How to choose a camera with mileage for a beginner photographer | Articles | Photo, video, optics

The dream is to take a good pic­ture. This dream is dri­ven by every­one who is not indif­fer­ent to pho­tog­ra­phy. What is need­ed for this? A good cam­era, prob­a­bly with inter­change­able lens­es, for a wide range of pos­si­bil­i­ties. If so, a lens is also need­ed, which one is not yet clear, but to match the dream cam­era.

With advanced ama­teurs and pro­fes­sion­als, every­thing is clear. Today we are talk­ing about begin­ners, about those who seri­ous­ly think about sav­ing moments of life in the pic­ture and attach great impor­tance to this. The mood and emo­tions of a per­son, the beau­ty of nature and much more, pre­served in pho­tog­ra­phy, have ener­gy and strength that give us the oppor­tu­ni­ty to relive the cap­tured moments more than once.

First step. Budget

Why should you pay atten­tion to used vehi­cles?

The need to meet a cer­tain bud­get with max­i­mum ben­e­fit and ben­e­fit is the main goal in the first stage, as well as seri­ous sav­ings that can be direct­ed to the pur­chase of addi­tion­al acces­sories.

Even if, when choos­ing, you raised the bar for the equip­ment you are inter­est­ed in, the cost of a used cam­era will be sig­nif­i­cant­ly low­er than a new one. And most impor­tant­ly, the aware­ness of the cost of the new device will not crush. We are always very wor­ried about new equip­ment, we are afraid to drop it, our hand is not yet full on the cor­rect and con­fi­dent grip of the cam­era, we are frus­trat­ed by a scratch, dust par­ti­cles are enraged, etc. So you can dri­ve your­self into a cor­ner and for­get why you bought a cam­era to take pic­tures .

SLR cam­era Canon EOS 6D Mark II Body. Pho­to: Denis Klimov

Lenses

It is bet­ter to stop the choice on equip­ment with inter­change­able optics. Buy­ing a cam­era with inter­change­able lens­es makes it pos­si­ble to decide on a fur­ther hob­by. Whether you’re into macro pho­tog­ra­phy, land­scape pho­tog­ra­phy, or becom­ing a por­traitist, it’s the lens that push­es you to do it.

You can not buy a lens at the ini­tial stage at all, but rent it. So, pro­tect­ing your­self from mis­takes, there will be a for­ma­tion of a vec­tor in which you will move.

A cam­era with non-replace­able optics can be suit­able for begin­ner blog­gers, where it is enough to shoot a small video, or for long-term lovers of land­scape pho­tog­ra­phy, such as the Leica Q2.

It might be bet­ter to start with a lens with­out sta­bi­liza­tion, learn to focus on the frame in the viewfind­er, and shoot while exhal­ing. Remem­ber the old Sovi­et Zeniths, there was no sta­bi­liza­tion there. This will have to be decid­ed on the spot.

Matrix selection

The size of the matrix of the cam­era will also depend on the bud­get. Full frame, 1.5x crop fac­tor (APS‑C) or even 2.0x crop fac­tor. By choos­ing a full frame, you expand the hori­zons of pos­si­bil­i­ties. More details in the pic­ture, less noise in low light, etc. Cam­eras with an APS‑C sen­sor are lighter, more com­pact and cheap­er to start with. And the small flaws of these cam­eras are vis­i­ble to a begin­ner only by direct com­par­i­son of the pho­tographs tak­en.

Brief instructions for choosing a camera with mileage

Used equip­ment has already been test­ed by time, and with prop­er han­dling, there is noth­ing spe­cial to break there. You just need to fol­low some selec­tion rules. Buy­ing even from your good friends, you are not guar­an­teed against pos­si­ble dis­ap­point­ment. Curi­ous chil­dren may hurt some­thing and not tell their par­ents.

So, what you should pay atten­tion to:

First, and most impor­tant­ly, it must be com­plete. The resource is deplet­ed over time, but not so much as to be dis­charged to zero after a dozen shots. But it is bet­ter to buy a new one, from the same man­u­fac­tur­er and for your mod­el. Leave the old one as a spare. And most impor­tant­ly — the bat­ter­ies should not be in a dis­charged state for a long time.

It seems to be a very impor­tant ele­ment of the cam­era, but check­ing for bro­ken pix­els is, to put it mild­ly, use­less. Even on the most advanced matri­ces, bro­ken pix­els can appear. At the fac­to­ries, matri­ces under­go OTK, if a bro­ken pix­el is detect­ed, the matrix under­goes a remap­ping pro­ce­dure. And even if they are not avail­able when you buy a new cam­era, they will prob­a­bly appear in the future.

Dig­i­tal SLR cam­eras have a shut­ter that has a resource. This is impor­tant to know when buy­ing used equip­ment. For some cam­eras, this can be found in the menu, and for some­one — only when vis­it­ing an offi­cial ser­vice cen­ter. If this con­fus­es you, look at mir­ror­less cam­eras — no shut­ter, no prob­lem.

• from appear­ance to con­tent

You should not be embar­rassed by cos­met­ic defects, minor scratch­es, scuffs. You should look for deep dents, traces of a pos­si­ble fall, defor­ma­tion of the case, the integri­ty of the slots on the screws, bay­o­net con­nec­tion, etc. But this does not mean that every­thing is fine if they are not. Inter­nal dam­age not vis­i­ble from the out­side is pos­si­ble.

How to deter­mine if the device has been exposed to rain (if it does not have splash pro­tec­tion), has it been in a damp room for a long time? No way. If the cam­era is “drowned”, it can be giv­en out by small oxi­da­tions, which still do not affect the oper­a­tion of the cam­era as a whole. It may also be that the sell­er has cleaned and does not tell you about it.

In any case, in order to be sure of buy­ing a cam­era from your hands, it is bet­ter to diag­nose the equip­ment at an autho­rized ser­vice cen­ter of the select­ed brand. Yes, you will spend time and a small amount, but you will be calm in choos­ing.

But in order to imme­di­ate­ly avoid anx­i­ety and excite­ment, I sug­gest you vis­it the “Pho­to Ware­house Dis­count” sec­tion, where all equip­ment has a guar­an­tee from the store, a descrip­tion of the con­fig­u­ra­tion and the oppor­tu­ni­ty to pur­chase addi­tion­al equip­ment, both new and used.

Do not stop

The pic­ture was tak­en on a bud­get smart­phone. Pho­to: Denis Klimov

A good pic­ture can be tak­en on a smart­phone, but will it be as high qual­i­ty as a pic­ture tak­en with a cam­era with a large matrix and good optics? For social media, yes.

Shot on a Canon EOS 70D. Pho­to: Denis Klimov

You must strive for your dream, do not let a grain of doubt ger­mi­nate in your mind that it is spon­ta­neous and fleet­ing. After all, the pho­to you take does not ask what cam­era it was cre­at­ed with, new or used. Who knows, maybe it will be wor­thy of an exhi­bi­tion in a gallery? This is the mean­ing of the pic­ture. The pho­to should tell a sto­ry. Tell yours. Go ahead.