How to Tell That You’re Ready for a DSLR Camera
Are you ready to step up to a DSLR? (Copyright 2010 / Andrew Boyd)
When you know, you just know, right? It’s fun to think about sometimes though. I shoot the occasional point ‘n shoot photo like everybody else, and I still get frustrated almost every time I pick one of the things up. So here’s my list:
- You’ve started to really notice the guys with the ‘good’ cameras.
- You’re tired of ‘what you see is what you get’ not being the case when you shoot photos.
- The blasted shutter lag—you press the shutter down, and wait, and wait, and wait—has finally reached the point that you’re ready to throw the little thing against the wall. (Don’t do it. Too expensive to repair.)
- The little bit of zoom—from ‘not wide enough’ to ‘not telephoto enough’ means you never get the photos you saw in your head.
- You find you’re constantly turning off the automatic flash setting because you’ve started to really notice the light.
- Photography is becoming something that you think about a lot. A whole lot.
- Your rich uncle just left you two thousand bucks and it’s burning a hole in your pocket.
So there. My list. Do you have a list yourself? What did I leave off? If you found yourself agreeing with more than a couple of these points, start saving your money!
Hi, I’m Andrew Boyd, a.k.a. The Discerning Photographer, and I hope this post has been interesting and informative. Please leave me a comment about it, let me know what you’d like to see more of on the site! You can also sign up for email delivery of all future articles or my RSS feed. Thanks!–DiscerningPhotog
Related articles on the web:
Steady That Point n Shoot at Beyond Phototips
Buying Your First DSLR at PhotoNetCast
Should You Buy a DSLR or Point and Shoot Digital Camera? at Digital Photography School
Things to Consider When Choosing Your Camera at Epic Edits
Buying Your First Digital SLR Camera here at The Discerning Photographer
- You’ve started to really notice the guys with the ‘good’ cameras.
- You tired of ‘what you see is what you get’ not being the case when you shoot photos.
- The blasted shutter lag—you press the shutter down, and wait, and wait, and wait—has finally reached the point that you’re ready to throw the little thing against the wall. (Don’t do it. Too expensive to repair.)
- The little bit of zoom—from ‘not wide enough’ to ‘not telephoto enough’
- means you never get the photos you saw in your head.
- You find you’re constantly turning off the automatic flash setting because you’ve started to really notice the light.
- Photography is becoming something that you think about a lot. A whole lot.
- Your rich uncle just left you two thousand bucks and it’s burning a hole in your pocket.
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Hi Andrew,
Just a quick note of thanks for mentioning our episode at PhotoNetCast on buying the first dSLR.
[Reply]
DiscerningPhotog Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 6:35 pm
Hey, no problem. Your article was one of the most relevant ones I found for the piece. Glad to see you saw the link!
[Reply]
Sounds like good reasons to buy a G11!
[Reply]
DiscerningPhotog Reply:
April 21st, 2010 at 6:34 pm
I would LOVE to have one. Just no moohla for that right now.
[Reply]
> What did I leave off?
“You used to shoot with a film SLR, got sucked in by the low cost of a digital point-and-shoot, but finally realized that (despite the fact that **everyone** was using one) it just didn’t give you the versatility or the results you were accustomed to with your ‘old, antiquated’ film camera.”
[Reply]