Page 96 - Photoshop User December 2016

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From the Help Desk answers to photoshop & gear-related questions
PETER BAUER
My spouse is starting to get interested in photography. What would be your recommendation for a great holiday gift?—Orlean
To: Nick
From: KelbyOne Help Desk
A gift certificate and guidance. Rather than purchasing a specific camera for your spouse, decide how much you want to spend, and purchase a gift certificate from a local photo store or a gift card from B&H Photo.
Present the gift on the holiday and then sit down and discuss what aspects of photography attract your spouse. If he or she is interested in travel photography, a smaller camera that has a built-in lens with a wide range of zoom factors and shoots only JPEG may be best. (And if there’s money left on the gift certificate, suggest a monopod or tripod and a couple of high-capacity SD cards.) Canon, for example, offers a camera with 25x Optical Zoom, which in our parlance means a 35mm equivalent of 24–600mm— quite a range, and for under $900 (at the time I’m writing this column). Nikon offers a model with 83x Optical Zoom for even less money.
When shooting at the longer zooms, these cameras demand some sort of stabilization, be it a monopod, a tripod, or simply the back of a chair. Hand-held results generally suffer from unacceptable blurring when shoot- ing zoomed in. The slightest movement combined with longer exposures is a recipe for, well, not disaster, but rather a wasted shot.
If your spouse is interested in eventually graduating to a professional or even an accomplished amateur pho- tographer, perhaps with an eye toward entering prints in local or regional contests, an entry-level DSLR kit might be the right choice. Your budding photographer can then, as she or he progresses, start accumulating specific lenses for specific purposes. For example, if low-light conditions that
don’t permit flash (such as many museums, theaters— if they let you shoot at all—and churches) are in the future, lenses with very large apertures are a great, though expen- sive, investment. A larger aperture enables the shooter to keep the ISO and shutter speed down and still capture a sharp image. How large is “large”? I have a Canon lens that zooms between 70mm and 200mm with a maximum aperture of f/2.8 throughout the zoom range and a 50mm primary lens (a lens that has a fixed zoom factor) with a maximum aperture of f/1.2. (Remember that the smaller the number, the larger the aperture.)
Most zoom lenses vary the aperture according to the zoom factor. Many affordable zoom lenses may have an aperture of f/4.5 at the shortest zoom and f/5.6 when completely zoomed. That means slower shutter speeds and/or higher ISO to capture a decent shot. Such lenses may be unsuitable for shooting sports or other action.
DSLR cameras with an APS-C sensor are generally less expensive than cameras with full-frame sensors (sensors the same size as a 35mm film negative). The smaller APS-C sensors generally don’t capture as much detail as full-frame sensors, but many models available today are extremely good cameras. There’s a wide variety of lenses designed to work with these sensors, but many such cameras can also use lenses designed for full-frame sensors (although there is change in the lens zoom factor).
Remember, too, that many of today’s smartphones have very capable cameras built in. For someone who always wants to have a camera near at hand and easy to use, upgrading the phone may be the best suggestion. ■
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