Digital Diversity

A while back I wrote an article about my first time going to the zoo with the intent to take decent pictures, rather than just on a day out with friends. That was back when I was using a superzoom bridge camera (Panasonic FZ28). I came away from that trip with some images I was very pleased with and was surprised at the decent quality shots such a camera allowed me to get over the likes of a cheaper compact like my Ixus 75.

I have been back to the zoo since then with my DSLR (Canon 500D) and thought it would be good to share my thoughts on what advantages I had this time round with a more advanced camera.
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Learning how to expose photos in anything but automating modes can start to get confusing. When I got my first digital camera (Ixus 75) I didn’t know much about cameras in general, let alone metering modes and correct exposure.

When I upgraded to a superzoom (panasonic fz28) I switched to aperture priority mode. My main reason for this was that I could choose the aperture and change the ISO and exposure compensation to alter my shutter speed. This served me well and a lot of people use this method. I pretty much stayed clear of manual mode as it just sounded to fiddly to be of any use.

Since I got my DSLR (Canon 500D) I have started to think about this more. The only problem I would get with aperture priority was inconsistent exposure. What I mean by this is that say I was photographing my dog. As he runs passed different colour backgrounds this will in turn effect the exposure settings and lead to an over / underexposed shot. This would in turn have effected the shutter speed and can cause unwanted blur. I would also have to use exposure compensation and sometimes I may forget to change it back which would ruin the next shot. Another problem I had was that the exposure lock button never seems to lock the exposure for very long and getting the exposure back to what is was can be a pain.

To escape these problems I needed to step into the realm of manual mode.

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If you have read the very first post I made here at Digital Diversity you will know why I bought my Panasonic FZ28. I did it because I wanted more out of a camera than my little Canon Ixus 75 could give me. More zoom, more control and better quality images. Well its happened again. I hit that roof where my camera was slowing me down.

Dont get me wrong, the Panasonic FZ28 is a great super zoom bridge camera that can give you some great images but it does have its limits. For example, in low light it really did suffer, I couldn’t shoot in rapid burst while using RAW files, The dynamic range was a bit limited which led to easily blown highlights and so on

Because of this I started to look a bit more into DSLR’s. I was already aware of their advantages from an image quality point of view but I needed to learn more about lens quality, prices and what type of DSLR would sustain my needs.

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