Choosing a Camera - Page 3
Which brand?
This, of course, is the big question that you really want an answer to and you know that nobody is going to give you one. If you ask anyone who already has a camera most will support the brand of the camera they have unless they have had some trouble with it, even then people are very forgiving. I think the reason for this is that people think that, if they have made the wrong choice it is because they have somehow failed, and they are not going to admit their failure.
Back in the 1980s I had a camera shop in England and at the time a lot of people, who already owned an SLR, were buying compact cameras 'for the wife'. They would ask me which brand was the best and, if I didn't already know, I would discreetly try to find out which brand of SLR they owned, then I would recommend the same brand of compact camera.
Trying to sell them another brand was like telling them they had made a wrong choice when buying their old camera and was likely to lose me a sale. So I'd better have a really good reason for not recommending the Canon, Olympus, Nikon, Pentax or whatever and I didn't have one. All of the well known brands produce similar cameras at similar prices and, by and large, you get what you pay for.
I will stick my neck out a little bit here and say that in my humble opinion the manufacturers who make the best film cameras the Japanese Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Pentax, Minolta and the German Contax and Leica seem to make the best digital cameras.
I would not be too happy to put my trust in brands whose traditional expertise is in other fields when there are such good cameras available from the traditional sources. I will probably get a lot of hate mail from people who have bought Sony cameras or Hewlett Packard and are perfectly happy with them.
If I wanted a printer Hewlett Packard would be top of my list and I am a huge fan of Sony video and TV equipment but my first choice for a digital SLR would be one of the names mentioned above. Right now in 2012 Olympus have fallen on hard times but we’ll see what happens there.
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Other tutorials in this section
A short introduction to the types of cameras available and a discussion on what you need to look out for when buying a camera.
What you need to know when choosing a new lens.
Confused comparing 35mm lens focal lengths to the new DSLRs? This will make it all clear.
What you need to know before you go shopping.
More of a 'why you need a tripod' than a buyers guide, but it does include some tips on buying and using a tripod.