Firstly i am a hobby photographer, i take pictures to enjoy the process, from the moment i think about a shot to finally printing out and viewing my images, so i though i would share some advice, take it or leave it. Others will agree or disagree with my opinion, but thats whats great about opinions!

All aspects of photography appeal to me. Looking for that unique shot, to the planning of a idea brewing within my mind, to the actual going out and shooting, and finally to the post process of digital images or developing of films.
Photography for me is not about getting perfect focus or ultimate sharpness or even getting a great shot (not that i have anything against studio photographers or pros that need perfect tones, colours, and composition), the whole process to me is an addiction that fulfils my creative needs. With that in mind i have some suggestion to anyone new to this hobby, or any interested in starting out.


1. Don't get mind boggled into worrying about what brand of camera to buy - its the photographer that takes the shot not the camera.
2. Invest in lenses not in bodies - when i say this i don't mean buy the most expensive lens available but shop around and choose highly rated lenses. Look at older MF lenses or m42 lenses that have decent reps, If you get a lens you really enjoy you will keep it for decades, the same does not go for bodies.
3. Enjoyment is more important than statistical information. Use/buy gear because it will make you want to shoot more, not just so you can say you own a new full frame camera that sits at home in a box so you can brag about it!
4. Get prime lenses rather than zooms, unless you are planning on doing events or paid work! primes will satisfy your needs and IQ will be better, many including myself also think that it will make you think more about composition and angles, as they will make you walk and move around to improve these aspects of your shot. When i started photography i would stand one one spot and zoom in and out of sometimes great subject matter and then wonder why i had 25 similar photos.
5. Plan your outings. Go out with a goal in mind. Visualise a shot you want - using inspiring photos that i like often helps me go out and try similar shots and gives meaning to shooting on the street. I find if i do this i don't randomly walk around snapping away and get poor results of boring subjects.
6. have patience! if you find a cool building for example, generic shots of architecture can be boring, by having patience by waiting for perhaps a bird to fly into frame or a cloud to cover the sun to change lighting or a plane flying over can dramatically improve your shots interestingness. It will also make your experience and memories of certain shots you take more meaningful to you.
7. Be creative. Try different things. try things like: bacro, double exposures, lens twisting, panoramas, light painting, using mirrors, using lasers, long exposures during the day, playing with perspective - just by going out in auto mode, or Aperture priority or even manual settings using a meter can often get you boring "tourist" snaps, try mixing it up. Photography is about trial and error.
8. If you can't afford a decent full frame digital with good lens's after you have mastered your ISO, aperture and shutter speed settings buy a "good" film camera with "good" lens. Usually most people will buy a film slr with the same mount that their digital SLR is, however this is only a good idea if you already have high quality lenses. If you don't for a lot less you can get awesome IQ out of cheapish film cameras and lenses (for example contax G series with carl zeiss lenses.) Buy a developing tank, developing bag, and black and white developing chemical (you can get these in a set on the net for around £20) and you can easily develop your own black and white films cheaply from within your home without a darkroom. I get my colour films done at a lab, and i have a £100 scanner that scans negatives, but you can also get them scanned cheaply at labs or some printing shops -after using a cropped entry level SLR i would skip out all that crap mid range slrs on the market and go for this option (again this is only a preference for me)
Other cheap full frame options are:
5D mark 1 (around £500)
1ds mark ii (around £500)
I would say either of the above cameras are better than any prosumer or mid level slr on the market - NO not because they are faster, or better in low light, or better processing, or high megapixels, as they are terrible at all those things by todays standard, but because they will bring you cheaply into the world of full frame digital photography, and paired with a decent lens will give you incredibly detailed images.
9. Once you go Full frame you don't go back!
10. Print your photo's - They deserve it. Don't just post them on flickr or Facebook or what ever is cool these days (do this too!!) but print them. Everything looks better printed out - and go to a lab get them done nice, you will be amazed at details, and things you didn't see before.!

