My first DSLR, a year later

The Hobby, Born Again

I got the Sony A300 SLR a little over a year ago, and photography as a hobby for me has been revitalized. Here are some "long term" thoughts related to my born-again hobby.

When I was around 18, I got my first SLR, a Nikon F801. It was a fantastic camera, but being prolific meant film and processing costs. Not anything to sneeze at as a student. The lack of instant gratification to improve the craft, of course, was another issue. After being tired of lugging the gear around, I gave it up in my mid twenties, and swore to myself to go point and shoot only.

Picking a Camera

So last year, I bit the bullet and got an SLR. I'm not a brand whore, and didn't have a pre-existing collection of glass to influence my buying decision, so I went into this with an open mind. While cost wasn't an issue, I'm also not a poseur. I know the limits of my talents - there was no point for me to consider a full frame camera just for bragging rights.

It really came down to Pentax vs. Canon vs. Sony. What drew me to the Sony family of entry level cameras was usability. I'm not the only person who is going to use the camera, and it had to be easy to use. And really, if you have to spend more time fiddling than shooting, the fun is gone.

The lagless Live View and articulating screen were the two criteria that kept me from going with the other two. There's no arguing that the Canon's image quality was a hair better than the Sony, but all three cameras on my short list could produce better images than I was capable of shooting, so why waste time on being a pixel peeper?

Now that I selected a Sony, I still had a choice between a 10MP and 14MP model. I opted for 10MP because I'm one of those guys (rightly or wrongly) who thinks that we're beyond the point of needing more than 10 megapixels. For that reason, I opted for the 10MP model.

Glass

Ironically, I didn't do a lot of research on lenses before buying the camera, but I really lucked out on the fact that Sony DSLRs use the Minolta A-mount. Canon and Nikon glass don't really depreciate. The availability of great Minolta glass at a very low price was definitely icing on the cake. While the growing popularity of Sony DSLRs is quickly driving the price up on vintage Minolta AF lenses, I was lucky enough to get in on time to get a few good buys.

My wife hates flash, which led me to really think about the glass I bought. The first two lenses I bought were the two most lauded Minolta lenses, the Beercan F4 70-210 zoom, and the 55mm F1.7 standard lens. Great lenses to start out with, especially compared to the kit lens. Another plus, they're full frame, so they're keepers if I ever upgrade to a body with a full frame sensor.

Over the course of the year, I kept an eye out for "steals and bargains" on other lenses, and picked up a bunch of second hand lenses on the way. With the exception of a cheap walkaround 35-105 zoom lens, they are all relatively fast 2.8 primes (a 90mm macro, 28mm and a 24mm). I think I've got all bases covered, although I'd love a 30ish mm F1.4 and really wide prime, either a fisheye or something in the 12mm-16mm range. Really, those can wait.

Each of my current lenses really has a function, and the ones getting the most use are the 90, 50 and 24 primes. I've discovered that I really don't like zooms. The beercan is a fanastic zoom, however, especially outdoors. The best thing was that outside of the kit lens, I got everything second hand at reasonable prices.

Evolving Technique

I generally keep my camera on continuous and hold the button down. I don't need to worry about the cost of film and processing, so why not waste a few mirror actuations to get a winner? For every 100 shots, I get maybe 5 keepers. That's not too bad.

Historically, I've been a pack rat. I keep every shot, including the bad ones. Of course, when your pictures start eating significant disk space, your attitude changes. These days, I've spent a lot of time culling the bad pictures out of my iPhoto library, and my hard drive is thanking me.

The articulating screen has really changed the way I shoot. While I use the optical viewfinder 90% of the time (my wife shoots almost exclusively with the LCD), I use the screen to get shots from odd perspectives, usually from overhead or at ground level. This way, I don't need to get very dirty on those low perspective shots of Mac the dog, or any nieces/nephews. The Live View is more responsive than that found on any other brand of SLR.

