Today's market offers a very large range of cameras. It's easy to get lost when you want to get started and buy your first camera. It's an important purchase that represents a certain budget, so don't make a mistake.
Avoiding cameras that will disappear or become rare.
Now that you know what you want to do, you have to make the right choice. Camera manufacturer brands observe market trends to evolve their product lines.
It appears that compact cameras are rapidly disappearing. Some brands have already stopped producing them and others are on the verge of doing so. Mobile phones have simply replaced compacts.
Canon and Nikon have predicted a 50% drop in sales of reflex cameras over the next two years. DSLRs are set to be replaced by hybrid cameras. The latter have become powerful and have the same quality as reflex cameras. Although they are not cheaper, they are lighter and often offer more modern graphic interfaces that are easier to use. Reflex cameras will be more and more limited to professional photographers and even less so.
Why checking the durability of a type of camera?
If a type of camera is going to disappear or become scarce on the market, brands will develop less and less, or even more equipment for it. As a result, you may not be able to upgrade your equipment when you have again saved up to buy new approved ones. So check this point.
Which camera should you choose to start with?
As you understood with the questions to ask yourself, there is not a camera that fits all beginners. Nor is there any brand better than another. Each brand has advantages and disadvantages compared to the others.
But there are important points to check to make the best choice.
DSLR, Hybrid, Bridge or compact cameras?
Compact cameras: As I told you before, compact cameras have almost disappeared. Moreover, these cameras are not efficient if you want to make quality pictures.
Bridge cameras: Unlike reflex or hybrid cameras, bridge cameras do not allow you to change lenses. They are therefore not upgradeable. This class of cameras also has a lower quality sensor and does not allow to manage depth of field and ISO as well as the two remaining classes of cameras. But they are easy to handle and don't take long to master.
Hybrid cameras: These cameras allow us to evolve, because we can modify the lenses, which allows us to buy little by little the equipment according to our needs and our means. They are of the same quality as reflex cameras, but are also in the same price range. They are suitable for people wishing to progress in photography and will allow to evolve without problem. Panasonic and Sony are two very well ranked brands for this type of cameras.
Reflex cameras: As with the previous class of cameras, reflex cameras are of very good quality and also allow you to evolve thanks to their interchangeable lenses. As for the hybrids, the reflex cameras are also the right choice for a person wishing to progress in photography.
The sensor
Important parameters to check for your sensor are not only the APS-C size or Full frame (24*36mm). The difference in definition between these two kinds of sensors is not really visible anymore. Larger sensors capture low light better, produce less noise when raising ISOs and handle depth of field better.
The resolution of the sensor: The current average is around 22 million pixels for almost all sensors. This is more than enough in almost all cases. Professional sensors with 60 million pixels are rare and are only used for very large prints.
Is the sensor stabilized or not? A sensor stabilized on the 5 axes, as on many hybrids, allows you to make photos with a better sharpness (better acutance). The reflex reflexes out of Pentax, prefer an optical stabilization. Some cameras allow to use sensor stabilization with optical stabilization. A stabilized sensor allows among other things to buy less expensive unstabilized optics. The stabilization will allow you to take pictures without blur more easily and to move in more difficult light conditions (such as at parties).
The number of optics (lenses)
The big brands like Canon and Nikon are market leaders because they have kept the same mount between film and digital, so we can use our old lenses on the newer models of the same brand. This compatibility allowed us to offer a lot of lenses from the beginning. These two brands also make it possible to mount the reflex lenses on the hybrids.
So Canon and Nikon still offer the same lenses even for hybrids. This also allows brands like Sigma or Tamron to still offer lenses even for hybrid cameras for all major brands like Sony, Panasonic, ...
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