10 mistakes when buying a camera | Articles | Photo, video, optics

The cam­era is not only an intri­cate device, but also a decent invest­ment. There­fore, mis­takes when choos­ing a suit­able cam­era are unde­sir­able. How­ev­er, we are often mis­tak­en. There­fore, we have col­lect­ed 10 pop­u­lar mis­takes that most often lead to choos­ing the wrong cam­era.

Source: Dig­i­tal Trends

1. A cool camera will give good photos

An expen­sive fan­cy cam­era can give the user a lot. Shoot­ing speed, aut­o­fo­cus accu­ra­cy, high aper­ture, etc. But all this is just tech­ni­cal spec­i­fi­ca­tions. Just as the best brush and paint do not make the own­er an artist, so the best cam­era does not guar­an­tee mas­ter­pieces. In order to get the result, first of all, a skill is required, and then a cam­era.

This is not to say that it is worth skimp­ing on tech­nol­o­gy: cheap or out­dat­ed tech­nol­o­gy will not be able to cope with your require­ments if you are plan­ning to get seri­ous about pho­tog­ra­phy. But if pho­tog­ra­phy becomes just a hob­by for you, you should not invest in the most expen­sive equip­ment at all. Most of the pro­fes­sion­al fea­tures may not be need­ed, so the expense will not be jus­ti­fied.

2. It is not necessary to research anything in advance

The ide­al way to get as much infor­ma­tion as pos­si­ble about which cam­era to choose is to do a thor­ough research. To begin with, it is worth decid­ing on the goals, and then care­ful­ly study the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the cam­eras and their specifics. It is far from always worth rely­ing on what con­sul­tants in stores will tell you, because their task is to sell goods that are avail­able, and not to advise what is suit­able for your tasks. There­fore, in this case, the respon­si­bil­i­ty lies entire­ly with the buy­er. The good news is that most of the infor­ma­tion is avail­able online, so any­one can pre­pare and make a choice before head­ing to the store.

Under­stand the dif­fer­ent types of cam­eras, their pros and cons. Be sure to look at exam­ples of pho­tos with­out pro­cess­ing. All this knowl­edge will be use­ful to you not only when buy­ing a cam­era, but also in fur­ther learn­ing pho­tog­ra­phy.

Source: hotrate

3. Don’t rely entirely on reviews

Reviews are very help­ful. When real users talk about the dis­ad­van­tages and pos­i­tive aspects of the device, you can be sure that they have no third-par­ty motives. Is this true? Not real­ly. We are not talk­ing about the fact that the net­work is full of fake reviews, although some­times they appear. But almost every­thing has both fans and haters. As absurd as it may sound, some users can’t stand Canon cam­eras, for exam­ple. And no pos­i­tive char­ac­ter­is­tics can con­vince them. And so it can be with almost every prod­uct. So don’t wor­ry too much if you come across a review that says this is the worst cam­era ever because it was released under a spe­cif­ic brand. Pay atten­tion to detailed reviews with exam­ples and expla­na­tions, and be pre­pared for the fact that there are no com­rades for the taste and col­or. Also, do not pay atten­tion to sub­jec­tive com­ments: if you are not used to the loca­tion of the but­tons on the pre­vi­ous cam­era, then the prob­lem on the new one will not affect you.

4. Do not forget about accessories

Of course, there are buy­ers who are only inter­est­ed in pur­chas­ing a case, but these are most often not begin­ners at all. If you are buy­ing a cam­era for the first time, be pre­pared that the body itself will not be the only waste. You will need a lens or mul­ti­ple lens­es, a spare bat­tery if you intend to do long pho­to shoots or shoot events, a fair­ly large mem­o­ry card or cards, a cam­era strap, a case or bag, and of course pho­to edit­ing soft­ware. All these are absolute­ly nec­es­sary things, the cost of which will have to be tak­en into account when plan­ning the start­ing bud­get. Some­times you can save mon­ey by buy­ing a kit kit, which includes a lens in advance. But every­thing else will have to be bought sep­a­rate­ly any­way. So avoid this com­mon mis­take and imme­di­ate­ly con­sid­er every­thing that may be use­ful to you in the future.

Source: YouTube

5. Don’t spend your entire budget just because you can.

You may have a small bud­get, or you may have an unlim­it­ed one. There is noth­ing wrong with this, of course. But great oppor­tu­ni­ties do not mean great needs. In oth­er words, you don’t need to spend mon­ey on fea­tures that you def­i­nite­ly won’t need. Unless you intend to do astropho­tog­ra­phy, you should not take a spe­cial lens just for the sake of it. There is no need to chase a full frame sen­sor if you have no idea what advan­tages it pro­vides. A sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ence is usu­al­ly deter­mined by key para­me­ters, so it is worth pay­ing atten­tion to them. Many cool fea­tures will actu­al­ly be use­less. If you’re buy­ing a video cam­era, don’t focus on pho­to fea­tures, and vice ver­sa.

If you want the coolest cam­era, the ques­tion will also arise here, because the indi­ca­tors can be dif­fer­ent. In short, don’t fall for the gim­micks, because in the end many of them are noth­ing more than pub­lic­i­ty stunts that won’t work.

