I often get asked what is the best camera. What is the best camera under a certain budget... Uhh,
you know, small digicams like a little sensor camera is... Is this specific camera good?
I do think there are a few ways you can go about it. One is do a lot of research. Try to find
specific features, the way that the features work, that will fit well with your style.
But if you're just starting out you're not going to know what your style is.
You're not going to know how you want to do things. Spending a ton of time doing research
isn't necessarily going to help you out.
It might turn out worse, you never know. So that's one way to go about it is a lot of research.
Another way is just to find something relatively cheap. I mean, if you have a lot of money buy
something nice. Then you know it doesn't matter. But if you
are restrained in how much money you can spend. Find something that you think will work okay...
maybe not the best, but you'll still be able to do it which is a thing you want to do something.
If you want to vlog, you know, you need a certain feature set that works well enough
for that. There are definitely cameras that don't work well for that type of use, but if
you're gonna do straight photography they have a pretty wide selection of cameras that'll work.
Such as this camera, for example, the Sony a6000 that I picked up
recently locally at Target. Big clearance sale, couldn't pass it up. Because I need content
for my channel and having something like this will definitely help out.
Getting a variety of different cameras in my case for what I do
is very helpful. Take some photos today. You can see that in this video, but yeah!
Now this specific camera, is a good for vlogging? Not necessarily. Can it do it,
sure. It can do it to a point, but it doesn't have a microphone input which is a big negative
my opinion. And you're only going to have optical stabilization with whatever lens you're using,
but that's the same for like the M50. And of course no flipped forward flip to the side screen.
So there are negatives to a camera like this for that type of use,
but straight photography, you have a viewfinder. You have interchangeable lenses. You have a nice
sensor inside. Just decent quality. Has a relatively good amount of tactile controls on it,
like this dial here on the top to adjust settings. It has a dial on the back to do that as well.
So in general, especially for what I paid 200 bucks, you know... I.. I couldn't pass it up.
You might think you're wasting time or money buying something low cost and you know functional
enough. But my opinion if you're out there doing the photography. You're figuring out what works
what doesn't with that specific tool. You're figuring out ways to use it well and adjust,
you know, your goals maybe a little bit. Or adjust the way you do things to
make that tool as functional as possible. You're learning things which I think is the biggest
aspect to it. You're figuring out what exactly the feature sets. The way that
the camera works. The way that the lens works, and then you can adjust things in the future.
You can sell the camera as long as you don't destroy it. If you're so extremely
limited that you can't buy another camera for years and years and years.
Sure, you want to spend some time researching, but think of it as more of renting it instead of
buying it and just holding on to it forever. With these type of cameras.. digital cameras.. they do
drop in price quite a bit initially. But then they kind of hold their value for a good long while.
Even just using this camera a little bit for photography I can already see some quirks. Some
potential things that I would have to keep in mind when I'm using it for just straight photography.
Of course, no touch screen which is probably good in some situations. Also it's with this
specific lens it's kind of slow because it's, uhh, automatic power zoom type of thing. Where
it just takes some time to go back and forth through the zoom range.
Anyways, I would prefer going with something relatively low cost that works well enough
instead of spending a huge amount of time researching and restricting yourself to
the point that you don't do anything at all. Which I think is worse than the alternative
of maybe not getting the perfect camera out of it.
If you've seen a few of my videos and you like them, definitely consider subscribing. That helps
out. Of course liking the video is good as well. Sharing it and the applause feature is very nice.
Scott of Photography Banzai, thanks!