Don’t buy an SLR if you’ll only use the kit lens | Hacker News Reader

Don’t buy an SLR if you’ll only use the kit lens

marco.org

41 pointsshawndumas92 comments

Disagree. I started with the exact Canon 18-55 II he linked to as an example of a kit lens. I've since upgraded to a lot of different lenses including some primes and the 17-55 f2.8 and while the 17-55 certainly gives me better photos than the 18-55 did (which is why I spent the ~$1000 on it), the photos I took with the 18-55 were clearly superior in image quality to any cellphone or P&S camera photos I've seen to date.

IME the photos on that review page he posted for that kit lens are not actually indicative of the quality of that lens.

If you take his argument a few steps further, you shouldn't buy a DSLR with a crop sensor, because you aren't getting the highest quality, and then you shouldn't buy a DSLR that is full frame because medium format is better, and so on... Quality (vs price vs convenience) is a range and crop-sensor DSLRs with modern kit lenses do have a very solid spot on that range.

In any case, most people probably shouldn't buy DSLRs but not because they will only use the kit lens but because DSLRs aren't pocketable and most people just aren't going to lug around a non-pocketable camera, even if they think they are (this applies even to the newer small mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras which are certainly smaller than DSLRs but still a bit too big to be pocketable in most situations).

The Canon 18-55 is actually rated pretty highly at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Canon-EF-S-18-55mm-3-5-5-6-II/dp/B000V...

I own a video production company where we exclusive use DSLRs, and the 18-55 is a great beginner's lens. Here's the issue with prime lenses, like the 40mm pancake: beginners have little concept of composition and framing. A prime forces you to move your body into position to get a shot. A zoom allow you to fiddle and tweak without moving. When you are getting started, you need to be taking lots of shots. When you improve, you automatically know where to put your feet to get a good shot, and using fast primes is just a ton of fun.

Here's a recent fashion video I shot with the most inexpensive gear I have in my kit, namely a Canon T2i ($350 on Craigs), a 50mm/f1.8 lens ($80 on Craigs) and a cheap $20 monopod: https://vimeo.com/59777345 . Good results come from experience and practice, not expensive gear.

> Here's the issue with prime lenses, like the 40mm pancake: beginners have little concept of composition and framing.

This is exactly why I think beginners should use prime lenses.

Don't forget about the hours of color correction and post production you've done on the piece. I agree with most of your points, but that's not what T2i footage looks like off the card.

Read his title he said "if you'll ONLY use the kit lense". ONLY. You said: "I've since upgraded to a lot of different lenses".

He's not talking about you. He's talking about the quality of kit lenses and why it really isn't worth the investment in a DSLR if you're not going to partner that with an investment in some good glass. I completely agree.

Edit: I'll add one more thing. For everyone saying that the DSLR they bought and use with a kit lens is better than any point and shoot they've owned, I would question if you are comparing two similarly priced cameras. Most of the time people upgrade to a DSLR and spend more than they spent on the point and shoot its replacing.

I disagree completely. I don't shoot professionally, and I've got a Nikon D40 with the lens it came with (body & lens cost less than $500 new). The photos I get from it are far far better than every point and shoot or smartphone camera I've ever owned.

I get needing better equipment if you're a pro photographer, or even if you're just somebody like Marco with disposable income, but the suggestion that you need to dump $1k+ into a setup to make owning an SLR worth it is absurd.

You're right. But I still think you would get better shots if you bought the camera with body only and used the difference to pick up a good prime lens instead.

Of course your pictures would be sharper, but a stock say canon lens kit really is good and good enough for most, especially the far majority of people thinking they need a better lens for them to take better pictures.

And the difference in price between a body and a body with the standard lens kit is usually quite small.

I completely disagree with that article.

Sharper, I suppose, but I consider being stuck at 4.0 the real handicap. And those kit lenses usually give you 4.0 as a _best_ case; 5.6 if you zoom in at all.

And yet Canon's 70-200 f/4 IS is very highly regarded, as is their 100-400 f/4.5-5.6 IS.

Those are 200mm+ telephotos. At that distance F4 makes bokeh like you'd see in a 1.8 prime. F5.6 on a 50mm doesn't let you separate the subject from the background at all, or get any light. If you are 100 meters away from something, you're likely outside with plenty of light (or shooting sports, but those guys shoot with 2.8 zooms like the EF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS).

It's hardly fair to call the 70-200 a "200mm+ telephoto". No one buys it just for 200mm or they'd buy a prime. The 70mm end is not far from the long end of an 18-55 (but it is a stop faster).

