Category — Photography

If you’ve used a film SLR (Single Lens Reflex Camera), you know that the main difference over the old “range finder” film cameras is that you can see through the lens.  This SLR trick is achieved via a set of mirrors or a prism that focuses onto a focusing screen, and a mirror that flips out of the way of the film when it’s time to snap the photo. This mechanism allows you to see what the camera “sees” in a fairly direct way, through the lens. It allows for very precise focusing, and on some cameras, previewing what the depth of field will be. A DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex Camera) builds on this tradition, and replaces the film with a digital sensor at the film plane, and electronic processing of the image information.

An electronic viewfinder is one advantage of a “point-and-shoot” or of a “prosumer” digital camera. You get a readout of what the CCD (the electronic sensor that replaces film) is “seeing”, and you can see in lower light too, and get things like histograms and other on-screen information. (A “live view” like this is pretty essential for doing infrared digital photography).  “However, SLR is still popular in high-end and professional cameras, because the pixel resolution, contrast ratio, and color gamut of an LCD preview screen cannot compete with the clarity and shadow detail of a direct-viewed optical SLR viewfinder” (Wikipedia).

Notice how on B & H (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/category/989/Digital_Photography.html) they have these three categories:
# Point & Shoot Digital Cameras
# Advanced Point & Shoot Digital Cameras
# SLR Digital Cameras

The “Advanced Point & Shoot Digital Cameras” categories is what some others call “prosumer” cameras, which is a combination of the words “professional” with “consumer”. They have larger lenses, more features, some manual settings. They have do not have interchangeable lenses like a DSLR (which can be an advantage in terms of no getting dust on the sensor, and weight).

If your concern with with making beautiful photos, the most important thing though is not the equipment. I’ve had photos in shows that I made with a “point and shoot”. There is too much focus on equipment. Too many people I’ve noticed, seem to believe they should start with a “good” camera (they even list their camera model in their postings to the meetup.com photography group, which is silly). Just the opposite is true in fact. The best way to become a good photographer is to find the simplest, cheapest camera that you can enjoy, and go out and have fun with it. I started my digital adventures with a tiny “point-and-shoot” Canon Elph in 2001. Practice making thousands of photos. That’s how you get good. And study really good photographers that inspire you. Then when you realize the limitations of that camera, it’s time to move up a step. When you outgrow that camera, move up another step. If you jump into a camera that’s too good, that is too sophisticated, you will never know how to take advantage of it’s power, nor appreciate what it can do. A simple camera forces you to get creative. The focus should not be on the camera.

The three main things that go into making a great photo are:
1. Perceptual:  A good eye (which you can develop by drawing and learning “how to see”, and taking lots of photos, and looking at art and photographs).
2. Emotional-Spiritual: Vision/imagination/creativity/ideas/feeling/risk-taking.
3. Cognitive: Technical skills and knowledge + problem solving.

With these abilities, you can take good photos with any camera. However there is a catch: you can’t take good photos under all circumstances. For instance, if you want to take a photo under moonlight, you probably can’t do it with a point-and-shoot, because its lens is not fast enough (can’t gather enough light), and the exposure times are too short. And even if it had long exposure times, there would be a lot of noise in the image.

This actually applies to all art-making. If you have the above psychological prerequisites (and everyone has them or the ability to grow them), you’ll be able to figure out and find what tools you need.

Well, enough for now.