For the longest time, I also avoided shooting with a flash, especially at family events. The problem is that the locales I had to shoot at have really bad light. That meant shooting wide open (1.7) with very high ISO. Entry level SLRs sold a year ago aren't that great in high ISO. You don't get those tack sharp images shooting like that, but they are satisfactory for Flickr.

JPEG vs. RAW

At the outset, I shot purely in JPEG. The JPEGS that come out of my camera look great, and take up less space.

It wasn't until earlier this year that I experimented with shooting RAW completely. This coincided with a 30 day eval of Aperture, and dropping iPhoto 08. There were some things I really liked about Aperture with RAW photos.

At the end of the experiment, I went back to iPhoto, but shoot RAW only. iPhoto just kept things simple (I can't leave events) and consolidated in a single iPhoto library.

Strobism

And then I discovered the Strobism school of thought led by David Hobby. Off camera flash. WOW. And you didn't have to spend a fortune. WOW.

Not being ready to blow money on Pocket Wizards, I grabbed a set of made-in-China "poverty wizards" and discovered that you can take some pretty nice pictures when the flash isn't centered above your lens on the camera. Maybe flash photography ain't so bad after all.

My Tools

When I upgraded to iPhoto 09, I no longer missed any of the little perks from using Aperture. It does everything I need. 90% of my edits are related to cropping, tweaking the histogram and white balance. I don't need a pro-level tool to do that.

With respect to memory cards, I use 2GB cards and rotate them while I shoot. My philosophy here is that I don't want to put all my photos in a single large memory card. I'd rather keep them split up and deal with the inconvenience. This way, my losses are more likely restricted to 2GB of photos, and not more.

I have a few cheap flashes. Originally I was going to buy a top-end flash for my Sony. Fortunately I got into Strobism and bought a few cheap manual flashes, and have gotten fantastic results.

I'm still in dire need of a travel sling and a gadget bag to hold all of my gear. I haven't seen anything that I like yet. Those plastic shoeboxes I'm using will have to do for now.

Upgrades

The one thing I now wish for from my camera is low noise @ high ISOs. In the past year, this has been one of the things popping up in entry level SLRs. Worth an upgrade? For me, not right now. I'm only 20k shots into my current body. I won't even consider a new body until I've hit the 60k+ mark (the presumed life of my body is around 100K actuations - I don't however, intend to take any risks of missing a shot once I've reached 60% of its life span).

My camera has recently been replaced with a new model, the A330. I actually prefer my current camera to the new one, and won't likely upgrade until Sony gets their act in gear for better high ISO performance.

Video has been another big thing for DSLRs in the past year. I can't say that I'm interested in that. I'd rather use a Point and Shoot, an iPhone 3GS or a Flip to capture video.

Lately, I've been wondering if I'll ever need to upgrade to a full frame camera. Part of this mental debate is rooted in the fact that there are some interesting APS-C lenses out there (Sigma's 30mm F1.4, being the main one). As long as the camera manufacturers don't overdo it with the megapixels, and start focusing on improving quality in the areas of noise and ISO performance, I'm not sure that I'll ever need full frame. I'm not going to become a pro any time soon, so why kid myself?

One interesting question I need to ask myself is whether the next SLR body I get will be more of a pro-type of body (i.e., A700 or A900). I'm thinking that the answer is No. Pro features always trickle down to the lower end cameras. As far as I'm concerned, the main things I need in an upgrade are the articulating screen, live view and high ISO performance. In Sony's case, only the last item isn't available in their entry level offerings.

Final Thoughts

Now is a great time to get into DSLR photography. Entry level DSLRs come a long way, and the way things are trending, you can do great things with a current model. High ISO quality and video are becoming standard features.

In terms of picking one, everyone has different needs, and should pick a model that really suits their shooting technique. Given that my current SLR is no longer available, I can't say that it's a slam dunk for me to repeat my decision to go with Sony had I been buying my first DSLR today. That's because I don't like the body shape of the my model's replacement, and that the innards did not change from last year's model. I probably would still go with the Sony because of the screen and the live view, but I'd think long and hard about the Nikon and Canon offerings, which are vastly superior to those I considered last year.