kristian's blog

i get this question sometimes too. the easy answer is: ALL OF THEM!
well… sort of. there are lots of folks out there that want to step-up their photography skills and feel as though the logical step is to purchase a digital SLR camera. while this is logical, the problem that most run into is that they feel that their photography will jump leaps and bounds once this happens. people get too caught up in the camera body and forget that the point is in the USE of it.

people at weddings ask me all the time “hey! what camera do you use? how many megapixels is that thing??”. the short answer is, IT DOESN’T MATTER!

honestly, it really doesn’t. i’ve got images that lots of brides say are just amazing that i have blown up to 24×36 prints at my home and those images were taken with cameras that have only half the mexapixels of my current gear. it really doesn’t matter. remember its the image that matters, not the gear that was used to get it.

that being said, nikon, canon, sony, all of them make some great digital SLR cameras and some great beginner/entry-level digital SLR’s. many can be had for as little as around $600 which i think is a really amazing deal! the great thing about digital SLR’s is not that they look professional, its that you can do so much with them. a lot of folks buy a cheap SLR camera with the cheap little kit lens that comes with it and then they do nothing else. to me, thats defeating the point of buying them at all and that money would have been better spent on a great point-n-shoot camera. to anyone that wanted good advice, i’d say buy one of those entry-level digital SLR’s from nikon or canon or sony and then buy a couple good lenses and a good flash. there’s so much you can do to make your images more creative by purchasing different lenses, ultra-wide lenses, special effect lenses (like a fisheye), macro lenses, and my favorite: high-speed prime lenses. and a good external flash/speedlite is a MUST. this will allow you to do so much more than simple direct-flash (which almost always is the least appealing way to use flash).

so to sum up: don’t worry about the latest thing, don’t worry about lots of megapixels, don’t worry about spending tons on a digital SLR body. buy some good lenses and a flash and go out there and shoot and most importantly: HAVE FUN!!!