Which camera should I buy? Canon T5i, 60D or Nikon D7100? Or a point and shoot camera?

Most camera buying guides are either too generic or too techie. They miss to address one critical thing for most entry level digital SLR camera buyers. These days most SLR camera bodies are very capable. You can buy a Nikon, Canon, Sony or Pentax and there will be very little difference in picture quality. Many times we get disappointed with our camera but it may not be camera's fault. It may be the light. Or the settings on the camera. Low light level can create issue to even capable cameras. In good light, a $100 camera may give you a shot that is clearly better than a shot taken in low light with a $10000 camera!!
After using several models of cameras, I am indifferent to camera bodies these days. We end up spending too much time in deciding whether to buy Nikon D7100 or Canon T4i but in my opinion, it is the lens that gives an edge to your photos.

Buy the right lens with your digital SLR:

Ask yourself of the primary use of your camera. If you are going to use it to take day to day photos of family members, people and many times indoor or inside photos, you can improve quality of your photos with a fast prime lens. For portraits and for photos of people and pets, you can get nice bokeh / background blur with a fast prime lens that is generally difficult to achieve with a kit lens on the same camera body. Fortunately, you can get some prime lenses at a great price. Canon and Nikon offer  35mm or 50mm lenses with F1.8 or F2 for under $200. These lenses will also let you take nice indoor or low light photos.

Please remember that these lenses do not zoom in or zoom out. They are fixed focal length lenses so please be aware of this limitation. However zoom is not an issue in most cases as modern cameras take up to 24MP photos so if you are taking a landscape photo with a fixed 50mm lens, take photo in full resolution and crop it out. Please note that our 1080p HD TV needs only a 2MP photo to show in full HD. If you are posting online or on Facebook, it will not make difference to your viewer if photo is 4MP or 40MP!!! Most computer monitors also do not have more than 4 million pixels.
Now if you are talking about selling your photos and getting paid, you really need a high resolution photo but then  you are a professional and you should not be reading such articles or advice ;) Here I am trying to help people with their consumer grade DSLR purchase.

If you are going to take photos outdoor and landscape, your kit lens should serve you just fine. You can use your kit lens everywhere and if you are able to buy one more lens, buy a 50-200mm or 50-300mm lens and a good tripod. Ideally for landscape it helps to buy a wide angle lens too but that is a bit expensive for any brand and here we talk about amateur photography, we would skip expensive wide angle lenses.

Avoid 18-200mm or 18-135mm lens:

Many consumers want to buy DSLR but they hate to change lenses so they prefer to buy a lens like 18-200mm or 18-135mm which work as a wide angle as well as a zoom lens. If convenience is your prime objective and the quality of photos come later, you will be happy with such a lens. However these lenses are expensive and also they are not that fast. Normally these lenses will not work as good as a prime 35mm or 50mm lens for portraits or indoor photos.

Seriously consider Micro Four Thirds or Mirrorless Cameras: 
In my humble opinion, in this time when airlines charge fees for every bag we checkout or even carry in, no point in carrying a camera big with you! That big bulky SLR body needs to be left to professionals. New M43 or Mirror-less cameras are tiny and equally capable. Many of them have the same sized APS-C sensor that is found in bulky cameras. As there is no mirror in the body, the size of the body is tiny. Take a look at Canon EOS-M camera body! Most of my friends don't take this camera seriously until they see the photos taken with it. Mirrorless cameras have another advantage. They are easy to use in live preview/LCD mode!!
Also, it is easy to carry around! Plus most such cameras excel in video shooting. They auto-focus!
Please note that these cameras, as they have no mirror, are slow in focusing and also not that accurate at time in focusing. This is particularly an issue in low light or in darkness. I get annoyed with them at times but the size and form factor benefit is so outstanding, I live with this shortcoming. 

I started with kit lens and was find in the beginning. Then added a zoom lens and it worked fine too. Then I got on prime lenses and now most of the time, on my cameras, I have prime lenses. I rarely use 18-55mm kit lens or 55-300mm zoom lens these days. On my Pentax K-01 and Pentax K30, I have Pentax 50mm FA F1.4 lens and on Canon EOS-M, I have 22mm F2 STM kit lens or 50mm M42 Super Takumar F1.4 lens.

Two best camera kits in my opinion these days are Pentax K-01 with 40mm F2.8 XS lens and Canon EOS-M with 22mm kit lens! For less than $500, both of these are wonderful camera kits particularly for indoors and for portraits. If you try to buy this Pentax lens separately, it will cost $250!! No kit lens retails for more than $100 in my experience. Most of the kit lenses are not that great.
Canon EOS-M comes with a kit lens 22mm F2.0 STM lens. This is nice tiny camera which is as good as big bulky Canon consumer grade digital SLRs. It suffers with slow AF but the touch screen, AF during video, and the size that is so convenient to carry around, it is one of my favorite cameras I like to go out with these days.

