Photographers - help!

[Jake]

As we've all rather mugged @Jake 's thread for him and turned it into a general photography thread far beyond the original question

Nothing wrong with a bit of thread drift, I've learnt a lot. I knew it was a how long is a piece of string problem, but also knew that there would be a lot of enthusiastic and knowledgeable opinion from a bunch of tool-heads. All is good, got a pretty good idea in the first few pages. I was minded towards something older but pro-er from the outset and didn't find much to dissuade from that.

 

[McAldo]

I have started photography not much older than your son is, and then stuck with for 20 years or so. I tried my hand at most things, from fashion and events, to travel, nature, architecture, landscape, scuba, street photography and macro. And a ton of editing of course.
I had a total of four cameras and 4 lenses over 20 years. My budget has never been too high, and at the beginning was really tight.
Still I managed to select what I needed and get it for a good price, with very few regrets. This includes my very first camera, which was cheap and extremely versatile, and very carefuly selected.

I managed because for Xmas I bought myself not a camera but two decent manuals:
1) a manual about photography. It covered all the fundamentals to use a camera with manual settings, a variety of compositional tecniques (composing by framing, by colour, by balance, by using depth of field) and of applications, with examples and what the technical (e.g. skills) and gear requirements were. Explaining also how you could get around the gear requirements, but not so easily the skills requirements.
I choose the manual myself, after going through so many at the local bookshops. I selected one that was very clear to me, it had illustrations I understood and a style I liked. I discarded other manuals which were were highly rated, just becasue they did not seem as clear.
2) A manual about editing, which came with files to do the exercises with (useful because I did not have a camera yet, and anyway I would not have been able to take photos with similar characteristics and issues to work on).

By February, I had gone through the first manual three times, and I had done all the exercises in the second.
And I bought my camera, a pretty good and cheap one, which served me well for many years and so many different applications.
I knew what was not negotiable and what was dispensable, because there were ways to get around it, with some effort, preparation and practise.
And nobody who looked at my photos and liked them ever guessed than my gear was not the latest from Nikon/Canon.
I did get some "You must have a good camera" though, which is a bit like congratulating a chef for the food with "You surely must have great pots".
If anything, when I took a photography course and showed my portfolio, the instructor showed it around saying "See, you do not need an expensive camera to take good photos".
Which is true. It is the same you see often here. When someone will ask about some specific woodworking gadget, there is always someone suggesting you can get the same results with a bit of ingenuity and some scraps.

I hope I am not coming across as a bit of an ass by saying that, it is not my intention.
I just mean that your kid armed with knowledge, determination and a 20 years old camera he understands well would probably take way better photos then your kid armed with 20K of gear but little understanding.
The only exception being videography perhaps, a 5 years old camera then would be a more reasonable contender.

So, if I were you, I would encourage him to clarify to himself what he will need. Meaning, if Nikon/Canon brochure tells you that the latest and greatest has 7 millions focus points or whatever other claim, what does that really entail for a photographer?
How would he get around that with a different camera? Will it make a real difference, for an experienced photographer?
In my experience, most of these things are highly negotiable, with some dedication and knowledge.

Then you can talk together about options, given your budget, and he will probably be able to suggest some specific models he researched about, and why they would be better than others.
Ideally he should have very clear in his mind what can be done with a camera in full manual mode, that helped me more than anything.
In the end, how well controls (ISO, aperture ans shutter mainly) were placed for my hand to operate them all at the same time while framing was definitely a more important consideration than any automated or semi auto features.
And, well.. a concession I have to make to some modern designs is that a really versatile swivel back display will allow you to take photos from very hard to frame angles, at times. And that will make for better pictures than high end image quality, it can make for images which people will actually like better.

 

[Seascaper]

Son is doing A level photography and needs a digital SLR. I know zero.

Any recommendations of a quality camera and basic lens (second hand fine if you get more bang for buck)

Hello,
A very good camera for an A level student would be Nikon D300 with a small zoom lens 35/110. It is a good solid camera and reasonably cheap to buy, I would recommend London Camera Exchange as they will have checked it over. This is a workhorse of a camera, and being Nikon produces best quality results suitable for your college student. Used by professionals you will not regret it.
Regards

 

[glenfield2]

Nothing wrong with a bit of thread drift, I've learnt a lot. I knew it was a how long is a piece of string problem, but also knew that there would be a lot of enthusiastic and knowledgeable opinion from a bunch of tool-heads. All is good, got a pretty good idea in the first few pages. I was minded towards something older but pro-er from the outset and didn't find much to dissuade from that.

Well you certainly got plenty of advice! My daughter’s experience teaching photography at a sixth form is that the ones who do the best are not always the kids with the fanciest cameras but those with creative ideas and who are prepared to put the work in (so much of these courses is project based and the ‘leave it to the night before’ brigade will struggle.)
My daughter’s students do a wide range of stuff including video and what I used to call ‘Photoshop’ plus on location assignments and gallery visits. I hope he enjoys it.

 

[Drifter2406]

the DSLR is not obsolete, I have been into photography since I was 18, I am now 60, working as a wildlife photographer, Wedding's and now as a serious amateur starting out on film cameras and square format Bronica's, there is nothing really extra above my Nikon D850 that would make me change yet to Mirrorless, yes it is a newer tech but if you get a decent photographer using both systems the pictures would look just as good as each other. The Mirrorless can be a bit smaller but there are great deals used on DSLR at the moment thanks to the people that have to buy the newest kit and believe it will make them better photographers. I used to shoot Canon for years until I had to use the after sales and went over to Nikon and never looked back.

 

[Sideways]

until I had to use the after sales....

I snagged the neck strap of my camera squeezing past a desk that it was sitting on once.
Four grand worth of camera and lens dropped straight onto a barely carpeted concrete floor.
Nikon charged me about £250 to repair them both. I counted myself lucky and ever since, only use a short lanyard loop on a camera that wraps around the right hand.

 

[Amplidyne]

I snagged the neck strap of my camera squeezing past a desk that it was sitting on once.
Four grand worth of camera and lens dropped straight onto a barely carpeted concrete floor.
Nikon charged me about £250 to repair them both. I counted myself lucky and ever since, only use a short lanyard loop on a camera that wraps around the right hand.

I don't use one most of the time, but sometimes it's handy to have a neck strap. Mine's on a couple of clips.

 

[Limey Lurker]

Photography is a fascinating hobby. For me, the hobby peaked in the 70s when I bought my first SLR, a Zenith-E with a standard 50mm lens, I added a wide-angle and a short telephoto and that formed the base of lenses,

Eventually, I build a darkroom and stayed mainly with black & white photos, joined a club and learned a lot. Later moving on to colour processing with colour film and slides. It was a great time. You had to be frugal with your shots in those days; film wasn't cheap.

The one thing that you must remember is that it's not so much the camera but the photographer that makes good pictures. Composition, light balance, choice of subject and understanding how light works are the paths to great images.

I envy you, starting up but I'm glad I started when I did. It was more complex then but I feel that it was a good time.

Happy snapping.

That 'Helios' 50mm lens was excellent, and was praised by several of the photo mags at that time. I had a standard Zenith, a 35mm, a long lens and a 'Weston-5', and never felt a need for anything more modern.