**WARNING**: This series will contain casual language and will not contain reviews about crypto, physics topics (well at least not a lot) or beaautiful picture of nature - Use caution!
So today I am starting a new blog series that will be in a completely seperate field if you compare it to anything I have written about. It will be called **A Beginners Journey in Photography** and in it I will be describing the journey of a completely new kid on the photography block - Me!
When I say new to the scene I mean it. I am so new, even the camera on my phone is completely useless as it is fogged up. I usually borrow @urskaskamen 's phone when we go hiking or she takes the photos that you see in my [hiking series](https://steemit.com/photography/@maticpecovnik/the-hiking-series-part-1-the-heart-of-the-julian-alps), but lately I have been feeling the pangs of owning my own quality camera.
I actually wanted to buy a GoPro camera about a year ago. I thought it would synergize well with my wild adventures lifestyle of doing physics and hiking. I wanted to be a photography Rambo, pretty much!
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I placed an order at a shop in a neighbouring country and sent the money from my bank. And guess what... The order got lost and I lost quite a bit of money. The bank wanted about 50 euros just to start looking for the money and they had no guarantees they would ever find it so I let it go.
So in this I will talk about various cameras I am looking at to buy, various accesories, and later on when I have all the hardware I will talk about how to take great photos and how to process them to be even better. I will post pictures that I take and hopefully we can all see some improvement in my photos! Eventually one will be able to look back at this post and say: "Wau, this noob was an even worse noob when he started!" The series should be mildly informative for the any people who are as of yet ignorant about photography, and wildly entertaining for professional photographers.
Today I will start by talking about some of the various camera types one has available for his photography needs. I will also talk about what are the pros and cons and what kind of photographer such cameras are targeting.
# <center> Standard Compact Camera </center>
If you are not completely fallen into photography and if you dont spend all your savings on photography equipment you probably had a model similar to this one on your mind when you read I will be talking about cameras. For people who go on vacation to snap some photos at weird angles and to take photos of birthday cakes this types of cameras are what they need.
Such cameras are very easy to use and are the most affordable out of all types of cameras but that comes at a cost. The low cost ones usually dont have very good manual controls like setting your f-ratio, shutter speed, exposure time. They have good enough automatic settings you set with the wheel on the top of the camera, for well lit conditions but that is probably all it has. When you go to darker conditions, maybe with cloudy weather or dark rooms usually the quality of the image you get is pretty miserable. Also only the more pricey models have interchangable lenses so you can tailor your lens to do the job at hand, but why would you buy a not-cheap compact camera that does everything worse than the comparable DLSR or mirrorless camera. It doesnt make sense.
To summarize. If you only want to take pictures at broad daylight, and you dont care that much about changing the settings then you should definitly buy Compact cameras because it will be plenty sufficient for your needs with such a low price.
# <center>Digital single-lens reflex camera - DLSR </center>
So this is the type of camera you want if you are prepared to carry the extra 10 kilos of camera gear up to a lake to stand there for 4 hours and wait for the conditions to be just right and then to relalize the battery has died and you forgot to take spares. So you hike back home and try again the next day. But the next day the Sun was setting funny so you do it again the next day. But you do it with a smile cause you love it!
Such cameras have everything one would want out of a camera. All have manual settings, all have interchangable lense and so on. If you have the patience you can fiddle around with the settings until you freeze in the snow just to get that photo. But in this case it is well worth it, because the image quality, the light, the sharpness. Everything is as perfect as can be.
The pricier models also have abundant levels of various settings which you take advantage of. But this comes at a price. The models that are actually worth it start with about 800$ and go up to a couple of thousand dollars. Along the price there is another drawback in the weight. The cameras themselves are pretty heavy. The body itself is about 1 kilo and then if you add the lenses and the tripod and the bag it adds up. So such cameras are not the most portable, but if you want to make that killer photo you will just have to sacrifice your back for it. The beauty is that it will be worth it!
# <center> Mirrorless interchangeable-lens camera </center>
These cameras are kind of the best of both worlds. Without all the mirrors in the body of the camera you save a ton of weight which makes these cameras much more portable. Also by changing the lenses you can customize all the parameters of the photo just like with DLSR cameras. The optical view-finder and other parts are changed to a digital display system, so MILC can be considered as the evolution of DLSR cameras.
Currently, as far as I have read, various bugs of this types of camera are still not competely resolved so only the most expensive of models can compete with the medium expensive DLSR cameras. They do have their pros though. They are simpler, smaller, lighter and quieter and are essentially a compromise between DLSR cameras and Compact Cameras.
# <center> Conclusion </center>
I am usually a guy who is very impulsive and rash. I go all in and never look back. This might be bad but I am who I am. So during doing the research to write this article I decided I will be as crazy as I need to be when trying to get a heavenly photo And so I cant go half-assing it. I have to go all in! I am buying a DLSR!
Follow me and especially this series as next time I will be talking about which DLSR I will buy and why. And dont forget. By upvoting this post you are in essence helping me buy a camera so I can do more of such posts! Think about it. 😉
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All the images used in this post are simply found by googling and have no copyright terms, so they are free to use by anyone!
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To always stay to date on my and Urška's adventures please follow me and Urška at @urskaskamen. If you like this post and want to keep it coming please upvote me. It trully means a lot to a beginner like me. Also If you have any questions feel free to comment and I will definitly try to answer you in a timely manner.
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