6. Don’t Focus on the Little Things

The cam­era is a com­plex design, and a lot is based on small ele­ments and details. For a pro­fes­sion­al user, this can be a seri­ous prob­lem if he knows exact­ly what he needs from the cam­era. But for a begin­ner or an ama­teur, as for many seri­ous users, these lit­tle things may not mat­ter at all.

Please note that if you are pur­chas­ing a DSLR or mir­ror­less for ama­teur pho­tog­ra­phy, many para­me­ters will not be fun­da­men­tal. Kit kit with lens can cov­er most require­ments of begin­ner and hob­by­ist. In this case, just do not get car­ried away with the details, this is a com­plex and lengthy process that is not always need­ed. In this case, of course, we must not for­get about the study.

Remem­ber that there are many dif­fer­ent ways to com­pare cam­eras, and every pho­tog­ra­ph­er judges devices accord­ing to their own stan­dards.

Source: music4india.in

7. No need to be distracted by discounts and promotions

A dis­count or spe­cial offer can great­ly dis­tract the buy­er. A cam­era pro­mo­tion can lead to a very good price, but you should nev­er be dis­tract­ed and rush to make a pur­chase sole­ly because a good offer is in effect.

The cam­era that falls under the pro­mo­tion is not nec­es­sar­i­ly the one that suits you. If you are in no hur­ry to buy, then the best option is to wait for the best price on the cam­era you have cho­sen, regard­less of the avail­able dis­counts.

You should not buy, for exam­ple, a trav­el cam­era if you plan to shoot por­traits or do not trav­el much. The main thing is that the cam­era suits your lifestyle and shoot­ing, oth­er­wise, if you encounter dis­ad­van­tages or incon­ve­niences, you will either return the cam­era or not use it. The say­ing “the miser pays twice” is more rel­e­vant here than ever. There­fore, decide in advance on a price range that is com­fort­able for you and, if you come across a suc­cess­ful pro­mo­tion or dis­count on the select­ed cam­era, use it, oth­er­wise you should not devi­ate from the orig­i­nal plan.

8. Don’t Buy a Camera Without a Purpose

So, the first rule of any pur­chase is to know exact­ly why you need a cam­era. This is the basis of any pur­chase and it applies to any tech­nique. Based on the goal, you choose the mod­el. There­fore, nev­er make a pur­chase with­out hav­ing a cer­tain under­stand­ing of your own tasks. This is the eas­i­est way to buy what does­n’t suit you.

But we do not always know exact­ly what we plan to shoot, for exam­ple, begin­ners often exper­i­ment. For­tu­nate­ly, in such cas­es, too, there is a way out. Some pros rec­om­mend focus­ing on lifestyle rather than pos­si­ble poten­tial plans if you’re unde­cid­ed on the genre. If you are inter­est­ed in dif­fer­ent types of pho­tog­ra­phy, then the best option is an inter­change­able lens cam­era. Thus, you can choose a por­trait, wide-angle or tele­pho­to lens, depend­ing on spe­cif­ic tasks. As for the char­ac­ter­is­tics, try to choose uni­ver­sal ones. Again, don’t chase price, it’s not an indi­ca­tion of oppor­tu­ni­ty.

Source: Dig­i­tal Cam­era World

9. Don’t listen to random advice.

If you are buy­ing a cam­era, be sure to do your research. But what you should not do is lis­ten to the advice of every­one in a row. Even if your friend or rel­a­tive takes pic­tures, this does not nec­es­sar­i­ly mean that they under­stand the sub­ject. There­fore, even if you lis­tened to their advice, do not take them for grant­ed. Check the infor­ma­tion, com­pare the received “tes­ti­mo­ny” with those that you get from more reli­able sources.

And, as with online reviews, try to weed out taste pref­er­ences from tech­ni­cal indi­ca­tors. Anoth­er case is if there is a pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er among your acquain­tances. He can not only give use­ful rec­om­men­da­tions that will help in the selec­tion and fur­ther shoot­ing, but also allow you to test your own tech­nique. The lat­ter option is the most prefer­able, since it is always bet­ter to try out what you plan to pur­chase in prac­tice before buy­ing. This is the best way to find out if the cam­era is right for you.

10. Don’t Buy an Unverified Used Camera

Used cam­eras should be pur­chased with extreme cau­tion. This is rec­om­mend­ed to be done exclu­sive­ly by those or with those who under­stand the tech­ni­cal side of the issue. There may be a lot of dam­age in the cham­bers that will not be vis­i­ble to the naked eye. Things like scratch­es on the sen­sor are not easy to see right away, but this already means that the cam­era will need addi­tion­al repairs. The same goes for all the inter­nal mechan­ics of the device. This may explain the too low price. There­fore, when it comes not to new equip­ment, but to used goods, cer­tain knowl­edge is need­ed. If you do not have them, do not be fooled by the cost and seem­ing­ly prof­itable offers. The best strat­e­gy is to pur­chase a new device with all war­ran­ty doc­u­ments.

We hope that you will find our rec­om­men­da­tions use­ful and try to avoid mis­takes. Remem­ber that a cam­era is a device that, with the right choice, can last for many years and it is worth pur­chas­ing it with this intent.