Camera Suggestions for an Amateur Photographer

I had the original GR for film and have had a couple of early GR digitals and LOVE THEM. I have an XE-3 and if you can wait, the prices will go down when the XE-4 comes out early next year. If you don't need the latest and greatest the X100F seems amazing.

28 can be a bit wide, but I found the Ricoh glass to have low enough distortion for me to live happily with. They fit into the front pocket of my jeans wonderfully for many years.

I think you would LOVE the OVF of the X100F with kids.

B2 (;->
 
But the problem with wide angles is that they can make the nose dominant and the ears look far away, not everyone likes that...


The other problem is that they are wide horizontally and vertically; so you can get a lot of tarmac or mud in the picture if you want to avoid vertical perspective distortions with buildings etc. Of course it can be corrected but means extra work. As I see it the job should be over after pressing the shutter button.


I'm still thinking you should press on getting the iphone sorted.


Regards, David
 
nozoom said:
I'm curious about the 35mm crop mode in the Ricoh GR III. I'm not worried about the resolution but how does the lens work in the mode? Does the lens move/compensate for the distortion? Or will the images just look like they're shot on a 28mm lens but cropped to a smaller frame?
Click to expand...


Someone briefly covered this, but - the lens is really a 18mm, you're just using the APS-C area which is the equivalent of a "28mm" lens on full frame. To digitally crop to a "35mm" or "50mm" field of view just means you're using a smaller part of the sensor, and is no different from cropping the image later in photoshop. The benefit is that you can theoretically compose better by previewing the crop as you shoot. The lens isn't doing anything different. I have used the original GR a lot, both at the widest "28mm" setting and also in the "35mm" and "47mm" crop modes. The quality was usable but not great at the long setting, yet I enjoyed using it a lot like this. I suspect the GR III does much better with the larger 24MP sensor.

However, if you don't like the 28mm field of view, you'd be better suited with a X100 series camera (or the Sony RX1, though personally I find Sony cameras very frustrating to use). Less portable than the GR but the shutter and aperture controls, and hybrid viewfinder, are really nice additions. The latest model looks great, but there's nothing wrong with settling for the older X100F at only $800. You can always crop this to "50mm" with more resolution than on the GR, or use the "50mm" telephoto adapter lens.

One more thing - shoot RAW! At least shoot RAW + JPG and just dump them onto a hard drive, even if you don't look at them. Your future self will thank you, especially with family photos.
 
Not sure if it is valid in this thread anymore, but OP was about child and indoor light kind of thing.
No phone could provide as detailed image as camera with aps-c or FF sensor.
Phone's camera sensor size is smaller than in cheapest and oldest P&S.
All of those claimed MPs are lies, which are obvious with 1:1 view.

We were taking our kids pictures on film not because it was due to Kardashian camera, but because it was only film or digitalis were more expensive than film.
Once it was over, we went digital and with larger sensor. Once, I had 100L macro lens on Canon 5D specifically for newborn. And the only advantage of M9 CCD I see now is amount of details in low ISO.
With mobile phones sensors it just like with 135 film, no details are available. Personally, I like images with high resolution of my kids. But high resolution more depends on sensor size than fake MPs claimed by phone manufacturers, Apple included.
Even with noise reduction removed (pastel effect in OP), phone's sensor will give unsharp clusters of pixels instead of individual pixels.
It is ok on forum pictures, but once you want to see your child photo close and on decent sized monitor, it is ugly surprise.

Phones are best for home videos. Much better than any camera, IMO.
 
The real question is:- how much detail is needed?


Years ago when film cameras were dirt cheap (pennies) I was putting a film or two through my bargains every week and discovered, one day, that I was the lab's only customer who asked for 5 x 7's. Everyone else asked for 4x6" and then came back for bigger or much bigger prints but in ones and twos.


So my standard for amateurs is nothing like the billboards or posters that you can do with mega, mega pixels. With a decent lens I would say that 8mp's is more than enough. And if anyone wants proof, then look at how many pixels you can get on the normal (non catalogue/billboard studio) monitor and the number of dpi's.


Regards, David
 
How much detail is needed? That's highly subjective ofcourse but one aspect I liked about shooting film is that I can go print a bigger size without sweat if I like a certain photo.

But have I ever printed anything more bigger than 4x6? Maybe a handful of times and those pictures were from a 'formal' photoshoot. So anything between 8-16MP should be plenty for my normal daily use.

But my issue with smartphone cameras is not their resolution which is quite good, but the aggressive processing to compensate for a much smaller sensor. Every year smartphone companies make the claim that they're DSLR quality and compact digital cameras are obsolete. In reality, it's far from the truth. They do have some cool tricks though like the 'Night Mode' photography.
 
