I want to buy a camera. I have never seriously dabbled with photography but I'd like to be able to gain some competency with a camera so that I can take photos of people I love and things and moments I find beautiful, but I don't see myself getting too serious with it. I don't really get any pleasure out of using my phone to take photos and I feel like I'd enjoy photography more if I had a dedicated camera. I like the look of analog film, but I fear it'll be prohibitively expensive, and some part of me feels I should just ride the wave and stick to digital anyway. I don't want to spend too much (around $300 I suppose but ideally less?). What do you knowledgeable people suggest buy as far as cameras go and do you have any recommendations for books that might help me develop my skills?
>>4513097Film isn't that expensive if you don't want it to be. If you want to set up your own scanning rig and use flagship cameras and professional film stocks then yeah it can get expensive but there's no reason why you need to do that. If you're just starting out you can get it scanned and developed at a lab. For film cameras there's a couple of models that are often recommended to students, as they're simple, distraction free cameras that help you focus on learning and understanding the exposure triangle. The important this with these is not so much which one you choose but which one you can find a good deal on. I assume you're talking 300 USD, most of these you should be able to find for around 80 USD, I wouldn't spend more than 100, but I'm a tight arse so...>Pentax Spotmatic or K1000Good, cheap and abundant>Nikon FM / FE / Nikkormat / FSame thing as the pentax, but from Nikon. Great if you can find a good deal but can be more expensive.>Canon FT / FTb / EF / AE1 / A1Good abundant cameras with great lenses>Minolta SRTOr if you want an autofocus film camera, pretty much any Canon EOS film camera will be good and most of them are cheap. With digital its the same story, just get whatever cheap used DSLR you can find for cheap near you and dont get sucked into brand faggotry. I would probably go with either Canon or Nikon for these as there are more lenses out there for these. Personally I would say to go with a 5D or 5D mark ii, but I have no idea what these cost in burger land. Full frame cameras are good if you can find a cheap one, but smaller sensors like APS-C are ok too.
>>4513097>I like the look of analog film, but I fear it'll be prohibitively expensive, and some part of me feels I should just ride the wave and stick to digital anyway.Pentax K10D ($200) and a 24mm f/2.8 lens (~$135) or 55mm f/1.8 lens (~$70). It does have a very film-like rendering. Highlights don't clip, they bloom and bleed into surrounding pixels. That's the sensor technology (CCD). Those lenses are manual focus with aperture rings so if you did get a Pentax film camera they'd work with no issues (K-mount has been the same for 50 years). There's other options for CCD cameras, Nikon has some but I just don't know what there is specifically. I'm pretty sure Nikon F-mount carries over from film to digital as well.I wouldn't recommend anything less than an interchangeable lens camera. Compact cameras are a fun novelty but if you want to seriously "gain some competency" you need something with interchangeable lenses. If you're prepared to spend a little more than $300, you could get an original Sony A7 for ~$400: 24MP full-frame camera compatible with hundreds of great lenses both cheap and bougie. Film adds up REALLY quick but the image quality can't be replicated exactly with digital, only approached. Film is actually really high resolution, much higher resolution than even 60MP digital cameras, as long as you have the MONEY to scan it with high enough resolution.>Recommendations for books tha might help me develop my skills?1. Any art history book you can get that covers the renaissance and has full-page colour pictures.2. Any art history book you can get that covers modernism (impressionism) with full-page colour pictures.3. Any book published by your favourite movie director/photographer/cinematographer/artist, etc. with... you guessed it, full-page colour pictures (if colour matters, your favs might work in B&W).
>>4513097I would suggest getting a used crop sensor DSLR, Nikon or Canon, look for one that it in good shape on Craigslist/Facebook Marketplace and the like. It's easy to get one cheap from someone who bought one, used it three times, then never touched it again and wants to get a little money back.They take quite good pics, and are a great way to dip your toes into using semi-automatic and full manual shooting modes, and just learning a camera in general. You can either turn around and sell it yourself down the road, or continue to build it out with new lenses, it's up to you.
>>4513097Others are suggesting DSLR, I don't recommend it because you will get locked into obsolete habits/process.Better to buy an old bridge camera. As long as it has 2 dials, one for shutter speed, one for aperture, its great for learning.Don't bother with any auto exposure modes, just use manual mode.As with a modern mirrorless camera you will see the photo preview/review in the viewfinder, so you will quickly learn how to control exposure, and eventually when you upgrade to modern mirrorless gear you already have the skillset for mirrorless which you would not develop if using DSLR.
>>4513201Exposure preview is useless for skilled users and is automatically disabled, or is disabling, in dim conditionsPlease dont glorify being bad at photogtaphy
>>4513201Just wait until you find out the only serious professional stills cameras are all still DSLRs and view/technical cameras
>>4513202Exposure preview is useless for DSLR boomers because it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks.DSLR boomers rely on the exposure meter because that's all they had for decades.Exposure meter is just a bad guess at what exposure should be - it always wants to neutralize your subject to be middle gray, just as auto white balance always wants to neutralize the color in your scene."what you see is what you get" in an electronic viewfinder has obsoleted metering and AWB for skilled users, but the boomers still think it's relevant because metering is how they've always done it.