What is this f word (I mean f number) in photography?

F is popular not only in Hollywood movies as some word but f number is even more popular among photographers!

F or sometimes referred to as f/ number, it simply mean how much shutter opens up while taking a photo. Smaller the number, wider the shutter/aperture opens. f/1.4 means shutter very wide open.  Don't get confused by F 1.4 or f/1.4. They all refer to as aperture 1.4. The smaller the number, the wider the aperture opens. On a 50mm lens, f/1.4 means that shutter is around 36mm wide (diameter) open!!! On the same lens, f/8 means the shutter will open around 6mm and f/22 means shutter will be open around 2.3mm!

How does f number matter for photos?

Even though 22 number for f is 15 times bigger than f/1.4 as a measure of diameter, in terms of area or light allowed to pass through in x amount of time, f/1.4 will take in whooping roughly 225 times more light!!!
In other words to take in same amount of light as f/1.4 in 10 milliseconds, f/22 will need 2250 milliseconds!!!

This article can be very technical but I am going to keep it useful from practical applicability.

The aperture or the opening of the lens or the f number also determines following:

1. The higher the f number the smaller the lens opens. The smaller the f number, the lens opens wider.
2. To take in same amount of light (or to get same exposure), smaller f number will need the shutter to stay open for smaller time period compared to a bigger f number.
3. Importantly, f number also determines Depth of Field. Depth of Field is nothing but how much distance is in focus in your camera. With a smaller f number, very narrow band of area will be in focus. Say for f/1.4, if you are shooting an object 2 feet away, only an inch can be in focus. Say like the between 23.5 to 24.5 inches away from the lens!! Now for the same object, if you change f to f/22, a good 5-6 inches can be in focus! As an example, from 18 inches to 24 inches can be in focus.
4. If you taking photos handheld and if you need to have more depth of field, you will need smaller aperture (higher f number). This will require you or the camera to use higher ISO and this can bring in some noise in the image.

Here are 3 photos I took of a flower in my backyard. I used Canon EOS-M and a 50mm Super Takumar F1.4 lens. As you can see, at f/1.8, only the flower in the center is in focus! Nothing else! Background is blurred and it gives a nice 3D kind of view!
When I changed to f/5.6, the second flower also came in some focus and some top leaves too. Now see the third image when I took a photo with f/16. Both flowers, full plant and some of the wall is also in focus. In first photo, you can't even see that there is a wall behind the plant but in the third photo, you can clearly see it. Also with respect to point number #4 above, the first photo has ISO of 100. The image has no noise. f/5.6 required ISO to be at 1250 and f/16 forced the ISO to 5000!! If you see carefully, in the last photo, you can see some noise or graininess.

Which is a great DSLR buy these days? It is Pentax K-01 or Canon EOS-M, for most of us

Having used several DSLRs and mirrorless cameras, I can say Pentax K-01 is a great camera- one of the best image quality out then in below $1000 cameras. Pentax used to sell for around $900 but their gamble with the style backfired so they are clearing them out. They currently sell for around $400 with a nice 40mm 2.8 lens.
Similarly, Canon was too late to enter the mirrorless camera world. They came in with Canon EOS-M with full APS-C sized sensor and started selling it for around $700. They put the fastest kit lens on this EOS-M camera compared to lens on any sub $1000 canon SLR. It comes with 22mm F2.0 lens!! This camera has same sensor and technology as Canon T4i but in much smaller body. This actually works very well for shooting HD video than most consumer Canon DSLRs. As of this writing (July 5, 2013), Amazon is selling Canon EOS-M for $299!!! Really a steal if you are buying it for less than $400. Let me tell you one major problem though! It does not come with flash! This can be a deal breaker for many and that is why I think Pentax K-01 can be a better deal for most of us.
Very shortly, both cameras are likely to be selling for around $500 or more. If that is the case, look for Used cameras too. Under $350, each of these cameras are great deals IMO.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Delectronics&field-keywords=Pentax+K-01&tag=bookrevi02-20

Check Canon EOS-M prices on Amazon.

Click on the link above and read the reviews yourself. Or see the summary here.
First, bad about this camera:

• Lack of optical viewfinder- if you actively use viewfinder, this camera is not for you. LCD works fine for shooting but once in a while, in some bright sunlight, you will miss a viewfinder.
• Orthodox style of Pentax k-01- see if you like the style. It is not bad as such. I see this style as an advantage. Most of my subjects don't take me seriously with this camera in my hand. They think this is a toy or some fun camera and I get candid photos. When I used to shoot with black bulky SLRs, mostly my subjects will become too serious or too conscious.
• Flashy Yellow color- it is a bright nice color but if you don't like it, it comes in black and white color too.
• Slow Auto-focus. Out of the box, the camera's AF system is slow but with firmware upgrade, it is comparable to most DSLRs. Howeve in plain contrast-less situations, like many other DSLRs, this one still struggles with AF. I immediately change to Manual focus mode and with focus peaking and Auto-zoom of the image on my screen, my workaround works very well.

