5 Important Criteria of Camera To Consider Besides High ISO and Megapixel Count

The two main criteria that have been rigorously pushed by most camera manufacturers these days, and worshiped by camera users are surely megapixels count and high ISO performance of the camera. I do acknowledge the importance of advancing camera technologies and that mainly revolves around getting higher pixel count as well as cleaner low light shooting with high ISO sensitives, but in all seriousness, are these two the only two concerns which most people are considering, sidelining many other crucial factors of camera capabilities? I have mentioned this again and again, when it comes to real life shooting, photography in the field is practical, and in this blog entry I shall discuss these practical importance from my own experience. 

If you somehow need to produce images with high pixel count (professional photography job requirements, eg commercial shoots), or if your photography assignment require you to shoot a black cat in the dark, unlit alley, then go ahead and get the right tool for the right job. However, 95% or more of the consumers in the market buying digital cameras are NOT professional photographers, that is the truth, and these end users purchase cameras to be used for pursuing their hobby in photography. For most situations, any entry level cameras in the market (yes, I am talking about any brands now, Canon, Nikon, Samsung, Panasonic, Sony, Fuji, feel free to add in any brand of your choice) can deliver more than sufficient image quality to produce beautiful large prints, and surely stunning images viewed on any electronic screen, provided that the camera user knows what he or she is doing with the camera. There is NO bad camera these days. And if you have more cash to spend on mid-level camera, or high end professional grade cameras, with better lenses, I do not see how any cameras or lenses cannot deliver high image quality.

The main question to ask now, to decide which camera to buy: how confident are you to nail the critical shot with the camera of choice? That confidence factor is what separates a camera that can deliver. 

1) Fast, Accurate and Reliable Autofocus

To me, autofocus performance sits very high on the priority list of camera considerations. Imagine, a rare, beautiful moment is about to happen in front of you. Your camera is in your hands, it is already turned on, you have set the settings, ready to pounce on your subject. Now, you raise the camera to your eye level (viewfinder), or you may also choose to use the Live View on the LCD display. As you compose your subject in the frame, you half press the shutter button to lock focus. How confident are you that you will nail that shot perfectly? Even if you have that slightest hesitation that your camera/lens will hunt, or miss, then it is just not good enough, because the best photography opportunities happen at the least expected moments, as much as you have prepared for the shots, there are these times when things just decide to happen out of a sudden and you need the camera to be able to grab the shot without failing you. Speed is just one thing, as the camera locks focus, and you press the shutter button to capture the frame, how reliable is the focusing system? Is it accurate? Is it always, always accurate? What is the percentage of hit rate? 50%? 70%? Assuming that you did not do any mistake, your execution was perfect, will the camera decide to back focus or show some other erratic behavior? You see the importance of fast and reliable focus: it does not matter how many megapixels you have in your camera, it does not matter how clean your ISO 1 million image is. I would rather have a 5 Megapixels image with high ISO noise all over the image but have successfully captured the image as I have visualized it, than a 100 Megapixels image with clean ISO 1 million but an out of focus mess, and entirely missed moment. 

2) Image Stabilization

Many people may not consider this to be an important factor when purchasing a camera, but trust me, once you have used some newer cameras with latest image stabilization capabilities, there is just no turning back. The question remains the same: when you shoot with your camera hand-held, how confident are you that you do not suffer any softness or blur of image due to camera shake? Yes, maybe you have super steady hands and you can hold your camera steady, but can you do that consistently, again and again? Many people have asked me how I get my images so sharp in my blog, the FIRST and MOST important thing to do: make sure you are free of any camera shake! Some people may argue that tripods and monopods will help, that is true, if you are shooting a planned event, or a session with nothing fast changing or dynamic. Landscape shooters, or studio work with use of tripod is common. However, out of the general mass camera users, how many actually shoot in a studio, and how many would want to lug around tripods or monopods just to gain the confidence of completely getting rid of camera shake? It all comes down to how sure you are to get the shot, when you use your camera, and a powerful image stabilization adds so much more confidence into that. Being able to hand-hold the camera at slow shutter speed also opens up a whole load of advantages: a) you can shoot at lower ISO numbers, producing cleaner images. Eg using a 50mm lens, instead of shooting at 1/50sec with ISO1600, I can choose to shoot at 1/10sec at ISO400. b) you can do creative shots, like panning or capturing motion in the images without the need of using a tripod. 

All images were taken with Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II and M.Zuiko 25mm F1.8 and 45mm F1.8 lenses

Love for Mr Bean

This kid was rather camera shy, and would always look away when a camera was pointed at his direction. Knowing that, I remained by his side for a few minutes, and when he let his guard down, I immediately pointed my camera at him and snapped this shot, so fast that the frame was fired before he had a chance to react to me. This is the best example to describe the need for super fast and reliable Autofocus to nail the shot at critical moments. I knew with full confidence the camera won't fail me, I just needed the opportunity to present itself and I pounced on it. 