I'll grant you that you won't get extremely thin depth of field with a kit 18-55, but I don't fully agree that you can't get background separation. Distance to the lens is also a major factor there. Get close at 55mm/5.6. But more importantly, thin depth of field does not make a mediocre picture good. In some photos it can certainly help (in others it can be detrimental), but it's only one aspect. As for light, get a flash. Even an f/1.4 still won't let in light that doesn't exist.

>The photos I get from it are far far better than every point and shoot or smartphone camera I've ever owned

Without knowing what are those cameras is difficult to know the reason. But a good high end compact camera, these days, tend to produce better images than kit lenses. Now, there's nothing wrong about kit lenses. I used one for a year until I was comfortable enough to jump to a better option. But these days I'm giving the same advice Marco does. Unless you have a very specific reason to shoot with an SLR or are willing to buy body and less separately, go for a compact with a good sensor size, manual controls and a good lens.

But it's just an advice, not a law written on stone.

Absolutely. This is just snobbery. Good photographers can take beautiful pictures even with shitty equipment. Poseurs (for lack of a better term) chase after high-end equipment pretending it will make good photographs (and yes, I also lust after high-end equipment and imagine that it will somehow make my photos better). Professional photographers 50+ years ago were taking amazing photos with lenses that were worse optically (to say nothing of autofocus and image stabilization) than current kit lenses. Current kit lenses are very good, though higher-end lenses are better still.

I would say, however, that if you're going to buy an SLR just to use it in "green box" (aka fully automatic) mode, you're probably better off getting a high-end point-and-shoot. If you want to use your camera as a point-and-shoot, then get a camera optimized for that use case, and it will likely do better than a camera optimized for semi-manual operation.

What complete drab. The photographer dictates the quality of the image, not the negligible image optics of a kit lens vs. a pancake 40mm.

Studying composition theory, understanding light and intelligently working with post production will get you stellar images irrespective of the lens you use;

http://500px.com/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=18-55mm&typ...

edit: Actually, seeing his article peppered with referral links just pulls the truth of this article to the forefront. Do not take this advice of spending more money on 'higher end' equipment thinking it'll produce something better.

You can also get amazing images with a point-and-shoot too (search on FLickr for images with an RX100, for example).

Again, he is not recommending you to buy an expensive lens. He's just saying you can find great point-and-shoot cameras or mirrorless with good optics for far less money or get better lenses if you jump to a body+custom lens scenario.

He's just advising not to end up in the middle, which I don't think it's a terrible advice. After using kit lenses for a while I'm giving the same advice now most of the time.

But what is wrong with going the SLR route? The point of those systems are the modularity. What if you want, in future, to expand your lens setup? Or keep your lenses and upgrade your body? Or you want a body without an AA filter? Or infrared filter? Or that shoots great video?

The argument is flawed.

I second shot weddings and freelanced events, and have spent more on camera gear than my car.

Marco's advice is terrible and akin to, "Don't learn programming if you'll only use one language."

It's a chicken or egg first problem. People buying their first DSLR always ask which camera to buy, but it's hard to answer since they don't have established preferences from exploring the hobby. There are no early indicators whether a person will ever need to upgrade from a kit lens.

Marco 40mm pancake lens suggestion is projecting his own preferences onto readers. What if the person wants to shoot headshots, sports, landscape, low light, or events? What use is a 40mm pancake then?

He may be famous for Instapaper, but his unqualified gear snobbery doesn't belong on Hacker News.

I enjoy photography but not enough (at the moment and foreseeable future) to sink a lot of time/money into it. I don't even consider it a "hobby" as much as I just like to carry a camera around with me when I know I'm going somewhere interesting.

Marco mentions them towards the end of the post but I absolutely love my mirrorless, micro 4/3s camera (Panasonic GF-1). [1] It's small/light enough that it's not a burden to carry (form factor is somewhere between a point and shoot and dSLR) and the picture quality, at least to a novice like myself, is excellent. I'm a big believer in the idea that "the best camera to own is the one you have in your hand" and I really wouldn't want to lug around anything bulkier/heavier, despite the added functionality.

[1] http://craigmod.com/journal/gf1-fieldtest/ - epic craigmod post that sold me on my camera, and has by his own admission given him a good chunk of money/exposure.

Equipment snobs afflict every hobby. Photography, music, computing, sports.

They're always annoying and always wrong.

We call them 'dentist photographers' in German photo forums. These guys get always the most expensive stuff and all they do is taking test pictures of screws and newspapers to determine if the optics are flawless. Then they put their expensive Leica away and go golfing.

It works out great for everyone else though. If you look at used Leica M9s on the market (as I'm doing these days...) a great many of them have only collected ~500 shutter clicks in the years they've been "in service".

