There is a common belief: to be able to shoot good photos, you need a good camera.
Surely there is some truth in this. A better equipment (i.e. camera and lens) will generally allow better colors or sharpness. Yet not everyone that shoots with a Leica became Henri Cartier-Bresson. Equipment is nothing more than a tool. You can use the simplest pen and pencil to write a masterpiece comparable to War and Peace or the Brothers Karamazov - the best typewriter will only help you write faster, and nothing else. With photography, the case is more or less the same. For example, look at the photo below:
I shot this photo with a compact Canon A630 camera, which was the cheapest compact camera with M (manual) mode when I bought it. The photo is not a masterpiece, but still is a good one.
When You Should Not Buy An SLR
There are cases in which you DEFINITELY should not buy an SLR camera. If you say yes to any of the following, you should not spend a lot of money on any equipment, be it the cheapest or the most expensive:
- I did not own or extensively use a camera, be it a compact, semi-SLR, or film one, before: If you are not familiar with photography, you better start with something cheaper and easier than a complex tool. I would recommend a compact or SLR-like (i.e. semi-SLR) camera which is cheap enough.
- I do not know what aperture or shutter priority modes mean: An SLR camera is not any different than a compact camera if you will use it in auto or scene modes. It is supposed to be used creatively, and these modes help creativity.
- I will not use the camera in aperture/shutter priority or manual mode most of the time: Continuation of the above, the extra bucks you will spend on the camera will be spent for nothing.
- I will shoot photos only for memories (like during holidays): You will be a lot better-off if you will buy a compact camera for this purpose. You can extend your holiday with the money spared.
- I will not use other lenses than the kit one (i.e. the one that came with the camera when I bought it): What matters in "professional" photography is the lens, not the body. The combination of the worst camera with the best lens is more preferable than the combination of the best camera and the worst lens. And, as you can guess, kit lenses (except very very few like Canon 24-70 f/2.8) are always bad ones and it will not create better images than a compact camera, and actually will produce worse ones depending on circumstances.
- I do not know if I have a style or what my photography style is: There are tons of lenses made by all the manufacturers because all lenses are supposed to be used for different purposes. If you do not know your style, you cannot get the right lens and cannot produce the photos you want.
- I do not want to/have time to edit photos later: No out-of-camera (OOC) photo is great, and you need to spend a lot of time manipulating the photos you took. It takes up to 15 minutes sometimes to fix a photo. You will be better-off if you will not "invest" your time to edit the photos.
- I am not interested in art per se: In the end, the main use of an SLR camera is producing art (and selling it, if possible). This is why you need to know your style and spend time in post-process. If not to make art, why would you need a "professional" camera anyway?
- I want to show-off with the camera: Are you really that rich and shallow to show-off with owning a camera? Well, you should not search internet to find the best camera, then.
A long list, right? Well, spending hundreds of dollars/euros/pounds on something that you will not effectively use is not what you want in the end.
Still Not Discouraged?
Did you say no to them all? Good! But it is not enough. There are more that you should consider. Let us ask two more questions:
You have/had a camera and are familiar with photography. Are you sure that you need a better one?
Consumerism is a serious sickness of our time. I would not recommend buying a new (and/or better) camera if
a) there are not serious problems with your current camera (like lack of sharpness, mistaken colors, etc.) which limit your creativity and/or lessen the quality of the output, or
b) you are not in full control of your camera and cannot produce the images that you imagine which is not because of your camera's lack of capabilities.
Let me exemplify. Look at the photo below:
Photography needs the correct use of light. If you let the camera measure the light and set the "correct" aperture and/or shutter speed, the details on Jesus would not be visible because it is a dark environment and the camera would want more light falling on the sensor. I asked the recommendations of the camera, then I used different settings to let less light to capture details. If you shoot at the same place, but lose the details, you better learn more about photography before upgrading your equipment - because the better equipment will again not let you capture the right image if you do not know how to use it.
So learn photography, and make sure that your current camera (or something cheaper) will not be able to do what you want.
Do you really want to mess with all the hassle?
Photography is fun, but rarely. Carrying the camera, lenses, additional battery, tripod, filters… all day and having half of your backpack full of these, setting things all up, looking around to find a photo rather than enjoying your day, post-processing the photos and sometimes hundreds of them, receiving negative comments on your product and getting discouraged, not liking what you liked on camera screen after seeing it on the bigger screen and not being able to go back to shoot again… These are all problematic.
When Should You Buy An SLR Camera
Could I not discourage you so far? Good!
There, actually, is one and only one case in which you should get an SLR: you will produce some kind of art, you know all the basics and most of intermediate knowledge about photography, and your current camera (or something lesser than an SLR) will not produce what you are willing to do.
Why did I not go on with my Canon A630? Because, along with other things (like not shooting RAW, being 8MP, the aperture being 2.8, etc.) it did not allow me to take the following photo, which is one of the things that I want and like to do:
If it did not limit me, I would not change it.
Conclusion
An SLR is a nice toy, but for good photos it definitely is not a must. It can help you, especially with speed, yet its trade-offs, starting with the prices and the time that it will take, it may not be what you actually look for. Yet it is up to you to decide if you need one or not.
You still think that you need a camera? Okay. I could not discourage you, and maybe it is a good thing. But which camera should you get? The answer is in the next post.