Camera options for W&K

If you aren’t my brother and somehow found this unlisted post, cool I guess but this isn’t really for you.

Here are some thoughts on cameras and what is worth the money and what isn’t.

Expectation setting

I think buying a camera is a great choice for lots of people, for a number of reasons.

• It is more fun to use that a phone
• It encourages you to use your phone for less things (I might write about that at some point too)
• With a little work, it will produce much better results than your phone ¹

That said, sometimes a camera is not the right choice. There is a learning curve, and they are definitely more difficult to use than a phone, less convenient, and can be ² expensive.

Some context

Its important to talk about all the different things someone can mean when they say a picture is “good.” Only some of these may be important to you, and I’ll try to point out what cameras meet which goals.

Some things that might mean a picture is good:

• It’s sharp, and high resolution
• The background is blurry (if you’re doing research, you’ll often hear this referred to as bokeh)
• It has good composition and lighting (obviously not camera dependent)
• A good edit (kind of camera dependent)

JPG vs RAW

All of the cameras I will recommend can take photos in two ways: JPG or RAW. You’re familiar with JPGs, these are displayable and finished image files. They can’t be edited very much, and aren’t super flexible. However, they are convenient.

RAW files, are more like a list of ingredients that editing software interprets and lets you make any changes you wish to them. They are almost infinitely flexible and lots of exposure can be recovered (too dark darks and too bright brights). However, they basically require editing which can be a deal breaker ³.

I mention this early on, because lots of cameras focus on producing really well-rendered JPGs and some neglect them in light of other features, assuming the user will shoot RAW. I’ll point on in the list what cameras shoot excellent JPGs in case immediately usable images are important to you. Though all of them, unless I mention otherwise, should take good jpgs.

DSLR vs Mirrorless

The consensus is that mirrorless is the future of cameras, but that doesn’t mean DSLRs don’t still take great photos.

The main difference is that DSLRs have a mirror, so in the viewfinder you look through the lens. The problem here, is that you don’t have any idea what the exposure (how bright/dark) it is ⁴.

Mirrorless, as the name implies, do not have this mirror. So the viewfinder is actually a small screen which shows a complete exposure preview so the photo you take won’t be a surprise. Mirrorless cameras are almost always smaller than DSLRs, and can be tiny.

A note on marketing

Megapixels are often what camera marketers focus on the most, but really are not that important today, but really are not that important today. 15-year old cameras with 12 megapixels are still totally adequate for most things. 16mp is great, and 20+ is more than enough. Lots of cameras coming out today are touting 40+ megapixels, and its unnecessary for almost all use cases.

Autofocus is the other area where you can be convinced you need to spend a lot of money. To a certain extent, autofocus is important ⁵ but you can definitely get by with simple single point AF ⁶. A nice upgrade is to something with a movable AF point, so you can pick where in the frame your focus locks, and nicer still is face/eye-tracking which will grab a subject’s face or eye and lock on to it. Anything more is probably not worth the money.

Its also important to remember, camera companies need you to keep buying new cameras, even if the old ones are perfectly fine. I currently have a camera from 2008 that takes great photos. Here’s an example:

Camera vs lens

Almost always, the camera lens has more to do with image quality than the camera itself, so all of these recommendations I’ll have a couple options of lenses paired and the pros and cons of each.

Lenses come in two main types, zoom and prime. Zoom lenses, obviously, zoom in and out where primes are a fixed focal-length (how wide or tight it is). Typically with primes you save money, get a wider aperture (better low-light performance and background blur), and higher image quality. Zooms, you obviously get flexibility but you usually pay more (or get much lower sharpness and low light performance) and lose a little image quality in general. Zooms are also usually much larger.

Any primes I recommend will be “general purpose” primes, which are a little tighter (more zoomed in) than an iphone. And are usually good for most scenarios. Zooms I’ll recommend will usually be standard zooms which go from a little wider-angle than an iphone to a short-telephoto (like 3x on your iphone). Reminder that if you have a prime you can still “zoom” like your iphone does by cropping the image down. You lose some megapixels but sometimes can gain some flexibility that way.

Importantly, when buying a camera you are also buying into a lens mount. So when looking for lenses you have to make sure they match the mount of the camera. Obiviously I’ll only recommend lenses that fit the camera they are with, but some are made for multiple mounts so you need to make sure the correct one is listed.

Okay, I’ll shut up and start recommending cameras. I’ll have a few different price categories, and attempt to only recommend cameras that are more expensive if they truly offer a worthwhile upgrade. Also, all of these prices assume you’re buying used, which I think is the only reasonable way to buy camera equipment. All of these prices are from mpb.com, which is where I buy used gear. It’s probaly 15% more expensive than ebay or facebook marketplace, but comes with a 30-day return policy, warranty, and the cameras have all been tested.

