What camera?

[crinno]

Im new to architectural photography and am looking to buy my forst good camera....im a complete amatuer here but have a great intest in it. What should i look for in a camera, how much should i spend?Any help would be great

[tetratheprincess]

When I bought my camera many people told me to get one with a high effective pixels as it makes the photos clear ...but if u asked me abt my opinion I myself love the song cameras ... specially Song CyberShot

Visit this link
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/sonydscv3/

[Kevin]

What a great classic question.

For starters, architectural photography is a way of seeing and composing to communicate and express buildings in images. Since so much is in "the eye", some good shots can be collected with almost any camera, including a decent pocket-sized digital compact. Look for at least 6 mega-pixels, though.

At the other extreme, the professional contracted for primary documentation on major projects, the specialized medium and large format cameras with flexible bodies and/or tilt/shift lenses, the equipment is extremely expensive.

These days there's a lot of room in the middle, which is what I think you're asking about, so here goes.

For a good amateur camera, with some room to grow into at a reasonable cost, you probably want a solid digital SLR with interchangable lenses. You want a minimum of 6 mega-pixels resolution, with 8MP or more being favorable. You want a camera from a major manufacturer with a full range of additional lense, because as your skills and interest grow, you're likely to want the flexibility of chosing and using a variety of special lenses for different situations.

The most popular choices these days seem to be Canon and Nikon. A good solid flexible digital SLR with a useful wide-range zoom kit lens (the lens that comes with) should cost a chunk under $1000US.

(To the extent you have a choice of basic lenses, you'll find wide and wider to be especially helpful for any interiors.)

You'll want extra memory cards and extra batteries for extended photo shoots and walking tours.

That will probably keep you happy photographing and learning for at least the first year or so!

--
Bottom line: With a mid-range budget, I'd start with one of these:
http://www.dpreview.com/reviews/canoneos400d/
and then learn and grow gradually from there.

See also this thread on architectural photography basics:
http://www.designcommunity.com/forums/topic-14691.html

[Kevin]

Few compact digital cameras go wide-angle enough for effective interiors, or even exteriors in tight urban settings. A few can be equipped with an external wide-angle converter lens.

With or without convertor, watch out for barrel distortion found especially around the edges of the image with many compact digitals, and even some high-end setups. In an architectural interior where straight lines are of the essence, barrel distortion can pretty much ruin an otherwise spot-on image.

[AP]

Also, just to add, look at the sample images for image quality, to enable you to form an opinion on the optical quality and the 'colour technology' going on inside the camera. Because, once you go over 6 megapixels, if the lens optics are shoddy (most aren't, but some are) you can just get a very detailed picture of fuzziness/etc, effectively. Also, purple-fringing at certain zooms can be really annoying in some ranges of digital cameras, if you don't investigate that when buying.

I second the Sony DSC line, have the F717 and its great (5Mp, 3yr old). You can now get D-SLRs for £400, but the lenses are pricey, so it depends what you want. They're also quite big (though so's the sony F series).

Certain "ordinary" cameras have the ability to take threaded filters, add-on lenses, etc., mine included. I bought a fisheye addon on ebay for £14, which is cheap and the optics show it, but for student work its great, same I have a wide and a small telephoto (~£40 each). I happen to like the distorted images that result from fisheyes. The ability to take filters is not to be underestimate, since an ND8 means you can do long exposure shots in daylight, which is very very nice, if you like that stuff... and can be bothered to set the shots up.

If you're into a certain style of photography, watch the burst-mode speed; catching people mid-stride/etc is a nice look, but needs an informed choice of camera.

It depends, to be honest, on how serious you want to be/what the end result is to be used for. Student/own enjoyment is different to professional. Dpreview is a very very good website for the camera-hunter though.

Suggest something that takes lithium batteries- with them you can shoot all day often, rather than for a half-hour on 2 AAs. Lately, you can also get "optical lens stablisation" on ordinary digicams now, which many people love for "tourist shot" use; not heard that it has downsides.