Choosing Your DSLR

Digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex) cameras are the choice for professional and amateur photographers in that they offer a large selection of lenses and are much more versatile than many point-and-shoot digital cameras. The image quality of an SLR camera is also much greater as they are more sophisticated than point-and-shoot cameras. When selecting a D-SLR, there are a few things that you should consider before doing so, but with new models being introduced each year, it is getting more difficult to choose which one to get as it's getting harder to tell them all apart.  This leads to the question that some of you asked me earlier on: which DSLR camera should I buy?

That was also one of the first things I asked myself too. My answer to that question would have to be this: the camera that I recommend that you should get is the one that will help you take the type of photos that you enjoy most. To put it simply, find the camera that is best suited for YOU. Take a second and imagine that you are buying a bike. You go out and buy a beautiful looking high-end road racing bike since it's on sale, but what you really love is going off the road in a muddy terrain. The bike isn’t going to work very well. The same thing can happen when you buy a camera. All DSLRs on the market today are very similar, and they are all capable of taking great photos. So once you know what type of photos you are planning to take, it will help narrow down your choices of which cameras to buy.

Next thing you should take into consideration before buying a camera is the kind of features you want in a camera to fit your photography needs. But before you do that, you need to understand some photography terms. If someone were to ask you what a DSLR is, would you be able to answer them? Do you know what all of these digital SLR terms mean: megapixels, anti-shake, ISO, buffer, aperture, shutter speed and metering mode? You should know before you start shopping for a camera. When you understand these terms you'll be able to find a camera with all of the features that you need, with none of the extras that you probably won’t.

After deciding on the type of photography you want to take and the features that you want on a camera, it’s time to actually choose a camera. In my opinion this may be one of the easier things to do since your mind is set on what you want to photograph. There are several ways that you can go on about this. First thing you can do is to evaluate camera specifications and features. For example, if you want to take night shots, you may want a camera that has a large ISO range with low noise at higher ISOs.  Or in the case that you think that you may want to print out large images of your photos, you may want a camera with a lot of megapixels. You can usually find camera specifications on the websites of the camera manufacturer.

A second approach could be comparing cameras side by side so that you can set the cameras apart from each other since many cameras include features that are very similar to one another. This is especially helpful when you have narrowed your camera search down to about two or three cameras, but are not able to decide on which one to get. You may want to cross examine cameras from different manufacturers that are always competing with each other such as Nikon and Canon, compare the features of different, or similar models, or even compare cameras by the date that they were released into the market to see if the upgrades, if any, may interest you.

Lastly, what you can also do is read guides or reviews on specific cameras. There are many camera guides floating around and they are usually in depth, which brings us back to my previous point that you should try to understand the jargon of photography. This is useful in trying to determine the camera that you may want because it gives you insight into people who have used the cameras before along with sample photos to give you an idea of the quality of the photos that can be taken.

The fourth and final thing to take into consideration before buying the camera is the price. I know that this may sound like a no-brainer but when it comes to DSLR cameras, there is a lot of variation on the pricing. Going back to the importance of taking camera specifications into consideration, a lot of the price difference is related to the number of megapixels a camera has, so it's important to figure out just how many you really need before deciding on your camera. Other "special features" can also bring up the price of the cameras so once again you should take that into consideration, or your camera is going to become a very expensive paperweight. Also, anything that was recently released is going to cost far more than a camera available last year. With that said DSLR cameras are comparable to any other type of technology such as computers and cars in the sense that their value starts to decrease right after you buy them, but that shouldn’t matter since you would have found the camera with everything you needed to begin with.

As a quick overview there are four main steps to take when considering what camera model to buy. First, decide on the type of photography you want to do. This helps you decide on the features that you will need. When you have the features down, you can begin comparing cameras looking at those specific features. Finally, when it’s time to compare prices of the different cameras, instead of comparing the price of every single camera that is being sold out there, you are just comparing the prices between the cameras that you know you want.

 I really hope this helped you on the approach of buying a camera. I am aware that I didn’t give any specific recommendations of what camera you should buy, but I am not in the position to do so simply because I haven’t had the opportunity to use a wide range of cameras yet to have any real input. However, I am happy to answer any questions you may have relating to finding a suitable camera for you.