D300s, Canon EOS 7D, Olympus E3, Pentax K20D and Pentax K200D, which I used for a short time many years ago.
WIRELESS
The camera's wireless feature is preferred by many photographers, as it makes it possible to immediately transfer the photos taken to the virtual environment, especially via a mobile phone. Of course, this is partly related to the photographer's work style and habits. (It may not be very important to me, but you may consider it very important.)
ERGONOMICS - VOLUME
It is very important for comfortable use that the camera fits properly in the photographer's hand. Just as it is more difficult for a photographer with small hands to use a very large camera, it is also difficult for a photographer with large hands and thick fingers to easily control a very small camera and the buttons on it. For this reason, when purchasing a camera, it should always be purchased by first testing its fit in the hand.
WEIGHT
Cameras can differ for many reasons, such as their weight, whether they are mirrored or mirrorless, material quality, sensor size, the segment they are in, and whether or not they have a viewfinder. So, weight is generally a result of other features of the camera. The important thing here is to buy a camera that you can carry in your hand or around your neck for long hours, without compromising the features we want in the camera as much as possible.See you on another topic, stay safe...
