Any Photographers or artists here? What is the best DIGITAL CAMERA out there?

E-6??? You just won me over....

Those cool bluish tones were so perfect for skylines. Yet I would shoot portraits on VP160: (Verichrome Pan) Pull one stop, develop at speed (for depth) FANTASTIC!

These days I shoot all digital and process what I need to. But still, I think OP is off base with looking for the "most MP" that s/he can get. You have to think about what you need to do.

I had nearly 15K in Olympus equipment before my move to Canon. (Lenses, Bodies, Filters, Lighting) It was a tough choice.

To think, I Almost went with the Pentax because at the time it was the only triple density CCD. (I'm glad I didn't) THAT was a choice I almost made based on MP (THREE, if you can believe that)

It's all in the lenses and lighting these days. You should shoot like you're on a roll of 36. Shoot 42 if you have to, but for God's sake... TRY to make the shot your own. (That's for OP, not You E-6) ;-)

I have the Canon Rebel. It is under 1000 and is a great camera

LOL , Thats fab.

I do not own anything that nice, but I have rented them, and used them from where I work. It makes me sweat just thinking about it. I have a lust for great large glass. LOL

I think using the pro stuff at work, makes me push my skills further with my amateur equipment at home.

Well HELLO! (To the T-1000. An old friend)

this guy is right. The body of the camera isn't as important as the lens you have. Body's lose value over time, but lens can actually increase in value.

Geo, The Rebel is nothing to scoff at.... It's EXACTLY the same as the 10, 20, 50 DSLRS, depending on your version of the Rebel, without the Titanium body.

The big "price cut" with the Rebel's are the body parts. The CCD's are the same, as is most of the programming. There's a few things that they omit from the Rebels, but most people won't use them anyway. Nice choice!

Last Edited by Travis Bickle on 02/12/2013 12:38 AM

See, I did not know this, very good to know.

LOL... I have a 10D, 20D, 7D and a 5D. The beauty is, the lenses are ALL upward compatible.

T-1000 says it best... Spend your money on the glass.

[link to www.kenrockwell.com]

Hasselblad H4D-200MS. About $35,000 new.

Indeed... The "Rebel" series of camera bodies are the "basic" or "consumer" grade equivalents of their "Semi-pro" cameras. Generally they skimp on the build of the camera, assuming that most "consumers" will not punish their cameras as much as the "semi-pros". For the most part, they make the bodies plastic, the shutters a lesser grade of steel and they often times limit, just slightly, the program in the DSLR.

Other than that, the camera if functionally the same as it's $500 higher priced brother.

Wow.

If I had your money... I'd burn mine.

You could get a Leica S2-P for under $30,000 new

I will forever be E-6 to you my love.

I use Canon, Leica and Nikon. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. Today for your $1000 I would highly suggest you look at a Nikon D7000 with a nice 35mmDX prime or a 50mm FX prime. If I were starting out from scratch today I would invest in the D7000 and a 50mm FX prime, it will give you a little longer focal length on a DX body and will start you off on the right track for when you are ready to move to a full frame sensor. If you could afford a Nikon D600 body I would highly recommend looking at that as well.

If you want to shooting paintings you need 100% correct color or as close as you can get to it.

Some digital cameras are so far off its not funny. Some are very close.

You should shoot raw and profile your raw converter and system then you should be pretty close. You can google that.

For art and landscape high iso does not matter so much but for shooting paintings your lighting setup is critical.

Search google on it and you will find what you need. Crossed 45 lights with polarizers and a polarizer on the lens.

The lights and camera should both have polarizers.

All of that is just as important as the camera. For professional level art photography you need higher MPs. My first choice money aside would be a Pentax 645D followed by a full frame Sony 24mp with a top prime lens. Color in the Sonys is pretty good out of the box.

Get ready to bend over to buy all of this stuff to do it right at a professional level. You can start off with a lesser body unless you go 645D, and if you do buy top lenses, IE expensive then upgrade the body later, but go for a system with the best balanced color.

All that said of all the cameras I have owned I got the best results shooting art with E100G film no matter what the camera. 4x5 was obviously the best but even 35mm was nice for small paintings. Drum scan and they were always 95+% correct color straight off the scanner with no work. Film is expensive and tedious but it works. I am pretty much burned out on film these days.

