This is not really my old camera, but illustrates the situation
And so there are no new pics on the blog, and there is a lot of silence on my part. I still have to post pics of the Korps of Krieg unit that went to GD Germany, I hope I can when I get my hands into some nice piece of gear. But then the question arises. Which camera to buy? I'm a total loser in what photography is concerned, and I really need to buy something that enables me to make good pictures, but I don't need to spend gazillions of euros/dollars in a camera that could even travel in time if I knew how to do that. Can anyone with a little more expertise in photography help? I know the most important thing is the light and the optics not the camera itself, but there are so many cameras and options that I'm just overwhelmed. Point and shoot? Reflex? Damn!
In the meantime I'm preparing new stuff, and as soon as I get a new camera I promise I will share it with all of you.
13 comments:
Oh man, it depends entirely on what you want to do.
I used to work as a photographer, si I've got a Nikon D200 and a few lenses.
You probarbly don't need anything like that.
I would look for something you can control focus and apeture on, so you can play with depth of field, something you can turn the flash off on, oh and you dont really need more than 10MP unless you intend to have your minis printed larger than A1 :)
and look for good colour reporduction, I know that sounds wierd but modern digital cameras all have different CCD's and process differently. ideally, if you are likely to want to tweak images, find one that shoots RAW, so you can process on your PC yourself,
of course, if all this sounds like too much hard work, I'm sure theres a lot of good cheap point and shoots out there.
What Karitas says is pretty good advice, if you can give me an idea of what your budget is like I can give ideas about specific cameras, NB I'm a full time professional photographer who also plays 40k so hopefully I'll have an idea what you'll be taking pics of and how to get the results you want.
Thanks Karitas! Obviously I need to camera only to make photos of minis. I guess I don't need super especial equipment, I suppose I just need to know how to use it and do good photographs. Doesn't matter if I have the best thing in the market if I don't know how to take good photos!
Rusty Nail, as I told Karitas, I will only be taking photos of minis with this camera (at least is my intention). My budget is not really a limitation, but I don't want to spend a fortune either. I just need a camera to make good photos of my minis, the best ratio I can get quality/price. And of course, a little advice on how to take them would also be great. You can see my photos on the blog... they're pretty bad!!
If you've been taking the pics of your mini's already then you are seriously already better than the vast majority of the people out there.
You've got the background and depth of field worked out and none of the shots are blurred so I imagine you're working with a tripod
Yes, I use a tripod, a background, a pair of lamps with the lightbulbs I use to paint (blue lightbulbs, white light) and sometimes even a lightbox. My former camera was a point&shoot Canon Ixus-130. I've just bought another (just 5 minutes ago) for every purpose, another point&shoot, a Panasonic Lumix FS14. I bought this because I need it for normal social photo shooting, but I really consider buying one just for miniature photographing. One that I can have in a tripod, with its settings fixed so I can do all the process photos very fast and comfortably. And of course, the final photos!
Well the way to go then would probarbly be to try a few shots with the new one, and see where you feel it falls short, if anywhere.
once you know what you want it to do more than a set of parameters you know.. then you can start hunting :P
Have a look here at a blog I started earlier on in the year and that i will get back to now that work has tailed off.
http://warshots101.blogspot.com/
As I said before you're already doing the vast majority of stuff right as it is.
In regards to specific camera's I use Canon SLR's for pro work and for carrying around and taking snaps I've got myself a Canon S95.
It can work with RAW files to adjust for different lighting conditions and the software you get with it is actually more than reasonable for doing that, it's not Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop but it will definitely produce good results.
Other options are pretty much most Canons or Nikon's, along with Panasonic and to a lesser extent Sony although they are getting better. Olympus are good but are having troubles just now - basically all of these companies have camera's as a big part of their business rather than mobile phones or the like.
Tom
That'll teach me to type faster!
The FS 14 will do the job very well, and as you've got control of the lighting sorted out anyway you shouldn't need to work in RAW.
For a dedicated camera for mini shooting I'd honestly look at some reviews online and concentrate on Macro performance and just make sure you can turn off the flash and adjust the aperture to get the depth of field you want.
Tom
Thanks so much guys! Another thing that would be desirable would be remote capture software so I can shoot and get the photo directly on my computer.
Thanks so much guys!! I will try this new camera. As I said I only bought it for normal photo purposes, you know, photos to friends when I go out and party and stuff. Mini photographing is a whole different world, and very difficult for me because of course I need perfect colour and lighting condition.
If you get a DSLR — even a cheap one like a secondhand Nikon D60 — and a macro lens, you will never regret it.
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