Everyone's Photography Style is Different, so do your Research!

〰️

Everyone's Photography Style is Different, so do your Research! 〰️

Before you get out there and start taking photos, you need to stop and evaluate your gear. I do want to stress that while having a dedicated DSLR or Mirrorless (differences discussed below!) will increase the quality and flexibility of your photos, you can still take excellent shots with just a phone or a point-and-shoot. For the purpose of this particular post, I’m going to be assuming you’re looking for a DSLR or Mirrorless camera (commonly also referred to as “Interchangeable Lens Cameras”). These are the best options for maximum quality, but with those improvements come significantly higher costs.

Now I do promise to actually get to my primary setup when taking photos, but before I do, I need to discuss some things that’ll help you figure out what works best. My style of photography might be completely different from yours, and that’ll require vastly different choices when it comes to gear.

All of the information from below comes from research I have done over a pretty long while, and from conversations I’ve had with other photographers. The goal here is to put forward all the information I found valuable when deciding what setup I would normally use. That being said, this is not the be-all end-all of guides. This is more of a starting point for you to do your own research. Now, let’s get into it!

So, DSLR or Mirrorless?

Alright, this is probably one of the most divisive questions as far as photographers that I’ve talked to. From a very basic level, DSLRs or Digital Single Lens Reflex Cameras work by having a mirror drop down in front of the sensor, which reflects light through a set of mirrors and then through the viewfinder for you to see. These cameras are older technology, but they do come with their own benefits. Some of these cameras have excellent sensors that have seen very little punishment, simply because they’re not constantly powered on (spoiler alert: That’s what mirrorless cameras do). Battery life is also similarly excellent, with some older models getting more than a thousand (yes a 1000+!) shots off a single battery. The feeling of a DSLR going off is second to none, because that feeling of the mirror flipping up and down gives you that true feeling of taking photos, pretty much exactly like you’d imagine! And the best part: They’re cheap. I recommend getting DSLRs used off a reputable site like eBay, and if you look for the right things, you can get some truly excellent deals!

Now then, on to Mirrorless Cameras. As the name implies, these cameras do away with the mirror from DSLRs, in favor of just using the sensor all the time. The viewfinder on these cameras is actually a screen (which leads to them being called EVFs or electronic viewfinders). These cameras are relatively new technology, and incorporate most new developments in camera technology. While you might be inclined to stay away from mirrorless cameras because of the aforementioned constant sensor use and worse battery life, they come with their own (in my opinion, long) list of benefits. A lot of these cameras have excellent sensors, with extremely modern technology such as backlit sensors (which improves high ISO performance) and In-Body-Image-Stabilization (IBIS). The EVF also shows you the image as the camera sees it, which gives you a way better understanding of the shot you’re about to take, before you press the shutter button. This is an issue with DSLRs, especially in difficult settings like low light, since your view through a traditional viewfinder makes use of your eyes, which are significantly better in low light than a camera’s sensor, whereas an EVF will give you a much more accurate understanding of what your shot will look like. These camera bodies are also significantly smaller and lighter than their DSLR counterparts, making it easier to carry them around. While battery life is worse than DSLRs, if you use your mirrorless a little smartly, you can still get great battery life and shot count per battery.

To recap:

DSLRs

Older but still great
Great Battery life
Great sensors
Cheaper
That good ol’ camera feeling

Mirrorless

Newer, and newer tech
Decent battery life, but not as good as DSLRs
Excellent sensors
More expensive
Better Stabilization
Better ISO Performance
Lighter and Smaller
Able to shoot photos completely silently, while still being able to use the viewfinder

Before you buy a camera, I do advise trying out each type for yourself, and evaluating your needs. In the end, this is what it comes down to, your needs dictate the type of camera that you need. Before you start doing research though, there’s one more thing we need to discuss: Sensor size.

Sensor Size and Lenses (And a footnote about Resolution)

There are four main sensor sizes:

Micro 4/3rd
Crop (APS-C)
Full-Frame
Medium Format

Most cameras you will see will have either a Crop/APS-C sensor or a full-frame sensor. These names refer to the physical size of the sensor (this doesn’t have anything to do with the resolution/megapixel count of a sensor). The list from above is organized from smallest to largest physical size. As you’d expect, a larger sensor means bigger costs. However, you also need to consider that lenses for bigger sensors are also more expensive, and are physically bigger and heavier than those for smaller sensors.

A Sensor sizing chart. Note that there’s more than four sizes here. Source: CaptureTheAtlas

A general rule of thumb is that the larger the sensor, the better your image quality. This isn’t the whole story of course, since sensor resolution also plays a big role in the quality of your images, but we’ll discuss that later. When I say that sensor size plays a big role, it’s important to know that even sensors smaller than micro 4/3rd sizes will produce excellent quality images, which are miles better than anything your phone can take, simply because the sensor is much higher quality, and the lens it sees the world through is a massive optical improvement over a phone’s sensor/lens combo.

It’s ideal to start with a crop sensor or smaller, since those camera bodies are generally cheaper, as are the lenses, and they still let you get a great feel for photography and how to set up compositions and other things. Again, the best way to get into photography is literally to just get started.