Good choice on the D7000, but the D5100 I think, has the same sensor and can be had refurbished from adorama and a kit lens for about $490. The D7000 has better build quality, but the D5100 isn't far off

D7000 is nice but i love my D90

great bang for buck

[link to www.adorama.com]

NICE! (If you're looking for an entry level)

Nikon and Canon straddle the fence. Just have to decide on where you wan your money to go.

Get a Nikon D3200 with the two lens kit, and spend the leftovers on a good tripod, and accessories. It is 24 megapixels of bliss. a really really good camera, the 60 d is dated now, I had one and HATED IT, the only thing good about it was it was fast and took good night shots. across the board for everything else other than video, it sucked.

seriously, the Canons blow donkey cock for image quality, you will do MUCH better with a D7000 or a D3200. I am not joking, the canons were very dry with haloing issues, poor raw processing with the included software, poor metering, poor color, and bad fringing. A REAL disappointment, very high noise floor at low ISO`s the whole 9 yards. Nikon won that round, much much better, and Pentax was also a LOT better.

D3200 has 24 megapixels and the only thing you really trade off is a microphone jack, and it is not super fast. But ALL SLR´s will blow away any consumer cam as far as speed goes, they ALL work well for action.

This camera site has ALL the details on ANY camera you would want. Look here. Any Nikon 1x series (D3100, D5100) is outdated. All Canon T series are outdated. Its old technology now, old sensor old whole 9 yards. Nikon is seriously winning now, the D5200, 3200, is where you should really be looking. The D7000 is dated now also, those are old cameras. Another interesting possibility is the Fuji S-100FS, however, that is only 12 megapixels and the sensor is slightly lower grade. However the bonus with it is 26x optical zoom so there are tradeoffs.

Remember, your budget is 1,000. For a capable setup in that price range, it is pretty much D3200 with two lens kit and accessories, or bust.

OOPS, the camera site is www.dpreview.com - they do a good job of analyzing cameras so you know exactly what you are getting before buying. They are not totally keen on the D3200, but they are sort of biased towards $5,000 flagships so take that into consideration

I agree on canon IQ. Great for Portraits and weddings, but
the color has sort of a dull gray sheen for lack of a better description.

I tried several different Canon cameras through the years and they all had it. Finally I read an article that explained it and I guess its just part of their color balance method.

That said if you can get past that, the color is very natural and if raw processed with a good 3rd party raw software and profiled the images are nice, and the color is close without too much work.

Great thread!
I started with Cannon and was blown away after using film for many years, I like the interface so I've never felt the need to try another brand. I have been using photoshop since 1996, sometimes professionally, so Everything goes through photoshop for tweeking or making into something else entirely.
Tweeking for PRINTING is the bigger issue than for the camera. Printers have more variability in quality and color adjustments. The "color balance" and histogram filters in Photoshop become very important!
Composition of a photo and lighting are still more important than anything. It's lighting that makes an image pop out with clarity. You need the RIGHT0 LIGHT weather that;s more or less or from which angle etc., and then your ability to catch an image by improvising on the spot with all the elements. A flexible, in touch attitude is key. Kinda like the Buddhist concept of active "mindfulness". But you have to know what good composition is. Study art history including Asian watercolors. Japanese or Chinese, these are the ones to teach about breaking the rules of composition to astound the viewer (and create new rules)!

If you have to ask... you don't know what you're doing.

I am not a photographer, but found myself in the same place as one once. I said, nice camera (not really knowing what I was talking about). It was a nikon dslr. I showed him mine, a cannon all in one, and said mine takes great pics too. He laughed, and we had a little "shoot off". I got some great pics, plus got a bunch of him digging through his trunk as he was saying, if I had this, or if I brought that.

I am an artist. If you asked me what the best paint brush was, I would gladly hand you the best single brush out there and have a "paint off" using nothing more than a stick and a sponge.

Peace

If I ever decided to put more interest into photography my priorities would be in this order:
lighting
software
lenses
camera

Would you have any money left for the 4th and most important item to capturing images if you purchased lighting, software and lenses first?

without the first three, the camera wont matter, may as well get an all in one.