Hope some of this rabble helps somebody out!


wezman

i would highly recommend a full frame(or 1.3x crop) camera even if it means buying it used(just buy in good condition and ask for shutter count and dont buy if its shot too much) and buying a model which is outdated. 5d and 1ds mkII are good options both, which one fits for you depends on your needs. basically 5d has crap af compared to 1ds mkII, but its smaller, has much better controls and a better lcd screen. 1ds 2 on the other hand is weather sealed(but needs weather sealed lens too in order to be able to take water on it), is built MUCH more robust, better response time etc and is all around much more professional range camera on how its built, but in terms of image quality its about same level than 5d. also only 1d series cameras have really nice feature called multi spot metering, you can basically select spots that you exposure with and can take multiple spots and camera calculates exposure average between the spots. not sure how many spots 1ds mkII can use, but 1d mkIII has 8 spots max.

i think 1d mkIII should be mentioned aswell as it seems that the price has gone down A LOT lately. basically its better in all aspects than 1ds mkII and 5d, but its 1.3 crop factor, which means not full frame, but its still not same crop factor as low end models. personally i think the 1.3 crop factor is pretty nice, especially its better for macro(full frame gives too thin depth of field in macro and long lenses) and if you want to use long lenses 1.3 is really good for that. but if you want wide, full frame is far better for that. but some lenses like 28mm is pretty nice for 1.3 crop as medium wide prime. 50mm is also nice for 1.3 crop, while for full frame 50mm would be a normal medium lens, but for 1.3 crop 50mm makes a nice all around portrait lens and also works as normal lens, but isnt quite wide enough if you want a good all around lens. also if you shoot in low light 1d mkIII kicks 5d and 1ds mkIIs ass easily, i would say 1dmkIII is almost in par with 5d mkII in terms for using high ISO, but 5d mkII is bit better and has higher max ISO.



if you want to use manual focus lenses and dont want to carry a brick(aka 1d) i would suggest getting 5d AND some good focus screen for it. if you want a good af and might want to use your camera as a hammer 1d series camera are better options. im not sure how much nikon d700's price has gone down, but its also something you might want to look at.

BIG THANKS FOR YOUR INPUT,

i also forgot to say that when investing in glass make sure you buy full frame lenses, as not only do they hold their value better, but you won't ever have to upgrade.

If you have the money and want something better than fullframe (but even more expensive than the already expensives fullframes) go for Medium format.
Btw, You dont need a fullframe that much.
for example Fullframe + 35mm lens = Cropsensor + ~24mm i think (or 22mm if 1.6x crop)
For night photography if you don't want any noise use a tripod.
an example of crop sensor using a tripod at night


This was a serie i made, Light at night.
http://deibuphoto.tumblr.com/

np

but @what deibu said that "Fullframe + 35mm lens = Cropsensor + ~24mm", i dont think thats quite true. i mean the field of view is the same, but because of larger sensor the debt of field acts differently, so for example high aperture wide angle shots look totally different as its next to impossible to get any bokeh with wider lenses, especially if they arent super fast. also when you are taking shots that arent with wide angle, but you want some bokeh, full frame is totally from different world than 1.5/1.6 crop cameras, even 1.3x crop sensor makes quite big difference to the regular 1.5 or 1.6 crop sensors.

Agree, but also disagree.

longer focal lens = better bokeh - a 24mm lens DOF is much greater than a 35mm. for example using a 35mm F1.4 lens on FF is still great bokeh if you shoot subjects close up, less so with a 24mm on a cropped (or FF)
You can always get wider lenses for cropped bodies, but lose the DOF benifits of full frame.