Whenever I see a great camera sitting around unused it makes me ache :(

Have they fixed the chromatic aberration issues with it yet? I couldn't imagine paying $6000+ for a body anyway, especially one with such fringing issues. If you haven't considered it, you might want to check out the X100S. Check out Zack Arias' review. He specifically discusses the camera in the context of Leica: http://zackarias.com/for-photographers/gear-gadgets/fuji-x10...

I'm not aware of any unusual CA issues with the M9. Are you talking about the UV issues with the M8? Those were fixed for the M9, but unfortunately never fully fixed with the M8's...

CA is largely an artifact of the lens, not the sensor, no?

In any case, you can pick up a barely used (makes me weep with joy and sadness at the same time) M9 for about $3500 these days... It's the only reason why I'm even considering it. $7K for a body is insanity.

I did manage to get to play with a preproduction X100S by a stroke of luck. I like it, but it's not really the shooting workflow I'm looking for. I have the OM-D for that.

M9: http://www.dpreview.com/forums/post/33903254.

> shooting workflow

Can you elaborate? I'm curious about this. thanks!

p.s. this is beautiful: http://www.flickr.com/photos/potatolicious/5807542886/in/set...

Oh please.

I guarantee you that if you give 100 random people a SLR stuck in "Full Auto dummy mode" with the stock zoom lens and an iPhone 5 and make them to go take pictures one for one with each camera for an afternoon, the SLR photos will turn out dramatically better for them.

The SLR is the single easiest way to throw money at the "I want better pictures" problem and see results. Plus, even the cheapest ones have all the buttons and toggles to mess with if you do decide to learn more. And you can borrow lenses from friends.

I've got a Panasonic Micro 4/3 camera for this very reason. As an amateur wanting better quality photos than an iPhone I find it has much of the quality of a DSLR in a fraction of the size and cost and gives you that arty blurry background depth of field effect.

Camera: http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-DMC-GX1-Compact-System-Camer...

Lens: http://www.amazon.com/Panasonic-14mm-2-5-Aspherical-Intercha...

Exactly the same setup I have.

I found I never carried my SLR, and yet I wanted a lightweight camera that I wouldn't mind carrying everywhere. Something which let so much light into the sensor that it would work in low light conditions.

It's nigh on perfect.

I find that the biggest factor in getting great pictures is my bounce-able external flash on my 7D (and 300D before it) - and the only reason I haven't stepped down to a micro 4/3 already.

How do you solve the lighting problem?

Lighting changes everything. Even turning off the flash and living with noise and blur often results in a better picture.

After that, the biggest noticeable difference is (perhaps overly used) DoF and lovely bokeh to make subjects pop. That's something that really elevates some snapshots to being great photos.

Try all this with fast moving subjects - ie, kids.

They don't stay still and talk so you need something that does high ISO or good lighting.

The GX1 has a hot shoe, as do most of the micro 4/3 cameras.

Sound advice but maybe a bit too discouraging. It is true a lot of people seem to think it is all about the body not the glass, a classic mistake, but to say avoid the kit lens at all costs is perhaps a bit too far. I have a 350D, pretty old-fashioned for digital but works fine for someone like me who is not a pro. The kit lens it came with is garbage, however I did use it solely for about a year as I couldn't justify buying a lens and I still got some great shots. I recently bought a 50mm 1.8, very cheap, and now I only use the kit lens for wide shots (until I can afford a wide prime). I love the 50mm 1.8, it's a massive upgrade, but it is also very cropped (on an APS-C sensor) and the bokeh is noticeably harsh, but being worlds apart in terms of sharpness and speed over the kit lens is a great advantage. Using the kit lens does often produce soft images with blurred distorted edges full of chromatic aberration, enough to make me cry sometimes when I seeing a decent composition has been tainted by the low quality glass. But it is not the end of the world, the composition was still OK, the idea was still good, it was still interesting (to me at least). As soon as I can justify buying a decent wide lens I will, but I would never discourage someone from just going out and taking pictures if they only had the kit lens.

Better advice: don't be an equipment queen. Many kit lenses these days are very good.

I have the 50/1.4 on my Nikon D80, a fabulous lens, and I prefer using a prime, but it's not the right lens for every situation.

Even cheaper than that pancake lens is the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II. And it's much faster. That's my go to lens.

I totally agree and the nifty-fifty's pricing is unbeatable. However, I find the DoF to be way too shallow for all but portraits, unless I tweak/fix the aperture settings (and fix them so they don't change).

If I'm going to be doing f/2.8 or f/4 anyway, I'm happier with the pancake lens - esp. with my APS-C cropped factor, and effective 64mm is much more manageable than a 80mm. And it's just that bit lighter.

