Which is the Best Camera and lens for Photography?

Light trails in front of New Rajasthan Vidhan Sabha or Rajasthan Legislative Assembly which is at Janpath, Jaipur.

I was on a photo walk with one of my student, I was teaching him about night photography and how to play with lights. When we came at this place I was on the footpath and asked him to go in the middle of street and take some light trails shots and keep the Vidhan Sabha in the background. After few minutes he came back to me (I saw him reviewing the pictures on his cameras LCD screen from distance.) and said to me sir my camera and lens is not good enough to take good light trails or for good night photography. I looked at him and said ok, he was having “Canon 70D” with “Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 STM Lens” both were latest.

I have three DSLR camera bodies’ one full frame and two cropped sensor. Whenever I go for Street Photography or photo walks I carry any of one cropped sensor body and any one lens of choice depending on the mood. That day I was carrying “Canon 550D” with “Canon EF 50mm f/1.8” I think I have these both with me from last Five years.

So after he told me that his camera is not good enough I said let me try with my camera. I took out the camera from my bag and went to the middle of street and took this shot. I came back and showed him this shot. And asked him whose camera and lens are much better your latest set or my five years old set?

I meet lot of Photography students, amateurs, professionals and hobbyist daily and most of the time I see them in dilemma about which is the best camera and lens? Instead of practicing Art of Photography these people spend lot of time in digging the net and on discussions about the latest and best camera in market, which is horrifying. I will not blame anyone completely about this but I will say that we have to understand this whole situation and why is this happening.

This entire problem has arrived with the commercialization of everything including you and me. With the commercialization came the concept of best “The Top”. And with the concept of best “The Top” came the race to “The Top”. For example in India I had heard it many times that “Beta tau maa baap ke budhape ka sahara hota hai” (A son is backbone of their old parents). The meaning of this statement is simple that the son will take care of their parents when they get old. That means to take care of your parents you have to be a successful person. So this is the pressure which parents put on their son from childhood that the more successful you will be the better care you will provide to us. And the commercialization starts Son wants to become successful, then he wants to become best and then the race to the top starts. This was the story of Son, few years back our government started a campaign “Beti Bete ke barabar hai” (Daughters are equal to son). (Although this campaign started with different objective in mind, to stop female foeticide but it created different problem.) When we started saying that Daughters are equal to son then the daughters also jumped into competition of becoming best and to be on the top. Now question is who are these sons and daughters and how does this affect the economy of world and how is this related to Which is the Best Camera and Lens for Photography? Everyone in this world is these sons and daughters, I gave you the examples of India but everywhere in the world reasons could be different but we are cultivating this kind of breed.

Instead of child getting proper education and space to groom and decide what he wants to do in life, he is forced in the competition from childhood. Before a child understands he becomes the part of rat race and starts manipulating, telling lies and god knows what, to just be on the top. In this race people had created lots of companies and every company wants to get on the top. So to get on top they tell and spread all kind of lies and rumours they possibly can and try to suppress the truth, this whole process is called advertising.

Now let’s get back to the point, Which is the Best Camera and Lens for Photography? There are two giants in Photography Industry Canon and Nikon they both are on the top. It’s very rare these days but let’s say if two friends are on top of the world then what will they do? They will get united and say let’s make a fool out of this world and make sure that no one else gets to the top. And that is exactly what these two giants Canon and Nikon are doing with the world right now. For example take any camera or lens of Canon and you will find the same kind of thing with Nikon with slight difference for approx same price. If Canon launches any new product then at approx same time same kind of product is launched by Nikon for approx same price. What is hard for me to understand is that these two say that they both have different Research and Development teams but still both of them come up with same kind of product at same time for same price. Can you imagine how can be that possible other than that they are united internally? They show us that they both are competitors in the race for top, so that we don’t even bother to think about any third option and end up buying one of their product. So in first step of getting the Best Camera for Photography we can easily say that Nikon or Canon they both have same kind of product for same price range so the brand name will not going to make any difference in your photography.

Don’t you think it is easy from here, both companies have same product all you have to do is go to the store and buy the most expensive product of any of one company and it has to be the best. But sadly this will be the wrong approach. Even if you have money and can afford anything, still you have to understand many things to get the Best Camera and Lens for you. Everyone is different and has different approach towards photography. Some have big hands, some have small hands, some are strong, some are weak and so on. . . and everyone has different interests in types of photography. The thing is first we have to understand that what is the most important thing in the camera which makes all the difference and that is it’s sensor.  Sensor of the camera is the most important part which makes all the difference, picture quality and lot of other things depends upon the sensor only. Both the companies use CMOS sensors with many fancy words for their image developing techniques but more or less that is also same. Both the companies use basically two types of sensors for their Armature level DSLR’s and their Professional level DSLR’s and that is Cropped Sensor and Full Frame Sensor (We will talk about the differences between Cropped Sensor and Full Frame Sensor in another article). What these companies do is they keep the sensor same but keep on adding different functions to camera and keep on raising the price and making the camera bulkier. Now the right approach to choose the Best Camera for you is to see which functions you require and which you don’t. For example when I first bought a DSLR I had two choices a camera which was offering option of video recording and there was a camera without video recording but the image quality was same. At that time I had opted for camera without video recording because I am not at all interested in movie making so that function was waste for me and the money I would have spend for that function would also would have wasted. Similarly when we see DSLR cameras with full frame sensors we find that sensors remain same but the functions changes and upgrades but again we have to keep in mind what we want and what is waste.

So now you have to select which camera is best for you according to functions, weight and size you are comfortable with, because you have to carry it around with you to take good pictures. Just don’t think that buying all those new and expensive cameras can give you good photos. Similarly you have to select the lens according to your requirement there are many different kind of lenses for different use. For example I love doing portraits and street and I am comfortable with 50mm and that is good enough for me, but one of my friend like to go wider but it is his choice not mine. So it’s you who has to decide that what your budget is and how much mm do you want. But don’t go for the cheap all around lenses like 55-250mm in Canon because these kind of lenses are of no use and you end up thinking that either your photography is bad or your camera and you end up spending lot more. The combination of comfortable Lens and Camera body is half battle you won.

Last thing is that once you buy what you want then stick with it and spend time on Clicking Pictures and learning the art of photography. Instead of finding shortcuts to get good pictures and to get on the top, art takes time and patience. Any good photographer will tell you it’s the brain behind the camera which takes photographs not the Camera.

If you have any questions you can ask them on comments below, I would try my best to answer them as fast as possible.  You can also share the links of your pictures you clicked after reading tutorial, that will surely help you me and newbie’s. The best way to learn is to do experiments, feel free to share these free tutorials because more you share more you learn.
Happy Clicking. . . :)