1 – Be Sure You Are Ready For Professional Equipment.

Moving to professional level equipment can be quite expensive for the really good models. Make sure that you are ready for the equipment and that you can take advantage of the features that the unit has. Many professional cameras do not have a lot of the automatic settings and guide modes that the consumer level units have so you have to know how to use them properly. Professional units are built stronger than consumer cameras. This is to ensure they survive being carried around all day, every day. The housings are stronger and it has a better mounting system.

2 – Choose You Manufacturer.

Making you choice means staying with that brand for some time. While most brands made high quality cameras they are designed that the lenses can not be shared between brands. You can not take a Nikon lens and attach it to a Canon body. Camera lenses are expensive and a serious investment. If you already have some lenses it is advisable to stay with that one brand for you new camera so you do not have to buy all new lenses right at the start. Over time you can start replacing your lenses with better quality lenses to go with your better quality body. If you are getting everything brand new you can choose anyone that you prefer. The best strategy is to try them out and see what fits best for you. The software in each unit is quite different and some fit your style better. Many accessories, such as remote flashes, are manufacturer specific as well. Something like a light box would be more generic and work with any model, sometimes you can find adapters to make it work with different cameras.

3 – Choose Your Model.

Once you have chosen your brand you have to choose the model. Depending on what kind of pictures you are going to take, the model you need changed. If you are taking portraits you do not need a model with a telephoto lens. If you plan to take pictures of plants then a good macro setting is a must. Nature photography requires a good zoom lens and the ability to take fast action photographs in a variety of light levels. Look at the specifications of the cameras and choose based on your intended pictures.

Whichever camera, lens and accessories you choose you will get many years of service out of your professional photography equipment. Make sure you do your homework before purchasing and you will be happy. The clarity and the detail of your photographs depends on the quality of your camera.

Richard is a photographer for all occasions and needs a wide variety of equipment. He find that http://hobbies.r-eviewed.com/photography/prof-photo-equip/ is a great place to find what he is looking for. The price comparisons really help narrow the choices.

The Kodak Brownie 127 – I picked this little beauty up for a pound in a charity shop whilst at university studying fine art. Loading this iconic camera with black and white 35mm film, I took to snapping some urban ‘scapes and played around with multiple exposures. Having been used to automatic wind-on functions, it was a joy to be able to forward the film as far as my liking. Ultimately I ended up with a reel of film that was a progression of images with no framed borders. The Kodak is a delight to snap with, and process in the comfort of a secluded dark room.

The Holga Medium Format – Part of the Lomography team’s treasure chest, this camera is an absolute bargain for medium format shooting. At a mere 50 GBP, the quality of this camera lies funnily enough in its cheap production and faults. Each camera has light leaks, due to the low budget manufacture, but this serves to create photos with a unique fingerprint. No two cameras have the same type of leak, and the streaks of over-exposure combined with the vignetting create subtly distorted images. The addition of various colour flashes and multiple exposure options makes this a camera that is great for experimentation.

Fujica ST70135mm SLR – This has to be one of my favourite 35mm film cameras. The quality of the photographs and the innate ease of f-stop and light metre combine to allow an earnest photographer to dedicate endless time to perfecting the art of photography. The manual function of cameras from this era (early 1970) give a simplicity that just can’t be found in a modern semi automatic SLR. Having had trouble sourcing a macro lens for the Fujica I invested in a second hand, but incredibly good quality Pentax 35mm SLR. Unfortunately, even on the manual setting, I found the camera a lifeless lump that hampered creativity on every level. If only someone could bring back the old style SLR like the Fujica.

Nikon Digital SLR DX40 – Keen to embrace the digital revolution, I invested in a Nikon that is renowned for manual functions. Still slightly cautious after the soulless Pentax, I endeavoured to learn the functions of all the settings and the menu system before casting a verdict. Thankfully, the Nikon was a delight to handle, felt robust and has a picture quality that can be manipulated sufficiently to resemble the texture of a roll of film. The fact that it is possible to edit whilst snapping is a welcome blessing, reducing processing costs by a large margin. The only downside, which is due to the digital revolution, not specifically the Nikon is the accidental blurred or badly framed shot can be deleted before its accidental beauty can be appreciated.

Dominic Donaldson is an expert in the photography industry. See more Camera reviews on all the latest digital offerings at Pocket Lint.

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ISO is related to a camera’s film speed, and this term will be followed by various numbers throughout camera reviews. Although digital cameras do not use film, the ISO is still used to inform a buyer of the capabilities of the camera. It is often translated as an EI, or exposure index, as all the measurements are arbitrary.