I'm a big believer in the foot-based zoom approach, and really prefer primes to zooms.

That's the one "add-on" lens I bought after lots of review when I figured it was time to add some variety to the kit lens.

Wrong. The kit lens is perfectly able to amazing photos.

This link contains nothing but photos taken with the Canon 18-55mm IS.

http://flickriver.com/lenses/canon/canonefs1855mmf3556is/ (just keep scrolling.)

There are a lot of amazing photographers out there.

In fact the newest Canon kits lens (18-55 IS STM) is extremely sharp. See:

http://www.photozone.de/canon-eos/831-canon_1855_3556stmis

The kit lens is only inferior if your intended photographic subjects are test charts.

I am someone who takes pictures who is a friend to someone who takes photos. There is a fair amount of distinction between those two sections of the spectrum.

I bought a Nikon D50 years ago which only had a kit lens for a trip to Hawaii. My friend already owned that camera and so fortunately he was able to run through the settings and help fix anything that wasn't ideal (I think by default it was set to medium quality JPGs). At the time there weren't many point-and-shoot cameras that had anywhere near the quality. Second, the shutter speeds on point-and-shoot cameras were, and still tend to be, awful. Third, a ton go into a digital zoom long after their optical is used up which is worthless for high-end images. Fourth, the settings can be controlled manually if need be to get everything just right. Finally, let's be honest, SLRs look cool! You look bad ass carrying it around, who cares if you leave it on AUTO the whole time?

SLRs can give you a lot more control than point-and-shoots that even just a novice can utilize. I can't imagine a kit lens that is worse than an equally expensive point-and-shoot.

Most of the comments here don't really argue against the article. Marco's not saying don't ever use a kit lens. He's not saying don't buy an SLR either. He argued that you shouldn't buy an SLR if all you will use is the kit lens.

He also gives a suggestion on his favorite lens and argues that you should not skimp out if you get a zoom.

Marco is clearly an enthusiast. So I agree with the article. Enthusiasts should optimize for price/performance. I think this excludes most SLRs.

I also agree with his recommendation of a micro 4/3 at the end. You might argue that you can grow into an SLR and overall you may spend less money if you get into photography seriously. But I have been involved in gear-centric hobbies before. This is fallacious thinking.

The vast majority of people never get that serious, so overall, most people have wasted money. The serious ones will continue to spend lots of money, and that initial investment is negligible. Also you can sell cameras 2nd hand.

I consider myself an experienced amateur. I would give different advice. If you are a documentary photographer (sending in pics with an article) the use a compact or a micro 4/3rd camera. Those are easy to carry around and less conspicuous and give good quality photos for print. An iphone is just fine for web.

> Oh, and please don’t use your camera’s built-in flash. Ever.

Why not?

Because direct flash makes things look terrible. If you want flash, you need to buy a flash that can bounce off the ceiling or something similar. Besides, modern SLRs have such great low-light performance that buying a fast prime pretty much removes the need for a flash at all.

"Because direct flash makes things look terrible"

Not every image is dictated by the same aesthetic.

"SLRs have such great low-light performance"

They do but you have to keep in mind that in low light it compensates by opening the shutter longer, and you really need to stabilize your camera (tripod is ideal) or it will come out blurry. If you're not using a tripod, and just taking a snapshot, you can just hold still, put your arm against your body and it should come out decent.

"It" being the camera? If we're talking about an SLR, you are in control, not "it". Stick that puppy in aperture priority, open it up to 1.8 and crank the ISO. My entry SLR from 6 years ago takes great shots even at ISO 800. New ones can probably quadruple that.

"Stick that puppy in aperture priority, open it up to 1.8 and crank the ISO"

And then what? I'm not a camera expert so I'm not sure what this means. I know how to do those things or can find it but not what it accomplishes.

By putting it in aperture priority mode, you can let the camera choose the optimum shutter speed while guaranteeing that the aperture stays at what you set (presumably the highest - f/1.8)

In order to make sure the shutter speed the camera selects for you isn't too slow and causes blurriness, boost up your ISO to as high a value as acceptable (acceptable is subjective here).

Interesting! Thank you! I will try this out on my camera.

Or you can try a Lightscoop - I use that with my built-in flash exclusively. Works great and you wouldn't even know that I used my built-in flash. lightscoop.com

Maybe he just assumes (like most people) that flash is just another light source for when there's not enough light.

