I want to give beginners an idea of photography and what is really necessary to take nice pictures. I myself am far from being a professional. I would rather call myself an advanced enthusiast. To me photography is a hobby that doesn´t require much and can be done almost anywhere. You can find interesting motifs to photograph everywhere. Apart from taking pictures I also collect cameras and literally everything related to photography.

Sometimes friend ask me to suggest a camera they can buy as a beginner, or which camera or lens I would recommend to them. My guide for beginners will not be comprehensive, that would require much more time and maybe also knowledge. Hence I will focus on simple explanations to make it easier for a beginner to follow and understand the basics and requirements.

1. Basic knowledge
   1. Principle
   1. Brief history
   1. Sensor & mega pixel
   1. Define my purpose of taking pictures
2. Grandfathers of the modern cameras
   1. TLR – Twin lens reflex
   1. SLR – Single lens reflex
   1. Point & Shot
3. Camera categories
   1. DSLR/DSLM
   1. Bridge cameras
   1. Point & Shot
   1. Smartphone
4. Cameras to consider
   1. DSLR/DSLM
   1. Bridge cameras
   1. Point & Shot
   1. Smartphone
5. Other equipment
   1. Lens
   1. Tripod/Monopod/Ball head
   1. Flash
   1. Camera bag
   1. other gadgets

Part 1. Basic knowledge

In the first part of my guide I want to give some information to understand how photography and especially digital photography works. So let´s get started with some basic knowledge.

1. Principle

To start with a simple thing, a camera is a device capturing a picture through a hole. The most simple version of this principle is the camera obscura, which uses the natural fact, that light falling through a hole in a box, or even a rooms wall (room = camera in Latin), can project a picture of the outside.

This is a picture of such a camera obscura. As you can see, the picture of the candle inside the box is upside down and in fact also mirrored. This happens, because optical elements are missing. Basically it happens, because light is always moving straight.

1. Brief history

So the development of photography began with the camera obscura.

– the first ever mentioned camera obscura was described by Aristoteles around 400 before Chr.
– the first permanent pictures was captured in 1826 (heliographie)
– around 1841 development of the positive – negative process

– 1889 George Eastman presents the first film on roll

– 1925 first 35mm camera by Leica

– 1936 invention of the color film (Kodakchrome, Agfacolor)

– first SLR prism mechanism

– 1948 the first Polaroid camera is available

– 1954 Leica presents the first bayonet system for interchangeable lenses

– 1956 first camera with aperture priority (Agfa Automatic 66)

– 1957 the first ever digital picture is captured

– 1963 Canon introduced the first camera with autofocus

– 1970s electronic sensors are arriving in cameras

– 1990s the first digital camera becomes commercially available

Even though digital cameras are available for 30 years now, film cameras are still around and still used by enthusiasts, 35 mm film is still available.

1. Sensor & mega pixel

The sensor size is important for the possible resolution of the final picture. To put it in simple words, the larger the sensor, the more detailed information will be stored in the image file. The more detailed information is captured, the better the quality of the image becomes.

Most people relate a high count of megapixel to a high picture quality. In fact the megapixel count only defines the number of color channel receptors on the sensor. The three primary colors are RGB (red, green, blue) which make white when all are combined.

A sensor with 10 MP captures approx. 10 MB per channel, if you capture an image of a perfectly white surface. Since in an average picture you´ll never have a full coverage of each channel, you end up with an image size of approx. 3 MB as compression of the files takes place after the image is taken.

To understand the whole picture, we need to take the sensor size into the calculation.

The most common sensor sizes in use nowadays are:

Picture source: https://www.newatlas.com

The above picture shows a variety of common sensors used in modern equipment. It is pretty good visible from this chart, how the sensors of smaller cameras and even smartphones compare to the full frame sensor professional cameras are equipped with.

A full frame sensor covers an area of 36×24 mm (864 mm²), while the top of the notch 108MP sensor of latest smartphones only has a size of 9,6×7,2mm (69,12mm²). Which is only 1/12,5 of the size. Or in other words, the 108 MP sensor is 12,5 times smaller than a full frame sensor.

Hence, even though a smartphone sensor might have a significant higher pixel count than a DSLR, the total collected information sums up to a larger image file, containing more information.

Here´s a quick calculation to compare both:

*Now we need to know that the sum of the three channels is only the RAW data from the sensor which is converted into a compressed JPG file.

**The resulting RAW file has a size of approx.. 20 MB, while a compressed JPG file still ends up with around 5-7 MB.

There is for sure much more detailed information, if you want to investigate further, you may have a look to Wikipedia with the following search words:
image sensor ; megapixel ; history

1. Define my purpose of taking pictures

For a beginner it is probably not easy to tell which field of photography they want to explore. Therefore it might be difficult to tell which camera equipment is the right one for you.

But if you use your smartphone for photography a lot, you have a good way to get an idea which field you may be interested in. Check your recent pictures and group them. Here are some ideas for you how to sort your pictures:

• portrait (you like to take pictures of people)
• sport (sport events fascinate you)
• fashion (you like clothing of any kind)
• architectural (buildings are your passion)
• travel (you the wanderlust fever)
• lifestyle/social media (you like to share your life)
• landscape (you like the nature)
• animal (the wild fauna is your guilty pleasure)
• macro (you like to have a close look to everything)
• street (you like to walk around and see the street life)

These categories may give you an idea to how sort your existing picture to find your niche. Based on this I´ll suggest suitable cameras in the following blog posts.

So stay tuned for the next part of my series.

To be continued……