< $200

A lot of people will tell you not to bother getting a camera and lens for under $200. I think that’s dumb.

These cameras (and all in the categories later) are in no particular order.

• The free camera someone you know is getting rid of. Seriously, you can probably find one for free. Maybe your little brother has one that he doesn’t need anymore and would give you ⁷.
  • An okay zoom to pair with this would be: Canon 18-55 f/3.5-5.6 (buy, review). Not super sharp, not great in low light, with some bad color fringing wide open (better stopped-down). But, flexible, pretty compact, and only like $70 used.
  • A good zoom to pair with this would be: Tamron 17-50mm F/2.8 XR Di II LD (buy, review). Better in low light, more out of focus background when wide open, wide open sharp center but color fringing and softness in corners (get better stopped down). More expensive at about $170.
  • A good prime to pair with this would be: Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM (buy, review). Sharp, decent low light, tiny, cheap. About $90.
• One you find at a thrift store.
• Canon powershot G11 (buy). These older, all-in-one compact cameras can be had for around the $200 price range. They’re fun and small, but don’t have a ton of megapixels (this one is 10). For small prints and social media that’s probably fine. This one goes for right at $200 in good condition.

$200-400

In this price range you can really start looking at capable cameras and a pretty decent lens to pair it with. You’ll just have to shop used and older cameras (which are, again, often times perfectly wonderful)

• Canon 5d Mark II (buy). This is the camera I took the photo higher up with. It is a late 2000s professional DSLR (originally released for something like $3000). It has incredible image quality, but falls behind some in usability. The middle AF point is about the only one that works and there are no fancy autofocus settings. However, this is a full frame ⁸ camera, which is unheard of for the $280ish dollars being asked. It is very large and heavy, and has an awful back screen.
  • A good prime lens to pair this with is the Canon 50mm f1.8 STM (buy, review). This lens has a great reputation for being incredible value for money. Its usually around $85 and produces excellent results. It’s a little tighter than the other prime lenses listed here, so that may be a good or bad thing depending on what you want. The above picture was also taken with this lens.
  • Another good prime lens to pair this with is the Canon 40mm f2.8 STM (buy, review). This has a smaller aperture that the one above (less light and less blurry backgrounds) but still a respectable one, and is a little wider⁹. It also is tiny and has excellent image quality. About $130.
  • You won’t find a zoom lens worth buying in the ~$150 we have to work with after getting this camera in this budget range.
• Sony NEX-7 (buy, review). This is the first mirrorless camera on this list, and the first one with face detect autofocus. Two huge quality of life improvements. Plently of image quality here (24 megapixels) and pretty small too. Not great battery life, and I’ve heard early Sony cameras have some weird color problems in JPG mode. Around $320.
  • A good prime lens to pair here would be the Sigma 19mm f2.8 (buy, review). A very similar field of view to your phone, with good sharpness and decent low light performance.
  • If you want something a little tighter, a good option could be the Sigma 30mm f2.8 (buy, review). Though, this may push a little out of this budget category. Usually about $140.

$400-$600

I think, in this category you’re probably better served with one of the cameras from the last one, and more lenses, or a single better lens.

• For the Canon 5dMii

  • Canon 24-105 f/4 (buy, review) is a good general purpose zoom lens. It suffers in low-light performace and background blur, but everything else about it is pretty nice. It is also huge.

• For the Sony NEX-7

  • Sigma 30mm f1.4 (buy, review)
  • Sigma 16 f1.4(buy, review)
  • These both are basically complete upgrades from the ones I listed originally with that camera, and each are about $250. Much better low light performance, more modern, and better sharpness. I used a very similar lens to the 30mm 1.4 for your family pictures. Good zooms are still out of budget in this category for this camera.

• Olympus EM-10 (or mark ii or iii they aren’t much more expensive) (buy, review). This is a smaller-sensor camera, but that allows for more features in a smaller body and cheaper, quality lenses.

  • A good prime to pair with this would be the Panasonic 25mm f1.7 (buy). This is a similar field of view to the Canon 50mm 1.8 mentioned earlier. Great value, stop down for best sharpness. ~$100
  • A wider-angle prime to match the iphone field of view would be a Panasonic 14mm f/2.5. Not as good in low light (but decent), and great value. $150.
  • The main reason though, to get this camera would be because you can maybe squeeze good zoom lenses with it. One idea is to hunt around for a good deal on the Panasonic 12-35 f/2.8 (buy). When I’m writing this, there’s one for $350. If you get a good deal on it and the camera body this would stay under budget.

If you want more options in higher price ranges, let me know, but I think that these are plently of options that if you decide what features are important to y’all and what aren’t you can find one that’ll make y’all very happy.

Also, there’s literally (like actually, not figuratively) more than 100 other cameras that you would probably also be happy with. These were just my recommendations based on my experience.

Holler if you have any questions.