Yet the pop up flash in your DSLR was never meant as a light source like studio lamps. It's there so you can use it as a fill flash[1]. And it does this job pretty well.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fill_flash

Built in flash is very harsh (it causes lots of shadows, and can wash areas out). When you use a good flash, the camera and the flash are more separated, which reduces the harshness a little, but you can point nicer flashes up in the air, allowing you to bounce the light off the ceiling, simulating a more natural lighting environment.

Be careful though, if your ceilings aren't white, you'll be covering everything in whatever color your ceiling is.

I put a white paper box that I made over the built-in flash. It is open on the top and has a flap so I can aim it back at the subject if I want. It actually does a pretty good job of dialing down the harshness. Perhaps not as good as a rotatable external flash, but for the cost of free, it's pretty great.

One of my friends throws an empty cigarette box over the flash.

Since it is really close to the lens, it creates quite ugly shadows and takes away depth from the image.

But if you put a piece of paper in front of the built-in flash at 45 degree angle, you can use it to create decent light indoors.

Because he doesn't know what he's talking about, and you shouldn't be taking camera advice from him.

The built in flash is perfectly fine for adding fill light to an image and with a bit of diffusion can even work as primary light source in a pinch.

Marco is also a professional wedding photograph if I am not mistaken. I think he actually knows what he is talking about. Generally the built in flash is too close to the camera, is obstructed by the lense and if direct facing.

He might know what he's talking about if he's talking to aspiring wedding photographers.

No, the built-in flash is way too close to the lens and often causes red-eye, overly stark shadows and the like.

Saying no one should use it is pretty extreme, but unless you have really poor lighting situation (nighttime outside or against the sunset), it's about 95% likely to produce a poorer image than without.

And this is advice for beginners who have no idea what a flash diffuser is.

His wife is a pro photographer but he is not. He just gets to play with high end equipment because it's available to him.

> adding fill light to an image and with a bit of diffusion can even work as primary light source in a pinch.

And that's Greek to anyone who casually takes pictures.

Because when used incompetently straight-on flashes make pictures awful.

When used competently you get some very cool effects:

https://www.google.com/search?q=terry+richardson&aq=f...

(And oh God Google's URL sucks)

So this whole "don't use your built-in flash ever" rule is really more "don't use your built-in flash unless you know what your'e doing", which seems less universal and more accurate.

Also, a lot of what makes straight-on flash pictures awful is actually a problem with the camera's metering. Modern flashes will emit a less powerful, very brief pre-flash for the camera to get a fix on how the picture will look with the flash, and adjust its exposure settings accordingly. A bad algorithm (nowadays algorithms, back in the old days simpler) will overexpose and result in washed out images (blown highlights, in actual parlance). If you camera is competent at automatically metering its own built-in flash you can avoid a lot of this - this is a main feature that separates crappy point and shoot cameras from good point and shoot cameras.

Disagree. My first SLR (and still my only "really good" camera) is a well-used original Canon Digital Rebel with 18-55 kit lens that I bought off a friend for $100, then added some accessories and a 50mm lens. My entire setup cost less than some people spend on lenses or bodies alone, and it's more than I'll ever need.

Going from a P&S to a dSLR was like going from a car with an automatic transmission to one with a stick shift. There's more I have to do myself, but I've also got much more control over the process.

That said, my most famous picture (has won photo competitions, been used as a magazine cover, and as background for lifetime award certificates) was a "lucky shot" I got with a Canon S3-IS point-and-shoot.

It's not about the equipment.

People buy DSLRs because they have big sensors. But I suggest buying a compact mirror-less camera like Sony NEX that have big sensor and small size. You can get expensive lenses if you are interested too.

This article is, quite simply, false. DSLR cameras have much superior sensors to consumer end cameras, including smart phones. The sensor makes an enormous difference in the photo; much moreso than the lens. Heck, I would be a 5D Mk III for the ISO improvements alone, forget the lenses. Unless you're doing something special that requires (a) zoom or (b) wide angle, the kit lens will do you just fine.

This guy is either a gearophile elitist or he's making referral money on those "pancake" lenses and the others he is casually "recommending".

There are plenty of compact cameras with APS-C CMOS sensors these days.

It's not the "class" of sensor that makes the difference, it's the specific sensor itself (the multitude of Nikon and Canon DSLR models with significant variance in quality should illustrate this). Also, APS-C isn't a specific size, it's a classification that different manufacturers interpret differently.

More importantly, though, I would say that "plenty" is a stretch. There might be some with large enough sensors, but those models are still the exception, not the rule, and most likely they will be at the top end of the price point for a compact anyway... I mean, the Coolpix A is $1000+. You can get an entry level DSLR or a pretty good used one for about that price. You're actually paying more for convenience than quality, at that point.

Someone should start photography classes for $2500 or something, and you get a DSLR (and maybe another lens) 'for free'.

