Photography - Cameras

Camera is one of the most important elements of your photography; it captures the light in order to create the image you want. Again remember it just captures the light you do rest of the things!
What we need to remember is buying a expensive high end camera may not give you the best picture. Also if you are interested to pursue it as serious hobby, look at the overall cost of additional lenses, filters, batteries, storage and additional hard disk, printing etc.
Cameras can be classified in multiple ways and there is a huge overlap between various camera segments. One way to look at is Analog/ Film based Camera and Digital Camera or based on the features it provides.
Since it is era of Digital Cameras; let’s focus on the types of Digital Cameras. Before that I want to clear the myth about Mega Pixels (MP) in digital cameras.
See the illustration above; same number of pixels are placed on both the sensors. As the number of MP increases it can store more information and better quality but it also depends on the size of the pixel that depends on the size of the sensor.
It is not only the pixels but also the size of the sensor is important.
Digital Camera’s can be placed under
· Point shoot cameras (Compacts)
· Prosumer (Bridge)
· Digital single lens reflex cameras(DSLR)
Point shoot cameras compact, lightweight and great for point-and-shoot photo-taking. Affordability and compactness makes it very attractive for general purpose photography. Approximate price range is from Rs 5000 to Rs20,000
Prosumer or Bridge levels between a professional and compact camera. It has light weight and affordability of the compact camera and range of features of a professional camera. These cameras provide wide range of features including manual mode for creative shooting. It has varied zoom lens capacity which is useful for macro to wild life photography.
Approximate price range Rs. 18,000- 40,000
Digital single lens reflex cameras(DSLR)
The main advantage of DSL is large image sensor (and bigger pixels) . Photographs can be enlarged for printing. Other advantage is; it provides the facility to interchange lenses thus giving you wide range of options from macro to landscapes to wildlife.
DSLR starts around Rs 28,000 and goes till few lakhs. (plus lens anywhere between Rs. 3000 to few lakhs). If you are serious it is worth to invest in DSLR.
Hope this gives some idea about the world of cameras.