Beginner Best professional camera for portraits
- Thread starter Sunset33
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- owen
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Yep great starter camera lmao
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- Andrew
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That wasn't the question though!.
Its actually $ 49,000 so that will probably be £ 49,000 in the UK rather than the actual exchange rate.
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Let's be honest it's a great camera irrelevant of what it costs and if your a starter lol ......... Claire I know it's your first post so I will be gentle we need a little more background eg
What experience you have ?
How much you want to spend ?
If you have any lenses etc?
What sort of portraits (studio or natural light or low light)
Cheers
What experience you have ?
How much you want to spend ?
If you have any lenses etc?
What sort of portraits (studio or natural light or low light)
Cheers
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- Christopher
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Hi Claire,
I'll try to answer your question in a reasonable way given that from your profile you are clearly a beginner and deserve to be answered as such.
As owenb said in a previous post it depends on your budget as high end medium format cameras can cost many £1,000s and the lenses for them around £3,000 each. However any reasonably specified camera that will take interchangeable lenses will be perfectly suitable for you to start with, if your budget will stretch to it the cheaper Nikon or Canon dslr's with a shorter rather than longer zoom range would probably be best. The main thing to be aware of is that the camera and lens are not the most important thing in portrait photography, the important thing is the lighting of the face, in essence the camera's function is merely to act as a light tight box to record what you have created with the lighting.
The way to becoming a good portrait photographer is to study the lighting first by looking at a lot of portraits, both photographic and paintings, and try to understand which angle the light is coming from and what additional lights and reflectors have been used. There are now a lot of 'how to' videos on the web and images of the 'old master' painters as well as those of well known photographers. The path to becoming a good portrait photographer is not easy, but the feeling you will get when you see a photograph you have taken and you realise that you have captured the character of the person is definitely worth the effort.
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A crap camera can take a great image better than the best camera with a novice holding it! And glass is more important than body! A hassleblad is no good with a milk bottle on the front!
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agreed body only does part of the job ... the best tools in photography is always your eyes and brain always will be
TheBigYin
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Okay Claire... I've added a "beginner" prefix to this thread - hopefully it'll prevent too many "smart arse" replies.
You've asked a bit of a loaded question I'm afraid... The thing is, for portraits, the camera doesn't matter to the same extent that the lighting, the lens, the posing and the interaction with the photographer does. Yes - it CAN have an effect, but to be honest, any half-decent SLR or mid-range mirrorless camera body will be fine.
Looking at (for example) one of the most prestigious UK portrait competitions, the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize, the 2015 was shot on a Sinar P 10x8 film camera, the 2014 winner was shot on a lumix GF1 compact systems camera, the 2013 was shot on a 4x5" Film Camera... both of these are FAR from the kit that typically would be used by typical working pro's - who'd generally be using a Full-Frame Digital SLR - something of the ilk of a Canon 5Diii / 5Ds / Nikon D810 or similar from the Nikon Product range...
Maybe you can add a little more information - are you asking for a recommendation as to what you should be looking for in a camera you wish to buy, or, are you simply asking what would be peoples "dream camera" for shooting portraits... Either way, I'm afraid you're going to get lots of conflicting suggestions on the hardware, as people have their own preferences - but I'd hope that one thing that will go across the board is that most people on TP will be clear that ultimately the defining thing in terms of quality for portraits is unlikely to be encapsulated in a single model of camera body...
You've asked a bit of a loaded question I'm afraid... The thing is, for portraits, the camera doesn't matter to the same extent that the lighting, the lens, the posing and the interaction with the photographer does. Yes - it CAN have an effect, but to be honest, any half-decent SLR or mid-range mirrorless camera body will be fine.
Looking at (for example) one of the most prestigious UK portrait competitions, the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize, the 2015 was shot on a Sinar P 10x8 film camera, the 2014 winner was shot on a lumix GF1 compact systems camera, the 2013 was shot on a 4x5" Film Camera... both of these are FAR from the kit that typically would be used by typical working pro's - who'd generally be using a Full-Frame Digital SLR - something of the ilk of a Canon 5Diii / 5Ds / Nikon D810 or similar from the Nikon Product range...
Maybe you can add a little more information - are you asking for a recommendation as to what you should be looking for in a camera you wish to buy, or, are you simply asking what would be peoples "dream camera" for shooting portraits... Either way, I'm afraid you're going to get lots of conflicting suggestions on the hardware, as people have their own preferences - but I'd hope that one thing that will go across the board is that most people on TP will be clear that ultimately the defining thing in terms of quality for portraits is unlikely to be encapsulated in a single model of camera body...
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To add to what Mark said, if you're looking for a camera with the intention of shooting portraits, and you already realise you need a DSLR or MFT camera, then you should budget for a fast telephoto lens too.
Frankly it's fairly difficult to buy a camera that won't do a decent portrait, a great kit would be a second hand 5d and an 85mm 1.8, less than £500 all in and capable of great results.
What many won't tell you is that spending about 1/4 of your starter budget on a 'camera' is about right. Most gearheads will encourage you to get the best camera for your budget, then tell you about the lenses, flashes, triggers, reflectors and other paraphernalia you might find handy.
TheBigYin
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It appears she logged out after asking the question, and before the initial answers came in... of course, she may well be reading this thread as a guest, and if so, I hope she returns and gives us a few more details so we can really give some proper help.