Many people don't want to be a professional or even a hobbyist photographer, but could really benefit from a couple classes of the basics.

I just want to take a picture of my dogs/kids, something I've cooked/eaten, and of items to put on eBay or Craigslist. Using a phone or point and shoot leaves a lot to be desired but a lot of that doesn't have anything to do with the camera.

Regarding prime lenses, what he says is generally correct: They offer very good quality for money and you can just move around to 'zoom'.

However, you have to consider the types of shots you take and the types of spacing you have to move around. I have a 50mm prime with my Nikon and there have been times when I just couldn't get back far enough to take the shot I wanted.

It depends on what you are doing with it, that is, the kind of photography is involved. For some, the "starter" period is longer than the others. For me, my Nikon 7000's kit lense 18-105 works great for what I do with it, usually.

Also, SLR also provides a wide range of features and plethora of settings that you can tweak and learn.

I find the sample photo quite bad. There is an out of focus section above and to the left of the central flower that my brain can't make sense of. I'm no expert, but I'd pick a different photo. My guess is he could have controlled the depth of field better with the stock lens and gotten a better result.

A micro 4/3 is easy to carry and lenses are interchangeable and getting cheaper. This is a successful everyday lens: http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B002IKLJVE/ref=mw_dp_sim_ps5?p...

I'm a relatively decent amateur photographer[1]. Currently I shoot with a Canon 5D Mk II and an Olympus E-P2 M4/3s, and I have a Fuji X100S backordered from B&H[2].

I have about $3500 invested in Canon glass (acquired over the course of six years), and another couple grand in lighting equipment (Pocket Wizards, Speedlites, stands, backdrops, etc.), again acquired over the course of six years.

It makes me incredibly sad to see people using their new, shiny DSLRs as oversized point-and-shoots[3], and I wish that everyone who went out and bought a new consumer DSLR spent an extra 15% to take a one-day photography workshop.

If you were to say to me, "Aaron, I want to buy a DSLR so I can take better photos," I'd probably tell you to just buy a Micro 4/3s camera instead. They're cheaper, lighter, offer pretty decent quality, and still have interchangeable lenses. If you were serious about buying a DSLR, though, I'd recommend buying last year's model (body only), and picking up a 40 or 50mm prime lens, preferably the 50mm f/1.4 if you were going to go with Canon. The amount of money you'll save over buying the new model is more than enough to pick up a book or two and attend a workshop, and the skills you'll learn from both will do far more for your photos than a couple more megapixels ever will.

I love prime lenses for a variety of reasons, but I think they're especially great with new photographers. Reason being is that it forces you to think more about composition than you'd have to with a zoom lens[4], which means that you're going to develop better habits that will carry over when you do finally get a telephoto lens. You're also going to get a much larger maximum aperture, which means you'll be able to keep that built-in flash turned off a lot more of the time.

edit: oh yeah, and please turn off full auto mode

[1] Here are a couple recent photo projects of mine, if you're interested:

- 365 for 2013: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaronbrethorst/sets/72157632426...

- Final project for a photo class I was taking: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aaronbrethorst/sets/72157632966...

[2] I wanted something more capable for street photography than the E-P2, and the X100S, by all accounts, sounds absolutely fantastic. Here are a pair of reviews: http://zackarias.com/for-photographers/gear-gadgets/fuji-x10... and http://strobist.blogspot.com/2013/03/in-depth-new-fujifilm-x...

[3] For example: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scobleizer/8282247371/in/photos.... This makes me especially sad because the total cost of the equipment he's using here is about $4000. For a photo indistinguishable from a point and shoot. Were I taking this, I would've shot it at f/4, and dropped the shutter speed down to about 1/30s (rule of thumb is that you can shoot at the reciprocal of your focal length and stay sharp). This would've radically decreased the ISO setting and made the picture much more artistically interesting. I also would've cropped out my leg, but let's not go down that rabbit hole.

[4] As they say, ZOOM WITH YOUR FEET!

One of my favorite images is of a bald eagle perched on top of one of those very tall highway lighting standards.

"Zooming with your feet" isn't typically an option with wildlife, or with sailboats out in the bay, fighter jets taking off, football players approaching the goal line at the other end of the stadium, or about a billion other subjects.

I sometimes wonder how many of the equipment fetishists actually take pictures of real-world subjects.

An 18-55mm isn't going to get you a shot of that bald eagle, either.

edit: I'm also not advocating never shooting with anything other than a prime lens (although you can buy 200, 300, 400, 600, and 800mm primes). I just don't think it makes sense for a beginner to pay thousands of dollars for equipment that they have no idea how to use.