Brotherly Love

Signboards

Elvis Presley

Blue Vs Yellow

Break

Unwanted Leaves

Portrait of a Stranger

Yellow Noodles

3) Mobility

Mirrorless revolution in digital photography has resulted in newer cameras and lenses to be smaller and lighter, and much easier to carry around, which is a great thing. If you have an absolute need to use a larger camera systems (for your professional work, etc) then I will not give you further comments, but you know well enough my blog is written to mostly photography enthusiasts who shoot mostly for hobby, and more appropriately put: for fun. Then if you are a hobbyist and a passionate photography enthusiast, what is the fun in bringing out a super large and heavy cameras, weighing so much that by the end of the day you suffer from shoulder pains, neck aches and possible long term back problems? I have friends who have used DSLR system for so long that they now have permanent complications on their backs, and also another friend who hand-held a long, large lens on a professional grade full frame camera which resulted in broken wrist! If you do not need to deliver to clients or do photography for a living, then why pay for such consequences? The joy of freedom is in carrying much smaller and far lighter systems. Have I not mentioned that best photography opportunities happen at least expected situations, and if your camera is so large and heavy, high chances are you won't be bringing it out most of the time! After all, we all know that the best camera is the one you have with you at all times. 

4) Image Quality Straight Out of Camera

Most people would refer to the pure RAW headroom when it comes to image quality of any camera: how much details can be squeezed out of the RAW file, how much highlight retention or shadow recovery possible? While I do agree that the RAW capability is the ultimate judge of how good the image quality of the camera is, that is not actually practical for every day camera users. Say, you go for a family trip to Bali Indonesia for a week. You went trigger happy because so many beautiful subjects and moment came to you, you shot an average of about 800-1000 images a day. You come home from that holiday with about what... almost 10,000 images in total? Will you seriously post-process all the files? No, to me, as important as the RAW image quality is, I also highly value the quality of in camera JPEG processing. How good are the images straight out of camera? Is the white balance good enough, are the colors balanced and look pleasing without the need to do much adjustment? Are the technical flaws being corrected? Chromatic aberration, high ISO noise control, and barrel distortion correction? Don't you think it would make your life sooooooo much better if your camera takes camera of all these corrections inside the camera, and you get optimized, ready to go, beautiful images straight out of camera? Why spend so much time in front of your computer doing post-processing just to correct for these flaws, while you can spend more time to go out and shoot? To me, 90% of the fun in photography is being out there, on the ground, hunting for new images!

5) Camera Ergonomics & Handling
Some would argue that this is the most important point, and I shall not disagree. If you are going to spend money on a camera system which you will use most of the time, you have to ask yourself: how good does the camera/lens feel in your hand? Is it comfortable? Does it feel balanced in your hand? If you are going to use the camera for long hours, will you be tired from hand-holding it? These are extremely crucial points, after all comfort and user experience are half of the fun of using the camera. No body wants a joyless camera! How are the button placements, do they make sense, are the dials easily reachable, are the important settings of the camera quickly accessible? You may think that you are using the best camera (seriously, there is such a thing?) and the most expensive lens, but what is the point of that when you feel tired of using that combo within 5 minutes of hand-holding, and all the controls and settings were messy and not practically set up? This is why I always, always advice new camera purchasers to find the camera that they want to buy (see a friend who has the camera) and try it in their own hands! Or at least visit the camera shop and try the camera first, make sure the camera feels alright, after all, if it feels wrong, it will always be wrong no matter how you trick your mind to believe otherwise. If you have been following my own camera reviews here in this blog, you must also remember that I have made my own complains on certain aspects on some cameras that I dislike.

Red vs Black&White

Height

Morning News

Hanging Out

Write

Father & Daughter

Security

Diagonals

Flight

To me, a camera is a the photographer's tool to realize his vision, and to create a photograph, there is a lot more than just megapixels and high ISO. If I were to draw a parallel to a samurai choosing his katana (sword), surely he is not looking for ultimate sharpness of the blade only. There are considerations of how durable the blade is, how heavy, or light the blade should be, and how comfortable the hilt/hand-gripping area is. Even the size of the katana of choice affects the fighting style of the samurai. 

Do you agree with my list of considerations? There is no perfect camera that has and can do everything, in every camera choice, there is compromise in one or more area, and we just have to decide what works best for what we shoot, and which suits our photography approach best. 

My Shutter Therapy gear this weekend. 

Olympus OM-D E-M10 Mark II, M.Zuiko 25mm F1.8 and 45mm F1.8

Seen in photo but not used, 9mm F8 Fisheye Body Cap Lens

This was my first shutter therapy since.... 3 weeks ago. Gosh, I have not had a good street shooting session for 3 long weeks! Work has been terribly busy, and was I glad to be able to roam on the streets again. Location was Petaling Street and KL Sentral area. 

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