Now the good about the camera:

• The image quality is excellent. I have not seen such good image quality in any camera I have used so far which includes Canon T3i and Panasonic/Olymplus mirrorless m4/3 cameras.
• With included 40mm lens, you can take impressive portraits and low light photos. If you like to take photos of people, this lens works out very well. In consumer grade DSLRs, Pentax K-01 has the best lens out there. Period.
• If you like to take landscapes, the HDR mode does wonders. Easy to use and brings in details in shadows and highlight does not get clipped either.
• With same K mount, in body Image Stabilization, and now Focus Peaking, using my Super Takumar 50mm 1.4 lens is easy and it helps get accurate focusing. K-01 body and Super Takumar lens (with combined cost of less than $400) help me take portrait photos that can compare very well with full frame $2000 plus DSLRs. 
• Takes HD Video but use Super Takumar above in manual mode with wide aperture for video and you will love the quality and background blurr in videos.
• This camera is compact and its odd look lets you take candid photos of people. Bulky SLRs many times make people too serious while being photographed but with box type camera, your subjects are less likely to take you seriously but when you show them the photos, they will be amazed.

Very likely, in 10 years, this camera will sell for more than what you are paying today. This is my humble opinion and don't base your purchase decision on it.

Best Digital SLR for beginners? Canon T5i or Nikon D3400? Canon T6i or 60D? D3100 or D5500?

I keep coming across such questions. Which DSLR camera to buy? Canon or Nikon? Or a Sony?
Which model? Which one of the following is a better camera? Canon T5i, Canon 60D, Canon T3i, Nikon D5500, Sony NEX or Pentax K-5?

Most first time DSLR buyers spend a lot of time in making sure that they make the right purchase. They keep debating for weeks if not months to find out which camera is the best. They would visit dpreview.com for detailed editorial reviews or Amazon.com for user reviews. They go on websites like snapsort.com to compare specs. Now if you are one of them and you are reading this post, I am going to make your life easy. By the way, by looking for the best camera in your first SLR purchase, you are not doing anything wrong. I did it too when I bought my first DSLR in 2005. However having bought and used several DSLRs and Hybrid/Mirrorless Cameras over last 2-3 years, I can say that all modern day DSLRs or Mirrorless are very capable cameras. You won't go wrong buying anyone of them. Here is one example. I took photo of my son Arian recently with Canon's worst rated camera- Canon EOS M and a 40 year old Super Takumar lens. We were hiking and I rarely take big bulky cameras on a hike. So I had this tiny camera with me and the photo that came out in my opinion is stunning.


If you spend too much time researching or justifying a particular model, it is likely that you will not be happy in the end. Buyer's remorse is likely to haunt you. Even after your purchase, you will keep trying to justify it or feel sad that why you didn't buy the other model you were interested in. In reality, all modern SLRs have more than most of us need or will ever use. Please don't make your purchase unnecessarily complicated.

IMO, there are 3 important things behind a great photograph:
The light, the photographer and then comes the equipment. In the equipment category too, I think camera lens is a more critical factor than the camera body when the light is low or challenging. This is generally speaking. I am trying to keep this simple and useful.

War Between Canon Vs Nikon

If you go online, you will find a virtual war. People who have bought Canon cameras would recommend you a Canon DSLR. A person who has Nikon would keep bashing Canons!! I am often surprised to see why people become free sales-reps or marketers for these brands. They don't get paid by those companies! Then why do they fight among themselves like UCLA Bruins and USC Trojan fans? This puzzles me. It is good for the companies though. Who doesn't like loyal free workers/marketers? LOL. The only justification I have behind such consumer behavior is after having invested lot of time behind their own DSLR purchase, most consumers are probably still trying to justify if they made the right choice. So at every opportunity, they would stand up for the brand they have purchased. On Yahoo Answers, everyday you will see ten plus questions where a person is seeking an advice for buying the best camera. Look at the responses. Someone will recommend a Canon. Someone will recommend Nikon or Pentax. You will not find someone saying that Nikon and Canon both make wonderful cameras. So if a friend recommends you a Canon, don't blindly follow him. If a friend is not happy with Nikon, it may be because he doesn't know who to use or what to expect from a camera. Or he may be taking photos in low light.  If you were to believe me, please note that Nikon, Pentax, Panasonic, Olympus and Sony- they all make equally good cameras. Specs may differ a bit here or there but their sensors, image processing engines are very powerful for most amateur users, like you and I. If you are a professional who will be paid for the photos, I am sure you are not reading my blog LOL.