I think it makes far more sense for them to get up to speed on the basic use of their equipment and principles of photography before they start investing large sums of money.

I shot it with a 300mm zoom lens on a Canon 30D.

It came out fine. Quite usable for screen resolution.

If I'd had your preferred 50mm prime, it would have required so much cropping that it would have been unusable.

To be more specific, moving real world subjects that are not under the photographer's control. It's not a choice between using a zoom lens or changing lenses and "zooming with your feet". It's a choice between getting the image and not getting the image.

I know nothing about photography, but I am very skeptical of what I call "quality snobbery" in any hobby or discipline (audio equipment, music instruments, automobiles, etc.). I just can't accept his dismissiveness without some blind tests.

Don't buy a Ferrari unless you're going to race it in Formula 1.

Pretty glad Mapplethorpe only ever used prime lenses.

Today's kit lenses are actually really good. In fact, a kit lens today blows away a high-end lens from just a few years ago.

That's not true. Lenses are actually very dependable over time, which is why it's better to invest in good lenses rather than the body. Excellent lenses from 10 years ago still perform just the same since only the body changes. Only upgrades are Image Stabilization but IS is no match for top quality glass and aperture.

Here follow the opinions of a former yearbook photographer, hobbyist, and undergrad in physics. I have probably sold off or given away more camera equipment than most people will ever own. Every lens and body came from a pawn shop or eBay. Best photography lessons on the internet are probably John Lind (ref 1) and Bob Atkins (refs 2-5, many of his older articles are on photo.net)

Best pro tip I could offer is that if you think you're serious and going Nikon, spend the money to get a body with a built-in autofocus motor. That makes a vast number of great older AF lenses available to you on the used market, some of which are superior in very important respects to their current counterparts. This could save you tons of money. For example, I just got a 300 mm f/4 AF-D off eBay for $320 (after shipping). List price new: well over $1000. In the 1990s. The critical detail is that it's big enough that the lens is what you mount on the tripod, not the camera. The mounting collar on the new VR 300 is just a touch loose, but when you're moving this thing around to get that shot of a yellow-breasted Pacific flycatcher, a few minutes of wiggle is not acceptable.

I will also suggest not sweating the f-stops on lenses. "Fast" lenses were defined in a time when pros were making tradeoffs between film resolution* and speed at ASA values of 100-800. Any sensor you buy today will get to ASA 3200, probably 6400, without trouble, and with higher sensor resolution* than those lenses were ever sold for.

A great example: I'm very happy my first zoom was a Nikon 70-210 f/4, a budget version of their famous 80-200 f/2.8. Now I carry half the weight and still have way more speed (in terms of total available exposure value) than guys with a 2.8 had 10 years ago.

You gain a bit of depth of field with the smaller objectives, (so your background with the aperture wide open is more focused, which is not desirable in some circumstances) but 95% of taking pictures outside a studio is being there, and that's far more likely if your camera bag weighs less or has an extra lens.

Also: lens quality. Friends, lens quality and geometry was perfected 100 years ago. There was an advance in the 60s when they started depositing some salt layers on the glass but otherwise, you'd be hard pressed to get a meaningfully better lens today, optically, than you could in 1985.

(1) http://johnlind.tripod.com/science/

(2) https://www.google.com/search?q=bob+atkins+site%3Aphoto.net

(3) Very important: http://photo.net/equipment/digital/sensorsize/

(4) Hard to find: http://photo.net/learn/optics/pixel_peep/pixel_peep_part1.ht...

(5) Hard to put in context without (4) http://photo.net/learn/optics/pixel_peep/pixel_peep_part2.ht...

* I use "film resolution" as I don't recall if there's a particular term that otherwise nicely describes the important point when trying to compare film grain and pixel density. There's yet another issue of quantum uncertainty when the wells start getting very small, but I leave that to Bob Atkins to explain (above).

Photographer/photojournalist here. What a panamax-sized-load of complete nonsense. "Don't use the kit lens!" Says who? Some kit-obsessed "coffee enthusiast". And I'm keen on indoor-outdoor breathing! Let's be buddies!

Marco Arment knows fuck-all about

(a) quality (b) photography (c) camera hardware (d) captioning photos

There isn't a sentence in that blog post that isn't either wrong or half-true.

Use the camera however you want. When you start finding that your tools can't keep up with your imagination, improve them. Photography is about light, and capturing it, first and foremost. See the light, see it change, make it change, appreciate it, capture it, and stop reading trash from insecure baldhead attention whores who take godawful photos like this: http://www.flickr.com/photos/marcoarment/5196670116/in/photo...