Before we move on to the next section, we need to address another common (trap?) concern. Resolution. Some models have incredible resolution, like the EOS R5’s 45 megapixels or the Sony A7RV’s impressive 61 megapixels. These are absolutely on the higher end of the spectrum when it comes to sensor resolution. A higher resolution sensor will gather more detail in ideal conditions. Gathering more detail allows you to crop in more without losing as much detail, which gives you a lot of flexibility when you’re editing and overall makes your life as a photographer easy. But before you run out and grab an A7RV, it’s important to know that most “professional” camera bodies come with lower resolution sensors, and by a lot. For example, the Canon EOS R3, which is currently the most “pro” level mirrorless camera Canon offers, comes with a 24 megapixel stacked sensor. There are more quirks that come with the sensor in the R3, but those are a little too complex for this section. The point is, you don’t need a high resolution sensor to ensure that you always have the shot. Comparatively lower resolution sensors still give you a massive amount of flexibility, and in a sense, limiting how much you can crop in will help encourage you to really pay attention to the shots you take!

Now then, moving on to the next section, I do recommend upgrading your camera body to a full frame system, at some point in the future (But you do not need to do this, most hobbyists have crop sensors and take excellent shots with them!). Before you do though, there is something you should stop and consider. When you’re using an APS-C system, your lenses will not work as you’d expect on a full frame camera. Most major manufacturers (Canon, Nikon, Sony) will force their full frame sensors to operate as crop sensors so that you can still shoot decent photos. This kills quality big time, for example, my main camera goes from a 30.3 megapixel sensor to an equivalent 9 megapixel sensor when in crop mode (basically removing 2/3 of my resolution). To really unlock the full potential of a full frame system, you have to upgrade your lenses to full frame equivalents. There are designations that help you identify these lenses:

Canon
- EF-S/RF-S: Crop Sensor
- EF/RF: Full Frame
Nikon
- DX: Crop Sensor
- FX: Full Frame
Sony
- E: Crop Sensor
- FE: Full Frame
Sigma (They’re a third party lens manufacturer you’ll see all over the place)
- DC: Crop Sensor
- DG: Full Frame

When you look up a lens, you’ll see designations like these, and you can always find out which lenses are intended for what sensor size. Additionally, a lens intended for full frame cameras will work with cropped sensors perfectly fine, but the opposite will cause issues! For example, let’s decode what this designation means:

RF 24-105mm F2.8 L IS USM Z

RF implies it’s designed for the RF mount system, and the lack of a “-S” implies that it’s meant for a full frame sensor
24-105mm is the focal range. I’ll discuss this below, but at a high level, this is how much zoom the lens offers
F2.8 represents the aperture. Again, I’ll talk about this either below or in a completely different article about choosing lenses, but this dictates how much light enters the lens, and therefore how much light hits the sensor. Lower number → Wider Aperture → More light hitting the sensor → Better Low light performance. There’s more to it than just low light performance, but that’s a little too complex for this section
L designates this lens as a “pro” lens. This designation isn’t unique to Canon, but other brands use different branding to indicate professional lenses. These lenses have better specifications, and more advanced technology, which both makes them better to use and improves image quality, but because of that, they’re insanely expensive
IS tells us that this lens has image stabilization. Image stabilization is tech that physically moves the glass elements inside the lens to account for your hands shaking. This allows you to take photos at slower shutter speeds without your images getting blurry
USM refers to the type of motor used for Autofocus. USM or Ultrasonic Motor is very prevalent across the board, but similar to the professional lens designation, each manufacturer has their own designation for it
Z refers to a very specific property in the canon system. I will admit, when this lens was first announced, I had no idea what the heck this meant. The “Z” designation implies that the lens is compatible with canon power-zoom handles, which allow you to zoom electronically, rather than having to turn the zoom ring on the lens. This is a feature that’s very important to videographers, but as a stills photographer, it doesn’t matter much to me

As we can see, there’s an absolute boatload of information you can get out of a simple, one line lens designation. This is largely how you can read lenses, and understand their capabilities at a glance. Now let’s talk about some finer details about the designations from above!

Focal Range and Aperture

First off, a focal number or range largely refers to the range or level of zoom a lens will offer. The reason I say range or level of zoom is because there’s two real types of lenses: Zooms and Primes. Zoom lenses do exactly what the name says, they zoom. That is, they give you a range of different focal lengths to choose from. The lens from above lets you choose any focal length between 24mm and 105mm. Primes, on the other hand, will have only a single number on them, for example 35mm is a very common prime focal length. These lenses will only give you a single level of zoom, equivalent to 35mm. Primes are good because they are usually extremely sharp and will give you excellent image quality. Additionally, primes usually have significantly better apertures for equivalent or less costs.