Without an actual film, a digital camera can be set to mimic slow or fast film, as well as grainy or high definition shots, regardless of light sensitivity. Different cameras will have varying ISO ratings depending on their capability of mimicking many types of film.

Shutter Speed is still essentially the same as it has always been, and camera reviews like to offer a wide range to photographers. A fast shutter speed allows for high definition images to be taken, and if the highest end is in the 1/4000 th of a second mark, it is possible to get a crystal clear photo of a fast moving subject.

Long exposures, produced by long shutter speeds allow images to be captured in incredibly low light, as long as the camera and the subject are kept stock still. Alternatively it can be used to create artistic shots, such as trailing lights, moving stars and blurred subjects. In an analogue film camera the shutter could be left open indefinitely for extra eerie shots, but the maximum average on a digital model in current camera reviews is around half an hour.

Many people still like to harp on about megapixel values in camera reviews, but the honest truth is, as long as you are buying a high quality camera with 8 megapixels or above, your images will come out crystal clear. The limit seems to be 12 mega pixels, but to the amateur photographer, this makes very little difference to their images, and is only really a useful aspect when increasing the size of images dramatically. Camera manufacturers have pretty much agreed that the current mega pixel rate is not worth improving on, and instead are going to work towards improving resolution for high contrast images.

Dominic Donaldson is a photographic expert. Find out more about camera reviews for all the latest digital cameras at Pocket Lint.

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At present there is a varied selection for the snappy happy photographer to choose from. Digital SLR cameras rub shoulders with point and shoot digital cameras and there are of course digital cameras built into every phone on the planet. Film is apparently well out of the window; especially as developing pixel pictures is so much cheaper. When deciding what camera to buy, you need to consider the type of photographer you are and the sort of pictures you like to take. If like me you are not the most decisive person on the planet, you could end up with upwards of ten cameras before you finally find the one for you if you don’t read the camera reviews.

The digital SLR is an item of technological genius. It combines all of a photographer’s favourite features of film photography with the convenience of digital technology. The Nikon D3x is currently scoring a whopping 9 out of 10 in the current camera reviews, and it is not surprising. The technical spec is phenomenal, and so it should be for over 5000 of your Great British Pounds. Although the D3x is being heralded as a studio quality camera that is durable enough to take out in to the field, it would be a task I would be unwilling to test lightly. Unless you are an experienced wildlife photographer, or sports photographer, this camera should stay firmly in the safe haven of a photographic studio. It did impress me however that the battery is good for around 4000 shots, which is certainly a step up from my first ever digital purchase.

If you see yourself as a bit more of a social photographer, then a point and click auto focus digital camera is a much wiser investment. It is possible to pick up a reasonably priced compact digital camera for under 300 GBP that has enough features to keep you entertained, but not so many you are likely to get confused after a couple of pints down the Dog and Pheasant. The Canon IXUS 980 IS digital camera is a fine example, scoring an impressive 8 out of 10 in the latest camera reviews. It has a design that is clean and sleek, and most importantly it is being promoted for its durability, so should you happen to drop it on the floor at the end of a heavy night it won’t shatter into a million pieces.

If the Canon still seems a bit pricey, and your shooting style is a bit more Facebook style documentary photographer, then it is probably best to stick with the phone on your camera. It is a fool proof and frivolous answer to on the spur of the moment photography, and with the latest phones sporting the likes of cyber shot lenses, you can’t go far wrong with quality. Even the most rudimentary offerings by phone manufactures promise to beat the quality of my first digital camera.

My camera phone of choice comes as standard on the Sony Ericsson K800i. The 5 mega pixel camera and cybershot lens combine to give a good quality shot. There are enough settings in the menu to be able to take more artistic shots if you prefer, and even as a professional photographer I have on occasion taken pictures good enough to exhibit. The K800i is my choice, and because your phone is always with you, your camera is too, so you need never miss another shot again.

Dom Donaldson is a photographic expert. Find out more about Camera Reviews and view the latest models available for compact digital cameras and digital SLRs at Pocket Lint

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The D80 offers a new "kit" lens, the 18-135mm f/4-5.6G AF-S ED DX, and a new vertical grip, the MB-D80. The kit lens is, by definition, fairly low-end, made to keep the price of the camera affordable to the photography newbie. The zoom has a considerably slower shutter speed than the D70 – 1/4000 compared to the previous 1/8000.

I was happy to discover that there were also some welcome improvements. The D80′s viewfinder is larger and brighter than the D70′s, and the sensor has around 30% more resolution.