Sure, some people think sharp lines, high contrast and Schneider-Kreuznach-like resolution == high quality. And it does, in context. If you want sharpness, high contrast and resolution. You may also want to play an Ibanez RG1570 in the same context. But to others, artistic quality is a more useful way to describe things - and it can cheerfully describe all types of optics in that useful way, a way that doesn't need to stick things on a scale of good to bad. Marco appears to have been in the wrong place at the wrong time and caught me on full-flame-on mode - but he's also being narrow-minded and only looking to one context, which doesn't help anybody make better pictures, it just helps them make sharper and bigger pictures.

A bit harsh and snarky, but true.

I shoot a lot. I have an apartment full of cameras, dating from the 50s all the way through the present. I've shot everything from fuzzy shitty optics from the post-war years all the way to extremely expensive primes made last year.

And it is the last thing that matters when you're looking to take good pictures. Your understanding of light, timing, subject matter, and composition will take you miles further than paying thrice the price for something marginally sharper.

Unfortunately the vast majority of photography discussion online is not really about "photography" so much as it is "photographic equipment appreciation". For these people it stopped being about the images and is all about the scientific pursuit of optical capture. They spend more time shooting test charts than shooting outside, and when they do get outside it's pictures of bark (to compare sharpness and contrast!) or pictures of flowers (look at the bokeh!).

This blog post is no different.

Discussion about photography (you know, the art form, where it's about the picture and not the gear you took the picture with) is actually very hard to find online. I've only really had good luck finding offline communities to get my photo fix.

The common kit lens for the Canon 5D mk3 is the 28-105 L lens, which is a very good lens (I have it). Yeah, I agree with you, Marco is being too general here.

The kit version of the 5D Mark 3 is also about 8x more expensive than what Marco is discussing.

Why would you even consider writing a post like this? There are a million ways to disagree, and you chose to go with mean-spirited and the throwing of wild allegations. Your post says much more about yourself than Marco.

I think he's coming from the perspective of someone who uses his camera phone as his primary camera. I'm no photographer, but I've often gotten better pictures from my iPhone than my default SLR camera kit. Why bother spending $500+ when you already have a camera of comparable quality in your pocket? If you spend that much money on a piece of professional equipment, you might as well go all the way.

"...insecure baldhead attention whores..."

Not sure why I read that far, frankly, but I stopped there. Mr. Arment expressed an opinion. He didn't attack you personally. Why did you resort to name-calling?

"Photography is about light" - indeed.

But most kit lens have a sub par aperture stop limiting the amount of light that can reach it. Yielding poor/blurry photos indoors and other locations where light is not ideal. Of course if the user understands the use of iso, shutter speed (w/tripod) & flash to compensate they can get a decent shot either way.

The 5D comes with a decent enough kit lens, 24-105 L lens, but it stops at f4. Try shooting with that indoors. Plus not all cameras come with a decent kit lens. Getting a 24-70mm L f2.8 or even a cheap 50mm f1.4 prime would be a better option for low light even tho you'd loose the extra zoom.

Best solution is if you are thinking of getting into DSLR world think about the lens 1st and then the body. The body is like a computer and will expire while the lens are a life long investment.

Photographer/photojournalist here as well,

Lets forget for a moment about you unfortunate adjectives and appreciations (I don't care if this guys is a "coffee enthusiast" and nor should you for the purposes of this article. The whole "insecure baldhead attention whores" its even worse, makes me think the insecurity is placed in the wrong person in this situation)

Now here's the thing,

> but he's also being narrow-minded and only looking to one context

Yeah, of course. Its his opinion on a very specific situation and he's not trying to say otherwise. There are kit lenses that are more or less ok but most of them are bad compared to good zoom lenses. Marco's advice in this case is pretty sensible: If you are not going to care about using a very good lens, a cheaper compact camera might give you sharper images.

Compact cameras these days come with a lot of features that will suffice to teach you the basics of photography (aperture priority, shutter speed, manual focus...) and if you later want a better system, its a good backup.

Of course you can create awesome images with a kit lens, and of course sharpness is not the only factor that goes into determining the quality of a picture. But it could be in the context he's mentioning -journalist that take a picture to go with their articles- and journalist in those cases will be better served by a smaller and lighter camera.

Do you want to do art with your images? Go nuts, make a pinhole camera out of a Pringles can, use a 50 year old soviet camera or a kit lens or a compact Chinese 50 dollar digital camera with 8 MB of onboard memory. This is not the people this advice is given to. Artist find their way of expressing themselves with the medium they prefer, without regards -or sometimes thanks to- their limitations.

In this case, by trying to point out the snobbery you think you saw in the advice, you've actually out-snobbered it.

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