Nikon? Canon? Sony? Pentax?

* All modern day cameras have very good sensors and are very capable cameras. You will not go wrong buying anyone of them. We strive to buy the best entry level digital SLR but 95% of us, yes 95% of us, don't use more than 30% of what a camera has to offer. Nikon, Canon, Panasonic, Sony, Pentax, Olympus- they all make very capable cameras.
* A Nikon lover may say that Nikons have bigger sensor than Canons (22.2 x 14.8 mm for Canon vs 23.5-23.7 x 15.6 mm in most Nikon, Sony or Pentax cameras). If you see the numbers, it is only a marginal difference. This marginally bigger size in Nikon cameras doesn't prove that Canon SLRs are worse than Nikons!! If  Canon T3i takes 5 fps vs T4i which let us say takes 7 fps. Should you care? Not really. Not 95% of us. Most of us rarely use this multiple shots features! Then why bother?
* Every camera has some strengths or weaknesses. Product differentiation, right? Let me help you choose a right camera for you. You can fall in one of the following two groups.
Group 1: Looking for the best DSLR out there.
If you are in the market for your first entry-level SLR and all you want is to buy the "best" camera, go to a deal website like Fatwallet.com or Slickdeals.net and see which camera has a good deal. If you like that camera, buy it. As long as you use your camera in good light, you will love it.
Group 2: Looking for the best DSLR **for you**:
If you know what you are looking for, you have a right to choose your camera LOL. Make a list of things you need and you are allowed 4 to 14 hours to do your research to find out a camera that best meets your requirements. Don't spend more time than that. Now you can spend 40 hours or even 400 days to wait for the camera to be available in your budget. Or you can go on  www.amazon.com and make your purchase.
* Mirrorless or Hybrid cameras are as good as bulky DSLRs. However they are easy to carry around and people are more likely to give you more candid poses in front of a small mirrorless camera or awkward looking Pentax K-01 than in front of a professional looking DSLR.
If you are an AUTO-only user, you should seriously consider latest Olympus, Panasonic or Sony NEX cameras. If you can look beyond Canon and Nikon, you should also consider Pentax cameras. They offer the best value IMO. I have photos with variety of cameras on my Flickr. Most of the photos are with cameras that costed less than $500 ;) See then below.

Cameras Are Not Bad. Sometimes they are used in bad light. Or in bad situations.

It is funny sometimes a prospective DSLR buyer not liking Canon T4i because his friend is not happy with it. Ironically, his friend may be using the camera, without knowing anything about it, in AUTO mode indoor or in low light. No entry level camera will do a good job in low light unless you know to boost up ISO or use a fast lens or a tripod (if you are shooting a landscape or a sun-set). A $100 camera, 5-6 year old model, off of eBay will take as good photo as a $1000 camera in outdoor good light. Even your iPhone will take good photos outdoor. However start using the same camera indoor or in low light and you will see most cameras start failing miserably. Doesn't matter if it is T3i, or D3200. Or even T6i!!!

Some Tips to get the best out of your first DSLR

Instead of searching for "best DSLR", you should spend your time to learn things that can help you take better photos with your camera.
1) Read photography blogs or tips online to be a better photographer. Any camera can do only limited things but with some tips, you will be able to take your camera to the next level. You will have better chances for better photos.
2) Buy some prime fast lens like 35mm or 50mm with F1.8 or so. For Canon or Nikon, you can get one for around $100-$150. With this lens, your DSLR will be able to take photos in low light too. Plus for taking photos for people and pets, they give nice bokeh- background blurring that you see in portraits taken by professionals.
3) Read your camera manual. You will be amazed to know how much your camera can do besides that AUTO button.
4) Work with your camera. Your camera can do only certain things for you. When you are taking a photo, it tries to guess what it is shooting and would set up Aperture, Shutterspeed, ISO, color mode etc to shoot a photo for you. Many times that piece of glass (I mean lens) and that sensor does not know that you shooting in backlight or in snow. It does not kow if you are taking photo outside in broad sunlight or indoor well-lit place. If camera does not know accurately what it is shooting,  it will probably give you a bad photo. Now instead of blaming your camera for a bad photo, if you are willing to work with your camera, your camera can take better photos for you. Learn some basic photography tips and help out your camera when it struggles. Set a proper mode like Portrait, Landscape, Macro, Sports and tell your camera where and what you are shooting. If your camera takes too bright or too dark photos, set the Exposure Compensation and tell camera to take less or more light. With your little help, you and your camera can make a great pair and together you will be able to take better photos.

Enjoy Photography. If you like this article, please share it on Facebook or Twitter. Free your friend who is deciding for last 6 months whether to buy Canon T6i or Nikon D3400!

-Jayesh Patel