Budget Photography: Why get a DSLR?

I often get the question, “Why get a DSLR?” from beginners who have been told by other photographers to get DSLRs. My first reaction is, “You don’t, unless you really need to.” and “Google it.” And if you do search for it, you’ll find tons of useful articles, especially one from Digital Photography School.

But since I’m writing about budget photography and how to cut down on spending in this hobby, i’m going to give you some points to consider before buying a DSLR.

Before anything else, I’d like to make one thing straight, buying anything out of peer pressure is a bad idea. If someone tells you to get a DSLR because it will make you a better photographer and look cool, think again.

If you’re just starting out in photography I suggest you learn the basic skills like composition and lighting FIRST before investing on gear. Having all the gear in the world wouldn’t make you a good photographer if you don’t even know the basics of these two skills. Any decent point and shoot camera with manual settings control can be a good learning tool for composition and lighting. You don’t have to shell out hundreds of dollars or even thousands just to learn what the difference of adjusting aperture, shutter speed and ISO would do to you photos.

If you’ve read on, and learned the basics already and:

you think your point and shoot isn’t cutting it anymore;

your cellphone camera is not good enough for taking photos other than your self portraits;

you now have the budget to buy a DSLR;

or you think getting a DSLR will take your photography skills to the next level;

or for whatever reason you have, you now need to have some points to say when people ask you, “Why buy a DSLR?”.

Here are some reasons that would justify a DSLR purchase and what I think about these reasons.

Image quality
If you compare an image taken by a point and shoot and a photo taken by a DSLR, given that all settings are equal and resolution is the same, the DSLR photo would generally be better. Again I said generally, not always, but generally. It used to be always better, but with the advent of newer Point and Shoot cameras like the Panasonic LX3 and other similar enthusiast cameras the difference just got smaller in terms of sharpness, clarity and color.
One rebuttal to this justification is that once you print both pictures (from point and shoot and DSLR) the difference would be hardly noticeable on an 4×6 or even an 8×10 print.
Ok some would argue that with digital photography, most photos are now just seen on computer screens from online photo sharing sites. On a computer monitor, the full difference of the two would be noticeable. Let’s just assume that it is, but do you really view a photo at 3.2 Megapixel resolution on the web? A 17” monitor wouldn’t even be enough to display the whole photo, in full resolution. That’s why we have the term web size or around 640×480 pixels. So whatever resolution your image was, you’d be shrinking it (downsizing is the techie term for it) to 640 pixels on the long side. So if you have an 8MP photo (3504×2336 pixels) you’ll resize it to 640×427 pixels. There goes all that resolution, image sharpness, clarity and color.

Lens Interchangeability
Ok this one is, for me, one of the selling points of DSLRs. You’re not stuck to your cameras’ lens, and you can change it for whatever purpose or situation.
But if you’re going for range vs cost, you can get a 15x superzoom digital point and shoot camera for the price of a telephoto lens of a lesser range. That’s getting a zoom range of 28-432mm for a price of a 70-300mm telephoto zoom lens. So if you just want the range and just the average image quality, just get a super zoom digital camera like the Sony H-series or the Canon S-series. Also take note that with DSLRs, the lenses will be more expensive than your camera bodies, because you need to spend a lot for quality lenses.

Real time shooting
Again, this is another major selling point of DSLRs. When you click the shutter button, the camera takes the photo. With most point and shoots, you click the shutter button, a slight lag time, then the camera takes the photo. How many wonderful moments have you missed capturing because of that darn lag time?

Low light and High ISO capability
This is related to image quality. The maximum useful ISO of most point and shoot cameras is 200. At ISO 400 some can still look good at smaller resolutions or in printouts. With the latest digital cameras that have high ISO features, you’re just getting a high ISO value of 800-1600 and a overdose of a noise reduction feature. Don’t expect good results.
Most DSLRs can produce photos that are generally noise free up to ISO 400, and still usable upto 800 and 1600. Some, like the wonderful Nikon D3 have useful images upto ISO 12800 or higher (they say).
But why would you want to have low light shooting capabilities if you’re camera has a flash? The answer is, there are situations that don’t allow you to use your flash like in some in churches, museums, events or places where flash photography is not allowed, for example at the Singapore Night Safari.

So far I’ve tried my best to show you the practicality of getting a point and shoot over a DSLR. My reason? it’s not just the camera that takes good pictures, it’s the photographer who framed the shot and pressed the button. Avoid people who tell you that the gear will make you look good or an even better photographer. Most of the times people saying that are gear heads (camera collectors who focus on the photo gear rather than the art of photography itself). Read, Learn and practice: that’s going to help you more than a piece of gear that burned a hole in your wallet. For me, a good photographer can take a good picture even with a camera phone. Peace.

If you found this post interesting, you might enjoy reading my earlier post on buying a DSLR titled “Gear Lust and Buying your first DSLR.”