Again, the only way to do it is by significant increase of the sensor size. RAW files helps a little bit. Some phones allows this format, if I recall it correctly.
4х6 is tiny print or is it in ', not in "?

I walk with crazy dog for hours now. Same often bending down as it was with kids.
Canon RP with pancake lens on long neck strap is fine. I wear it over the shoulder, chest and slide it on my back.
RP with pancake lens is affordable and versatile compact FF camera. AF is good with kids and dog indoors and AF points are covering most of the frame.

Well, maybe I'm consecrated too much on child photos mentioned in OP. I have seen new baby been as excuse for father's new toy so many times 🙂
 
Subsequent camera discussion has forgotten about the snap focus system in the GR. In my opinion this may be one of the best features you can have for indoor shooting, when all sorts of AF systems may have trouble. Much like the way that you would estimate distance with a rangefinder in situations where the rangefinder patch is too dim to see or things are happening too fast to focus. Only the GRs have truly comparable system to setting a RF lens to a set distance.
 
Another +1 for the recommendation that you shoot JPEG+RAW and hanging onto the RAWs, even if you don't use RAW at present. As someone who has made that mistake, you will regret not having RAW files in the future.
 
I was in the same boat as you a long time ago, after trying loads of cameras and lenses and editing programmes I now have a Fuji Xt1 and the 35mm 1.4. I sold my XT3 to get it as the XT3 was too much camera for me and the sensor on the XT1 with 16 megapixels produces nicer looking photos for me. The 35mm 1.4 is an amazing lens for the money. I did try a x100f a while ago, for the price I was disappointed with the autofocus and sold that for my old XT3. I also tried an X-pro2 and again the autofocus was no where near as good as my Xt3. I have young fast moving kids. The Xt1 autofocus isn't better but it is a much cheaper camera I can chuck in a bag and not worry about.

Fuji is definitely the way to go, the jpegs are lovely. I would start with a cheaper older interchangeable lens body and then if you like it you can upgrade in the future. Plus if there are sigma lenses coming soon it makes fuji the system to have.
 
Thanks for all the suggestions!

I think I'm gonna go with the Ricoh GR III. The 35mm crop mode should make this camera good enough for baby pictures and this camera is unbelievably pocketable. I'll also try shooting JPEG+RAW going forward.

Down the line, I might look into an interchangeable system but for now small size wins!

On a side note, I downloaded Adobe Lightroom for my iPhone which lets me shoot RAW and turn off noise correction completely. The images look much better than the stock camera app.
 
Phil_F_NM said:
Perhaps consider a M4/3 camera like a Lumix GX series with the 20mm pancake lens. Very small kit, same focal length you want, autofocus. Outstanding image quality. If you want to shoot a good quality movie on it, you can do so as well, just get some really fast CF cards. I love my GX85 and wish I had gotten one long ago, but I was a micro 4/3 naysayer because of no good reason.

Phil Forrest
Click to expand...

++++ 1


coming from film and my own darkroom.,i get your propensity for jpegs!

the lumix line is great - great technology and pictures - with the right price. (get the summilux 25 1.4 macro!)
 
If you like the X100, you're gonna love the Fuji X-E3. Same size, in fact just a tiny bit smaller, interchangeable lenses. Get the factory grip and an extra battery. And the 35 f1.4 is a renown lens for clarity and is your 50mm equivalent. I use the 18-55 on mine as it offers a bit more versatility and isn't much bigger. All that will fit in a very small bag. You can also get the factory M mount adapter and shoot a vast array of Leica and other manual focus lenses, all work fantastically on the camera.
 
Stay out of the consumer market.
Buy something mid priced in Canon or Sony range. Nikon is my fav, but their financial pic is not good at this time.
If you have $, lowest price range Leica DSLR are good.

Keep in mind, good lighting the key, not the camera. The best camera in the world will not do well poor light.
 
Bill Clark said:
Do you have a smart phone?

Important for photography:
Lighting
Posing
Composition
Click to expand...

Yes, but kids add a bit of complexity to equation.

  • You need fast responsive shutter release (I find the up-volume control works about 97% better than the screen)
  • Zone focusing (or reallllllly fast auto-focus), with a single aperture zone focusing is less than acceptable. I find focus-lock on my iPhone 7 gives me a 4 out of 10 hit ratio (sucks, but then each frame costs less than a penny).
  • A strong grip of your camera (while kids often bounce, not all smart phones and very few camera do)

I agree with your list, but there's a reason press cameras caught on way back when......

B2
 
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