If you have a smaller focal number, let’s say 24mm, you get a wider shot, and a great way to visualize this is to think of how your phone’s zoom works. 24mm could be the equivalent of a 1x zoom, and a much bigger focal length, say 500mm, would be equivalent to a 10x zoom. This isn’t actually how this works, since lenses from 24-500mm a) don’t exist and b) would have either terrible picture quality or aperture (or both). Additionally phone lenses have different specifications but it illustrates the idea. Tl;Dr: Smaller number means you’re zoomed out, bigger number means you’re zoomed in.

Another thing to note is, different sensor sizes will give you different “effective” focal lengths. If you have a full frame sensor, nothing changes. However, most APS-C sensors result in what’s called a “crop factor”. Think of this as a reduction in the camera’s field of view, given a certain focal length. To get your “effective” focal length, multiply the crop factor by the focal length you’re shooting at. For example, if I’m using a 35mm lens on a APS-C Canon camera, with a crop factor of 1.6, the effective focal length is: 35 x 1.6 = 56mm. Smaller sensors give you bigger crop factors, and each major manufacturer (Canon/Nikon/Sony) has their own version of the APS-C sensor size, with different crop factors.

Now let’s talk about aperture. All lenses have an array of “blades” inside them, which control how much light gets through the lens, to the sensor. The aperture number controls how wide or narrow the hole formed by these blades is. Aperture works a little differently than you’d expect. First off, a bigger number means a physically smaller aperture. The way I think about this is to actually visualize it as a smaller number means less obstruction to light. Aperture is also not linear. That is, an aperture of F8 is actually twice as bright as an aperture of F9. This is because the scale is actually exponential, and is based on the area created by the aperture blades.

Aperture does more than just allow more light to enter the sensor. It also controls Depth of Field (DoF). The best way to visualize DoF (that I have found) is to imagine this: When you or your camera focuses a lens on a subject, there’s actually a range of distances that are in focus. For example at F/8, if your subject is 5 meters away, any object that is 4.5m to 5.5 meters away from the camera may also be in focus (0.5m on either side). Aperture controls how much of either side is in focus. A wider aperture (lower number) reduces DoF, so from the example above, an aperture of F/2.8 will reduce the range from 4.5m-5.5m (0.5m on each side of the focus point) to something like 4.9m-5.1m (0.1m on each side of the focus point). Depth of Field is extremely important when you’re shooting portraits or special compositions, or even when you just want to blur the heck out of a background to hide something distracting. Use it wisely!

What different apertures do to your pictures. Source: CaptureTheAtlas

Generally speaking, lenses sacrifice at least one of these properties:

Focal Range
Maximum Aperture
Cost

For example, if you take the lens from above, the RF 24-105mm F2.8 L, we can see that it has a very useful 24-105mm focal range, so that’s checked off. It has an excellent maximum aperture of F2.8 (also represented as f/2.8). And that’s why that lens costs US$ 2999. Go figure. But that’s kind of how this works, you can only really have two of these three, and you play a game of trying to balance out these factors given your needs and budget to get the best setup you can.

My Setup

Annnnnd we’re finally at what I normally use. Let’s get right to it, I’ve made you read enough already.

My primary camera is a Canon EOS R (not an R5 or R-anything else, just the good old R). I will occasionally swap that for a Nikon Z6 depending on which lenses I need to use, but 9 times out of 10, you’ll find me using the Canon.

My primary lens (yes just one) is a Sigma 50-500mm f/4.5-6.3 DG HSM. This is a class of lens commonly called a “superzoom”, because it has both a reasonably wide end at 50mm and a super-telephoto end at 500mm. You’ll also notice that there’s a range of Apertures with the zoom range, and this is a pretty common feature on most zoom lenses. As you zoom in, the aperture gets narrower. This is required optically, and while there are fixed aperture zooms, they are way more expensive and are significantly heavier. Note that this is a lens designed for the Canon EF (DSLR) mount, and I use an adapter to use it with the RF (Mirrorless) mount camera. This is also a pretty old lens, so while it has excellent zoom and a decent aperture, it’s not overly expensive now. But it was a crazy expensive lens back when it was first released.

My secondary lenses are:

Sigma 35mm f/1.4 DG, which I only really use for portraits or astrophotography. This lens is particularly spectacular for these two uses because of the extremely wide aperture. Portraits look great because they have great bokeh (blurred background) and astrophotography is easier since there’s a metric ton of light entering the lens and hitting the sensor. This lens also has a Circular Polarizer, which comes in handy, but that’s a whole other article, and I’m still learning how to use it, so I’d rather not talk about that right now
Nikon NIKKOR 70-200 f/2.8 DX, which I usually adapt onto the Z6 (because yeah that’s a also a regular DSLR lens). This lens is great for event photography, especially events with low light conditions, such as performances or plays. The zoom range is a little lacking, but that’s probably just me being spoiled rotten by the 50-500mm

I usually grab a K&F concept ball-head tripod when I’m doing long exposures, or a nondescript monopod if I’m doing sports photography.

Finally, I use a Peak Design Capture clip to keep my camera in place when I’m walking around or just need a break from holding it.

If you can, try to borrow equipment as much as you can. I borrow photography equipment from my university all the time, which makes it easy for me to try different lenses, cameras and other accessories.

Deciding on your Gear