What camera should I buy?

What camera should I buy?
What camera should I buy is the million euro question! And also one of the most frequent ones from students and friends when you work as a photographer or graphic reporter. As if we have some kind of magic power to know what you want  to do with it.

The first think you have to questionis: what do I want my new camera for? You may just want to have memories of your daily life, take sports images or macro pictures of weird bugs. Probably you won’t buy the same camera if you are interested in picturing birds in the beach of  sunny Marbella or in documenting the growing process of the tulips in Amsterdam.

So what if we switch the original question to this one: What to look for when buying a camera?

What camera should I buy?

Once you have answered this question, you may know what type of camera you want to buy. But of course there are still some factors that you would like to look at before spending a good amount of money on your new gadget.

The first think that usually comes to your mind is MEGAPIXELS.

Well, don’t think too much about the resolution of your sensor unless you want to print big copies of your photos or record 4K videos. Care about the sensor size instead. Very important aspects such as the field of view, the depth of field or the light sensitivity (ISO) are affected by the size of your sensor.

If you still need to sharpen your decision, there are some more aspects to consider finding the camera of your dreams.

Check the dynamic range: a high dynamic range camera will help you obtain very detailed colors in your photos.

The aperture of the lens is also important: lenses with a lower  number will work better in darker environments.

Are you working with video? Consider bit rate as an important aspect. High bit rate will produce better videos, but also larger files.

What camera should I buy?

Not enough yet? The list of checking points is infinite: how is the battery life? What about the memory, SD cards or internal memory? How does the image stabiliser works? Is the viewfinder light and accurate? Etcetera, etcetera…

What camera should I buy?

There is a final step you have to take: walk. Literally!

Go into a store and pick up the real cameras. Feel their weight in your hands. Navigate through their menus and click their buttons. Check the ergonomics. At a certain moment you will notice: THIS is my camera.

And remember: whatever the time you spend looking for it and comparing different models there is not a perfect camera, but just a good tool that will help you transform your ideas or your personal point of view into compelling images.

Go and do it!

Author: Víctor Narváez del Amo

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