This article was updated in January of 2007.
No endorsements of any equipment mentioned below should be considered expressed or implied.
An essential tool
in the photojournalist's arsenal
Buying a Digital Camera
by Bradley Wilson
In a 2001, informal poll, nearly 40 percent of professional photojournalists reported that they shoot all of their daily shooting with a digital camera. Certainly by 2006, that had risen to close to 100 percent.
Is film dead? Ask those photojournalists, and they’ll say yes. And may it rest in peace.
However, it's not as simple as just "going digital." Buying a digital camera involves knowing a lot more than just which brand to buy – although having Nikon or Canon lenses should be a determining factor when selecting a high-end digital camera. It means knowing about resolution (megapixels), storage and optics.
Perhaps the most common question publications advisers have is "What kind of digital camera can I buy for shooting sports?" The simple answer is that you get what you pay for. A digital camera capable of shooting fast-moving, low-light sports such as most high school basketball and football should have the capability to control the aperture and shutter speed. It should have speeds up to at least 1/1000th of a second and apertures as wide as f/2.8. This basically means at least a pro-sumer if not professional-level camera.
So, to start, when looking to buy a digital camera, consider three questions:
- Do you have any high-quality lenses? If so, what brand. This may determine what camera you purchase since lenses are not interchangable between brands. It's better to spend money on a good lens than bells and whistles on a camera body. The lens is in front of the picture. The camera body only holds the "film."
- How much resolution (in megapixels) do you need? A camera with at least 5 megapixels is essentail for any publications work except strictly online publication.
- How much control do you want over the image (in terms of aperture and shutter speed). The more advanced (i.e. expensive) cameras give the photographer more control. Such control is essential for shooting things such as fast-action sports. Do NOT expect to get quality fast-action sports images with anything less than a professional-level camera and fast (i.e. wide maximum aperture) lens.
- How much money do you have? This will be the deciding factor.
BOTTOMLINE: You get what you pay for.
PROFESSIONAL
The Nikon D2 camera is a high-end, digital camera capturing around 5 megapixels. Professional shooters use cameras such as the Nikon D2 or Canon 1D.
MEGAPIXELS
Early digital cameras had resolutions designed for image output on a screen, 640x480 pixels (or about 0.3 megapixels). Of course, this meant that a yearbook-quality picture was small, only about 2.4 x 1.8 inches. While these cameras were relatively inexpensive ($300), they also lacked features such as fast shutter speeds that made them suitable for photojournalism work.
Quickly, along came the 2 megapixel craze. Equivalent in features to most conventional point-and-shoot cameras, these cameras were suitable for 4 x 6 inch images at yearbook quality and came with flash attachments and even zoom lenses. Even now the 2 megapixel cameras such as the Olympus D490 and Kodak DC3800 targeted at consumers sell for less than $400. Other models are smaller than a credit card.
By 2006, resolution was no longer the primary issue, as cameras sporting 10 megapixels were available and point-and-shoot cameras had 5 megapixels. For most newspaper or yearbook work, 5 megapixels is about the minimum.
BOTTOMLINE: More pixels means more information and costs more.
PRO-SUMER
The Olympus E300 camera is a mid-range, digital camera capturing around 7.5 megapixels. The Canon Rebel is similar. The Olympus camera does not allow interchangable lenses but does allow the user to set shutter speed and aperture. These cameras retail for around $1,000.
STORAGE
The CompactFlash Card has become the standard in storing images in digital cameras. Made by a variety of manufacturers, like hard drives, these cards come in a variety of sizes. Now cards that hold 1GB of information are standard. A 2GB card costs around $150 and will inevitably come down in cost.
Most digital cameras that use CompactFlash Cards also come with adapters so these cards can be read directly into a computer’s PCM-CIA slot.
Storage outside the camera, particularly for archival purposes, is also a major issue for photographers. How will you find and access images next year that you took this year? Or five years from now? Creating a database with information about each photo is helpful. But the most common method today is to store images on compact disc or DVD with complete caption information contained in Photoshop’s File Info fields.
BOTTOMLINE: Don’t forget to budget for in-camera storage of images as well as for archival storage
CONSUMER
Many other vendors also make low-end digital, consumer cameras that function as point-and-shoot cameras. These cameras retail for less than $500.
ZOOM LENS
Just like in a darkroom when an image is enlarged, inevitably there is a loss of quality. That’s why photography instructors spend so much time telling photographers to move up close and to fill the frame.
One way to “move up close” is to zoom in optically. Popular point-and-shoot cameras often have up to 4x zoom factors built in.
Just to confuse the issue, some companies also advertise a “digital zoom” - “plus 8x digital zoom,” the ads read. Enlarging the image digitally is nothing more than enlarging it in Photoshop and results in a loss of image quality. It’s the optical zoom that matters.
BOTTOMLINE: Ignore digital zoom values, and pay attention to optical zoom values.
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