1 How much does a professional photography digital camera cost and what brands should I look at?
I am a new at photography, I never done this before.
If you have never done this before, you may not want to buy a professional Nikon or Canon dSLR. The professorial cameras start at $5,000 and end at about $8,300
Look instead at the $700 Nikon D3100 entry level dSLR. It has the most bang for the buck and can also shoot Full HD video (1080p) and is the only entry level camera that can use auto-focus in the video mode
Understanding The 3 Components To Digital Photography
Digital photography, though pretty much the industry standard at this point, is still a young technology. Many of the greatest advances in digital happened within the last ten years, and if you're a later adopter it's nothing to be ashamed of - there are millions of people out there that have never touched a digital camera. And learning digital photography is luckily enough a lot easier than you may think!
The Most Important Part - the Camera There was a time when a decent digital camera was far outside the price range of non-royalty, but that time has thankfully come and gone. Now you can get your hands on a totally decent point-and-shoot camera for less than $200 (Nikon Coolpix cameras are a good fit here), or a totally decked-out digital SLR for under $1000 (the Canon Digital Rebel is a bestseller in this bracket at right around $600).
Which camera you choose is up to you, but try to keep in mind what you're using it for. If your primary picture taking is to capture memories of your friends and family, then the high image quality of an SLR doesn't do much for you. Think about when you use your camera most, and buy one that will be suitable for that purpose.
The Second Most Important - the Software Most digital cameras come with some sort of software that allows you to upload and manage your image files. Some of these are better than others and if you have a Mac you're ahead of the pack with iPhoto, but for the most part you don't need to worry much about uploading - as long as your computer can see your camera or the card reader you can bring the files in however you want.
In terms of photo editing software, there is a lot of options available in a wide variety of price ranges. Paint.net is a fairly powerful and completely free image editor that features layer editing and quite a bit of other things that the big bits of software do, or if you're going the professional route you can't beat Adobe Photoshop. But remember with Photoshop you're buying a professional tool with a lot of features you are probably not going to need right away.
The Result of Your Work Finally, once you've uploaded and edited your images, you'll probably want to share them with your friends and family. There are many different ways to share photos, but the most popular are using sites like Facebook or Flickr. Sharing your photos online allows your friends and family to see how you're doing without you taking the time and effort to print out and mail them pictures.
You can print them to real photo paper at home, through online services like Snapfish, or share them to a site - it all depends on what you want to do with them. You could even start a family blog through a free service like WordPress or Blogger and share your family stories and photos right there.
Digital photography is one of those things that is easy to learn, but tough to master. The best thing about digital is that anyone can pick up a digital camera, upload their photos, and share them with friends with very little knowledge in the field. Once you've got the basics under control it can get as complicated as you want it to. If you've never tried digital photography, try picking up one of the less expensive point and shoots and see how it works for you - you may find yourself taking more pictures and keeping in better touch with your loved ones!