The sensor in the D80 is an ICX493AQA CCD made by Sony. The same sensor is used in the Sony Alpha 100 and Pentax K10D. 10.2 megapixels translates as 3872 x 2592 pixel images, enough to produce straight-from-camera prints up to about 11×16" without resizing. The base ISO of the CCD is 100, with third-stop increments up through ISO 1600. You can also boost ISO one more stop, up to an effective ISO 3200.

Noise in the D80 sensor stems mainly from three design elements: the APS frame size, the smaller overall size of the photosites as compared to the 6mp sensors, and the lack of in-sensor NR electronics. That said, Nikon has integrated a number of things into the D80 to address the potential for increased noise over the previous consumer cameras. For example, once again data is kept in 12-bit space right up until the final compression to an 8-bit JPEG. Second, the internal digitization engine has a noise reduction component in it. All in all, low light images are easily comparable quality to the D70. This is perhaps primarily due to the larger CCD sensor.

The camera body is technically slightly smaller in all dimensions compared to those of the D70s, but current owners will find the design very similar. Most of the buttons are the same and in the same places, and there are dedicated buttons for many commonly used functions. For example, a cluster of buttons next to the shutter let you change metering mode, exposure compensation, drive mode, and AF mode. Meanwhile, the buttons to the left of the 2.5-inch, 230,000-pixel LCD screen let you change white balance, ISO, and image size and quality settings without diving into menus. About the only function without its own dedicated control is AF zone selection, though the camera’s programmable function button can be programmed to cover that if you so choose. The default for this button is to display the current ISO setting.

Three dials adorn the camera body. The mode dial lets you choose between program, aperture- or shutter-priority, full manual, full auto, or any of six preset exposure scene modes. The other two dials, located on the front and back of the grip, let you change aperture and shutter speed. Together, they make full manual shooting quick and easy, with a menu system that is easy to use.

For the most part, Nikon has negotiated the quality trade-off well in order to offer a DSLR camera for under $1000. It’s still slightly pricier than comparable Canon or Petax models, but with Nikon’s imaging reputation, it can easily charge a touch more without anyone blinking a eye.

This article was written by Brandon York. Brandon is a technology buff who likes to share his gadget enthusiasm. For Professional Digital SLR Cameras as well as Point and Shoot Digital Cameras check out ChosenMobile.com.

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The setting can be found on your Shooting Mode dial as the letters ‘CA’. Adjustments are made via settings on the LCD display, which in turn are changed by using the camera’s Multi-Controller (to highlight the function to be changed) and the Quick Control/Main dial (to scan through the options). Below are the options you can choose from the LCD screen.

• Flash – You can set flash to Auto, On or Off. In Auto, flash will fire whenever the camera determines there is insufficient light for the exposure. To fire the flash for every shot (e.g. when filling in shadows) choose the On option. The Off setting will prevent flash from firing.
• Background Sharpness – This allows the camera to select a larger or smaller aperture to influence the depth of field. A small aperture (such as f/22) results in greater background sharpness. Moving the index point to the right gives you a sharper background, and to the left produces more blur.
• Exposure – If pictures are lighter or darker than you want, select exposure setting. Moving the point to the right increases exposure, producing a lighter image. To the left reduces exposure, resulting in a darker image.
• Picture Style – Choosing this setting allows you to affect the sharpness, contrast and colour saturation levels. Four Picture Styles are available. Standard is most commonly used to achieve a sharp, vivid picture. Portrait produces smoother skin tones. Landscape produces vivid blues and greens. Monochrome can be chosen to shoot in black and white.
• Quality – This setting allows you to adjust the quality of the JPEG image, or to choose RAW format for ultimate quality. RAW produces larger files, but allows for intense levels of adjustments in post-production. You can refer to my previous Beginners Photography articles related to Photoshop post-production techniques.
• Drive Mode – This allows for three options. With Single-shooting, the camera takes one single shot when the shutter has been fully depressed. In Low-speed continuous shooting (sports or action shots) the camera continually takes photos until you release the button. The rate of photographs taken varies from camera to camera (a Canon50D, for example, takes some three frames per second in this mode). In Self-Timer the shot fires around ten seconds after the shutter is depressed. This allows you to get in the picture yourself, but is also useful for Landscape or Macro work, in conjunction with a tripod, to prevent camera shake.

So hopefully you can see that, once you are using Creative Mode, you are beginning to assert some influence on the resulting image – rather than using full Automatic Mode and allowing the camera to dictate. For beginners, photography can be about trial and error, and the beauty of digital is that it doesn’t matter how many attempts you need to get it right – any images that are not up to standard can be deleted later.

Discover how easy it is to take memorable photographs simply by following a beginner’s photography course online. Please check out http://www.photographycourseonline.info for further information.

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