Even a leica 24mm F1.4 will have worse DOF/Bokeh than a 35mm F2 (as an example)


- nice set btw, i hate exposing snow !


edit: as for medium format, i shot for a long time with a mamiya 645 pro tl and would suggest getting a cheap film medium like that for scanning negs because for under £500 you can get scans that equal high end FF dslrs, digital end is only required if you want to print billboards! That said if i won the lottery i would buy a lecia s2

This post was edited by wezman on Jul 5 2013 11:48am

I just got into photography myself, and I've tossed in what I'd call relatively serious money. In some ways I wish I invested the extra $1000 and went with a full-frame option, and in other ways I'm very glad I saved my money for now and stuck with APS-C.

I think the first and most important thing to do is determine why you want your camera. Do you want to take up photography as a hobby? Do you want to explore it as if you were learning a new instrument? Do you want a camera specifically to record memories of your life/your family? And what kind of shots do you want? There's a lot of people out there that don't learn how to actually use their DSLR, pick up a T4i, and keep auto mode on... though that type of person usually doesn't come onto a forum to read suggestions.

For me, I wanted to take up photography as a hobby, as a new instrument, and as a way of recording my life and family members. The latter is long-term the most important, but photography is of course fun.

Once you've determined why you want the camera, the budget really starts to come into play.

Ultimately, I don't think there's such a thing as a "wrong" decision. I picked up APS-C, and if I ever have the cash to blow, I'll go full-frame in the future (if a good offering becomes available). All my lenses are Nikon DX lenses, so I'm stuck with APS-C. I'd have to fully resell. Yet, I'm happy with what I've got (except for the camera itself -- auto mode really comes out like shit a lot of the time, so-much-so that my cell phone camera beats out my camera in an auto shot contest very often).

As far as the argument of "invest in lenses, not the camera" goes, I think that's a load of shit. That's only true if your budget exceeds $2000, and even then, it depends. If I had a budget of $2400+, I'd have gotten the Canon 6D with the 24-105mm lens. I would've invested more in the camera (I would've gotten myself a prime soon-after), and it would've been the right decision at that price-point. And, on top of that, I might not have needed to buy any lenses afterward anyway. So, I would've invested more in the camera than the lenses. Don't listen to the "invest in this or that" argument; invest in the PICTURES, not the lenses or the camera. Ultimately, you need to pick what will get you the pictures that you want. You may end up wanting a full-frame camera that costs $3000 and just one $500 lens -- that might be all you want (though that's on the extreme end of things). If you're in photography for a long time, and you're into getting all kinds of shots, and you've got real cash invested, then it's a given that you'll have more invested in the lenses than the camera bodies.

This post was edited by Canadian_Man on Jul 5 2013 05:43pm

Oh another huge one (at least for me) is to always see what you can do with the the raw files in Photoshop Lightroom. Makes 10x the difference for a beginner who can overexpose photos and cause other problems with photos that are basically fixed in lightroom.

I know someone like my Dad who needs to be walked along the process would love a newer mirrorless camera with lenses, set usually to auto, and he would simply do editing in lightroom. For someone like him, it would make a huge difference.

i think editing in ps raw is fine, lightroom if you want to be consistent with a set of images.

also i dont think its worth it to invest in your own dark room if its "just" a hobby, not worth it,
you can just take the film to the store get it developed and scan your images and print them on computer.
luckily my school has a darkroom so i just develop the b&w rolls myself and then take the color ones to the store.

I don't suggest starting with full frame, but certainly if you get along with photography why upgrade to anything else. also i think you are wrong about not investing in lenses. I'm sure alot of people would agree with me, also for $1000 you could have a 5d mark i and a 50mm f1.8 and a 85mm F1.8 which imo is better than a 6d and 24-105. But thats just my opinion

I said dark bag, which is a zip up bag, that with a little practice you can stick your hands in the sleeves and load the film into the tank, then once the film is in the tank you can take the tank out the bag and add chemicals in a normally lit room. £15-20 for bag £15 for tank £20 for chemicals and you can develop hundreds of rolls, go to a lab and you will pay hundreds and hundreds for the same amount of develops. After just need to scan the film and BINGO ! if you want to enlarge and print then you would need a dark room.

This post was edited by wezman on Jul 6 2013 12:22am