I use a Minolta Dimage 7 digital camera, which is discontinued. The Konica-Minolta company will be leaving the camera business soon, but there are a large number of great digital cameras available from other companies: it's a huge buisness these days. Nikon, Sony, and Canon are big names that make quality products.
If I were to get a new camera now, I'd look for at least these basic features, which I use all of the time: optical zoom lens (not digital zoom); tripod socket; ability to control exposure manually; RAW photo capture (which allows for adjustment of color balance using the computer software); high image pixel-count; quality optics; either a timer or remote shutter release (to avoid camera shake on the tripod), and manual focus.
It's almost true that you can take good photos with any camera. It is important to know the rules of composition, and then you also have to get the right subject for the photo. That being said, my very first digital camera was very cheap and produced fuzzy photos that looked bad even when they were small: forget about enlargement. I then bought the Minolta, which was a dissapointment, until I learned how to better use it. Before I got the Minolta working OK, I found a little Olympus for $75: it was limited, but the photos looked great!
My camera, all on its own, it doesn't take good pictures, since it uses a color scheme that looks very pale or washed out when the photos are put out on the web. See my oldest photos on this site for examples of this washed-out look. So I use either the software that comes with the camera or other software in order to convert the colors so that they look acceptable on the web. I've been having great progress with Photoshop CS2 lately, however, it is just a 30-day trial download from adobe.com, so I'll be back to using the software that came with my Mac, "Graphic Converter" along with the GIMP image editing software.
There is a tendency for photographers to want to "fix it in Photoshop" instead of taking the picture right to begin with. Although some tweaking in Photoshop is inevitable, it's easer having acceptable results if you take the photo right to begin with.
These latest photos look better on Windows machines compared to my Mac: I still don't have (or don't know about) a good process to make the photos look good under all circumstances. Also, I am starting to make hard copies of the photos for sale, and this requires a different process for good effect.
I've been to Kansas City and I know that you have good architecture there, too. However, I tend to limit my church photography to premodern architecture.
Beautiful pictures. As a Kansas Citian, I must say that St. Louis Catholics are lucky in the architecture department. What kind of camera did you use?
ReplyDeleteI use a Minolta Dimage 7 digital camera, which is discontinued. The Konica-Minolta company will be leaving the camera business soon, but there are a large number of great digital cameras available from other companies: it's a huge buisness these days. Nikon, Sony, and Canon are big names that make quality products.
ReplyDeleteIf I were to get a new camera now, I'd look for at least these basic features, which I use all of the time: optical zoom lens (not digital zoom); tripod socket; ability to control exposure manually; RAW photo capture (which allows for adjustment of color balance using the computer software); high image pixel-count; quality optics; either a timer or remote shutter release (to avoid camera shake on the tripod), and manual focus.
It's almost true that you can take good photos with any camera. It is important to know the rules of composition, and then you also have to get the right subject for the photo. That being said, my very first digital camera was very cheap and produced fuzzy photos that looked bad even when they were small: forget about enlargement. I then bought the Minolta, which was a dissapointment, until I learned how to better use it. Before I got the Minolta working OK, I found a little Olympus for $75: it was limited, but the photos looked great!
My camera, all on its own, it doesn't take good pictures, since it uses a color scheme that looks very pale or washed out when the photos are put out on the web. See my oldest photos on this site for examples of this washed-out look. So I use either the software that comes with the camera or other software in order to convert the colors so that they look acceptable on the web. I've been having great progress with Photoshop CS2 lately, however, it is just a 30-day trial download from adobe.com, so I'll be back to using the software that came with my Mac, "Graphic Converter" along with the GIMP image editing software.
There is a tendency for photographers to want to "fix it in Photoshop" instead of taking the picture right to begin with. Although some tweaking in Photoshop is inevitable, it's easer having acceptable results if you take the photo right to begin with.
These latest photos look better on Windows machines compared to my Mac: I still don't have (or don't know about) a good process to make the photos look good under all circumstances. Also, I am starting to make hard copies of the photos for sale, and this requires a different process for good effect.
I've been to Kansas City and I know that you have good architecture there, too. However, I tend to limit my church photography to premodern architecture.