The best camera is the one that is with you
Published: July 8, 2010
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As Virgin Islanders we are blessed to live in one of the most beautiful places in the world. My morning commute alone contains at least half a dozen vistas worthy of a postcard and every time I see a gorgeous view of turquoise water dotted with cays or a flamboyant in full bloom the thought is always the same — “I have got to start taking more pictures!”
But what is the best camera to buy? Being the techie that I am, obviously I am going to choose a digital camera. The advantages of digital over film are obvious — you can shoot as many photos as you want without worrying about how much film you are using, you can immediately check and see if you got the shot that you wanted, and if you have an appropriate printer you can print only your very best shots whenever you want. Unfortunately, just saying that you want a digital camera is like saying you want hot food for dinner — you have narrowed down the choices a bit but not nearly enough to make a decision.
Part of the difficulty in choosing a digital camera is that everyone you talk to will have a different idea about what the most important aspect of digital camera is.
Some people will insist that the most important thing is the number of megapixels your camera has; the more the better. These people tend to be camera salespeople who don’t actually know much about photography. A megapixel is 1,000,000 pixels. All photos are made up a series of colored dots arranged on a grid — these dots are called pixels. The more pixels you have the more detail your finished image will have, but how much detail do you really need? Are you planning on making lots of enlargements bigger than 8x10, or radically cropping your shots down to just a small section of the whole image? If not, than any camera with three to five megapixels will be more than enough. What most people don’t realize and what the camera manufacturer’s marketing departments are unlikely to tell you is there are diminishing returns on megapixel counts — simply put, the way the math works out a 10 Megapixel camera is marginally better than a 5 Megapixel camera but it definitely is not twice as good.
The next group of people will tell you that the most important thing to know about any digital camera is the special features. These are the people who will spend a week researching each purchase and will then spend two weeks memorizing the instruction manual the size of the latest Stephen King novel. Camera makers play into this urge by constantly trying to differentiate their product from all the others on the market by building in special gimmicks that no one else has and, to be honest, some of these are very cool. The newest Sony cameras have a panoramic mode that takes great looking wide shots just by pressing the shutter and panning the camera from side to side, and Samsung has recently released cameras that have LCD display screens on the front and back of the camera so that you can take easier self-portraits. At the end of the day if these or similar features appeal to you, by all means get that camera. But before you do ask yourself, “How often will I really use this feature?”
The last group of people will tell you that the only thing that really matters in any camera is the quality of the lens and you need to have a camera on which the lens can be changed. These people tend to have subscriptions to one or more photography magazines, tend to take their hobby pretty seriously and spend lots of money on it. Technically, all their arguments are correct. No matter how many megapixels or what feature set your camera has, any image your camera captures has to pass through the lens first and will be altered by that passage. The problem for me is that lens acquisition, once it starts, is a lot like the Cold War arms race — there is no logical end in sight. If you decide to go this route expect to spend at least $1,000 on your initial setup and almost that much for each additional lens you want. You can also expect a much steeper learning curve and carrying a heavy bag whenever you want to go out shooting. The payoff is that you will have the capability to take some truly professional looking pictures.
Personally I disagree with all these points of view. In my opinion, the very best camera for any situation is whatever camera you have with you when you see that perfect shot. I may have a top of the line camera with the best lens that money can buy but if I am fumbling to assemble all my complicated lens and filters the guy next to me with a $200 Canon point and shoot will be the one going home with a picture of that glorious sunset and I will be going home disappointed.
In fact, most of you reading this probably already own the best camera you need for 90 percent of the photo opportunities you will encounter on a daily basis and might even have it on your person right now. I am of course referring to the camera that is built into your cell phone. Often overlooked, most phones have cameras built in and the quality of those cameras have been increasing each year. The latest version of the iPhone has a 5 Megapixel camera and Samsung has had a phone with a 12 Megapixel camera on the market for over a year now.
The idea of creating fine photography with camera phones is hardly an idea that’s original to me. Art photographer Chase Jarvis is the one who coined the phrase, “The best camera is the one that’s with you” and he has a book by the same name that showcases his art photography all taken with the iPhone’s built in camera and edited with basic photo editing software. His website thebestcamera.com has thousands of examples of beautiful pictures taken by people all over the world using camera phones. For those of you with iPhones, his app The Best Camera provides all the editing tools that he uses in one convenient package.
Ultimately, the camera doesn’t matter nearly as much as the person behind it. The best way to become a good photographer is to take lots of photos. So, grab whatever camera is close at hand and start shooting.
