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Having recently taken some toddler portrait shots and passport photos for a young lass in the village, she and her family are about to go travelling in Asia and she asked my advice on what camera to get because she wanted more than her iphone.
Although a long-time Canon user, when people ask me what camera to get I always ask what they want to get out of their photography: there's no use in recommending something that's so complicated that they're never going to use it. I knew she wanted to travel light (on the road with a 14-month old, she wouldn't want to be taking a lot of kit!) I knew she was interested in macro as well as family portraits so my initial recommendations were for one of the Sony RX100 range (whatever she could afford) or, if she wanted something a little larger, a Nikon P900 bridge. I also suggested she look on somewhere like MPB because she wasn't sure what type of camera she wanted and whether she wanted to go for a DSLR.
Two weeks later, I got the call - I've been on MPB and bought an SL1 and the kit lens and can I have a lesson before I go travelling? That all got a little delayed as I had a minor day case op but 2 weeks off work so as the weather was forecast fine this morning, off we went for a walk around the village. To keep her company, I dug out my old 17-55 kit lens but the 550d battery was flat so it was stuck on the EOS-R with an adaptor. That reduces the size of the images from around 30mb to about 13mb as the R applies a crop when EF-S lenses are used. I still think it's very handy to be able to use EF-S fit lenses on a full frame, and have had some nice results with the 10-16mm.
I found it a bit of a challenge, but an enjoyable one. At first she was very reluctant to come off auto, but by the end of our 90 minute stroll she was using aperture and program quite happily. The SL1/100d is very very light, and the controls are somewhat limited. I was always very glad to see the back of only 9 focus points, but found that when used in live view (being used to a camera phone, the way a lot of people start) you could use the touch screen to set a focus point. Bless her, she wanted to pay me but I'm always happy to hopefully introduce someone to the joys of photography (although as this is the 3rd lesson I've given this year, perhaps I should start charging!)
All of the images were taken with the 17-55 f3.5-5.6 kit lens.
Although a long-time Canon user, when people ask me what camera to get I always ask what they want to get out of their photography: there's no use in recommending something that's so complicated that they're never going to use it. I knew she wanted to travel light (on the road with a 14-month old, she wouldn't want to be taking a lot of kit!) I knew she was interested in macro as well as family portraits so my initial recommendations were for one of the Sony RX100 range (whatever she could afford) or, if she wanted something a little larger, a Nikon P900 bridge. I also suggested she look on somewhere like MPB because she wasn't sure what type of camera she wanted and whether she wanted to go for a DSLR.
Two weeks later, I got the call - I've been on MPB and bought an SL1 and the kit lens and can I have a lesson before I go travelling? That all got a little delayed as I had a minor day case op but 2 weeks off work so as the weather was forecast fine this morning, off we went for a walk around the village. To keep her company, I dug out my old 17-55 kit lens but the 550d battery was flat so it was stuck on the EOS-R with an adaptor. That reduces the size of the images from around 30mb to about 13mb as the R applies a crop when EF-S lenses are used. I still think it's very handy to be able to use EF-S fit lenses on a full frame, and have had some nice results with the 10-16mm.
I found it a bit of a challenge, but an enjoyable one. At first she was very reluctant to come off auto, but by the end of our 90 minute stroll she was using aperture and program quite happily. The SL1/100d is very very light, and the controls are somewhat limited. I was always very glad to see the back of only 9 focus points, but found that when used in live view (being used to a camera phone, the way a lot of people start) you could use the touch screen to set a focus point. Bless her, she wanted to pay me but I'm always happy to hopefully introduce someone to the joys of photography (although as this is the 3rd lesson I've given this year, perhaps I should start charging!)
All of the images were taken with the 17-55 f3.5-5.6 kit lens.
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