What makes professional quality? The zoom, the megapixels or the mm? beginning photographer?
I would love to buy a professional quality camera, without all of the thousands of dollars spent. I don’t know what qualities to look for in a camera – the megapixels, the zoom, the mm, etc. what makes a camera as good as it is? Why are the cameras that cost thousands of dollars so much better than the ones that cost hundreds?
In order of importance, here are 10 things that make professional quality pictures:
1. Your skill as a photographer.
2. Your skill as a photographer.
3. Your skill as a photographer.
4. Your skill as a photographer.
5. Good quality lens (zoom and focal length, aka mm, are chosen for specific shooting effects/conditions, but actual build and optics quality is what’s important).
6. Your skill as a photographer.
7. Good size and quality sensor (physical size, not megapixel count)
8. Your skill as a photographer.
9. Good quality internal processing software in a camera (or shoot raw and process on computer later)
10. Your skill as a photographer.
Well, that’s about the things you need for professional quality pictures. That, and your skill as a photographer.
I really can not stress high enough, how important it is to know what you’re doing. Because a professional skilled photographer will get far more professional looking result with a $200 camera than a person who has no idea what they are doing with a $20,000 camera. The expensive cameras have more bells and whistles, but many of them are just convenience features making it a bit easier or faster to operate (which is important to photo/sports journalists who can’t afford to miss a moment). Good quality glass costs a lot to produce, so that adds to the price too.
Basically there are two classes of cameras. Point and shoot and SLR. First are basic cameras, some come packed with advanced features, some don’t, but their glass quality is usually lesser, plus you are stuck for the life of camera with a lens it came with, their sensors are tiny and so on. The SLR cameras, no matter how cheap, usually come with better glass, and options to get even better glass later, their sensors are much bigger (10-15 times bigger than typical p&s),
So if you get the cheapest of SLR’s out there – you’ll be much better off with items 5,7 and 9 of the list above, and will have plenty of room to work on items 1,2,3,4,6,8 and 10.
Good luck,
LEM.
P.S. You may notice, that I didn’t even mention megapixels. This is because it’s the least important thing you can care about:
http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/mpmyth.htm
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