>>4513221>t. coping meterlet
>>4513221Oh. Its the retarded ESL jpeg shill that shits out terrible mirrorless sales pitches. I had a nikon z7ii and even with max time wasted on flipping through white balance, picture profiles and and active d lighting the jpegs always looked like iphone quality with marginally more natural DR and bokeh… or completely fucked DR because jpeg cant do it in truly contrasty scenes that negative film would nail effortlessly. Yes exposure preview is genuinely useless if you are not a beginner and jpeg is a waste of time. Shooting jpeg and calling yourself skilled is like calling yourself a skilled driver for choosing between sport, drive, and eco on your prius’ autotragic tranny. The best preview can do for you on non-sony cameras is display 255 on any channel as a clipping warning by setting up a custom profile. Sony has REAL RAW clipping warnings, via enabling zebras in stills and setting the level to 107-109.You might miss the analogy due to only ever having used scooters and rickshaws. Thats ok. This post isn’t made for you. Everyone has already accepted you’re kinda dumb. This post is to inform the people you are misinforming.
>>4513221>when you dont know how to use a camera or know what boomers do, but want to pretend otherwise because your parents neglect you and you’re poorBoomers all use live view 24/7. Mirrorless was basically made for them. Young people ran back to DSLRs and film en masse.
>>4513238>The best preview can do for you on non-sony cameras is display 255 on any channel as a clipping warning by setting up a custom profile. Sony has REAL RAW clipping warnings, via enabling zebras in stills and setting the level to 107-109.Lumix does zebras in still photo mode as well and unlike Sony their clipping warning in image review is actually accurate.Fuji has preview and review blinkies.Olympus/OM have cliiping color overlay in live view as in pic related.
>>4513242>and unlike sonyWhat? Sony’s is accurate. Has been since the a7rii. Why do you always include an outright lie about sony, jpeg jeet? And why do you always recommend lumix, the brand notorious for bad color science, bad sub-fuji autofocus, bad reliability, and a bad lens mount with nothing good that isn’t on other brands? It is literally the bottom seller and their cameras are increasingly value engineered parts bin creations.
>>4513097Get a Pentax Super. Try film. I thought the same thing and got a K1000 as my first. It's been super fun. Get dreamy.
>>4513242>point one: no one uses lumix those things suck>point two: a lie>point three: irrelevant to your argument>point four: only one other brand does this and they use phone sized sensors for terrible iqwhat a pointless post. just another gearfag trying to larp as a camera expert when they clearly aren’t. probably indian.
>>4513245This. You can buy a camera, film, and processing your first roll for like 50-100 bucks all in and if you hate the results it was just 100 bucks of fun. No big deal. I would suggest sticking with it for maybe 5 or so rolls tho.
>>4513244>>4513246 You said>The best preview can do for you on non-sony cameras is display 255 on any channel as a clipping warning by setting up a custom profileThis is a lie, no custom profile is needed for clipping warnings on the makes I listed. Custom profile has to be done on Nikon, while Canon has no such possibility.>What? Sony’s is accurate. Has been since the a7rii. I know for a fact it's broken on A7C II (2023) and probably others. Blinkies indicate areas clipping that aren't.
>>4513318its not broken. judging by your posts you’re likely both too clueless to learn to use it and too retarded to have it explained to you.
>>45133181/3 ev accuracy for moving warnings in a 1/50th res preview is definitely not brokenhttps://www.dpreview.com/forums/threads/sony-a7r3-zebras-are-truly-raw.4259130/Sounds like you just used the wrong settings for your camera.
>>4513319>>4513322Learn to read. I'm talking about in review, not preview.
>>4513324But anon, preview is what you actually use to set exposure. What good is mirrorless if you can only find out if you fucked up while chimping? Who even uses review to check histograms? Jpeg shooters? (nearly extinct due to raw being flat out better)I thought you were talking about mirrorless “skills” (turning on a setting and lowering exposure when the funny lines appear)Not real photography/DSLR skills (temporarily switching to spot mode to check the EV of the brightest highlight you want to preserve so you can do some quick stop counting/DR math to compensate accordingly, aka the zone system with 14.5 zones instead of old film emulsions 10)
>>4513325>But anon, preview is what you actually use to set exposure. What good is mirrorless if you can only find out if you fucked up while chimping?I agree, Canon and Nikon need to get with the times and implement preview overexposure warning.Auto review with blinkies can be set up, but it's annoying for fast-paced photography.>Who even uses review to check histograms? Jpeg shooters? (nearly extinct due to raw being flat out better)Anyone who's culling photos on the go needs an accurate playback clipping warning.
>>4513334See if you knew how to use your sony’s live zebras, you wouldn’t have to use the jpeg histogram in review because your exposures would already be correct, and that’s one less option in sony’s already extensive menu so what’s your problem? Everyone who uses review histograms is a jpeg shooter anyways so they’d never configure live zebras for raw values. So much for mirrorless skills!
>>4513343Stop coping Snoyboy. Playback blinkies have been a solved problem for over 20 years with most brands.If you're taking shots/bursts of a dynamic scene, for example concert, you aren't going to know what parts of the image are well exposed and which are not until review. Reviewing on a Sony will misinform you because their blinkies are showing highlights clipping that aren't actually.
>>4513349>how it started: learn on mirrorless its the future saar>how its going: saar use the dslr jpeg histogram in image review not the mirrorless feature that allows ensuring correct ETTR in raw because uhh, only sony does that, pls buy panashitnic saar. sony’s image review doesnt work and everyone elses does because, uh, saar…. saaaaaaaar…
