What Camera Should I Buy (Part II)
- March 16, 2012 - posted by chicago wedding photographer nate mathai

categories: Math Class
tags: camera buying, canon, lens, math class, recommendation, review, sigma

interested in booking? Head over to the the contact page or shoot me an email to info@natemathai.com

So Part I was regarding the general choice between camera phone, P&S and dSLR. If you’re looking into the dSLR route, the next thing you need is a lens (or…multiple lenses). So let’s get to the lens questions!

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Just like there are many factors based on priorities when choosing a camera, there are many factors that determine which lenses to buy. Every lens is difference in terms of use, quality, flexibility, and cost. Let me generally break down the broad differences to look at.

Brand vs Off-Brand
If you own a Canon camera, the most obvious lens would be to buy a Canon lens. While it’s a good solution, it might not always be the best solution. Personally, I like to stay with the brand name for consistency and other details, but again, it’s not necessary. There are plenty of quality lenses from Sigma, Tamron, Tokina, etc. that fit on Canon/Nikon cameras. The off-brand lenses are generally cheaper, and sometimes you pay for that with the quality (build quality and/or image quality). I started out with a couple Sigma lenses before I switched to going all Canon. If the budget is an issue, I recommend looking into the off-brand lenses and getting reviews. Sometimes, you’ll find lenses that aren’t that much different in quality (be careful, though, as the image quality tradeoff might not be worth the lens cost difference).

Fixed vs Zoom Focal Lengths
A zoom lens allows you to stand in one place and change the depth/distance between yourself and the subject you are shooting. So in a matter of seconds, you can take a picture with a 24mm field of view and then take a close-up with a 70mm field of view. With a fixed lens, you have a 50mm field of view. And that’s it. If you want to get closer to the subject, you move your feet and get closer, or you switch your lens.
I started out with a set of zoom lenses because they are the most flexible (16-35, 24-70, 70-200). So with 3 lenses, I could go from very wide at 16mm to extremely tight at 200mm. As I started to build my gear, I started to invest in fixed focal lengths. The fixed lenses provide better image quality, force me to be more creative, and also give extreme apertures. What I mean is, with my 24-70, the widest I could be is 2.8. Now, I have a 50mm that can go to 1.2. The difference is huge in terms of low-light benefits or extreme depth of field. The trade-off, again, is that when I once carried 3 lenses, to cover the similar range of views, I now have a 24mm, 35mm, 50mm, 85mm, 100mm, and 135mm.
For a hobbyist/someone interested in the art of photography, I recommend going the fixed route because it challenges you to work harder and think differently and purposefully with your images a bit more than zooms. For the average person, I recommend zooms for flexibility and ease of use.

Widest Aperture
Not getting too technical, aperture can be looked at as a hole through which light travels through. The larger the hole, the wider the aperture (ie. f/1.8), the more light enters. This makes it useful for low-light situations. This also has a very small depth of field, which means one small portion is in focus and the rest out of focus. The camera lens will list the widest the lens will go (ie. f/1.4), but it can always stop down to smaller f-stops (ie. f/5.6, f/11,…).
A camera company will produce multiple lenses at the same focal length with different apertures, at different costs. The wider the aperture is capable of going, the more expensive. A Canon 50mm comes as a 1.2, 1.4 and 1.8 (Sigma makes a 50mm 2.8 for Canon). The f/1.2 lens can be about $1,600 while the f/1.8 goes for about $120. That’s a huge price difference. The build quality and image quality are also vastly difference. This is where budget comes to play to figure out what you can afford. Again, for the hobbyist, I recommend at least getting the 50mm 1.8 along with any other lens (fixed/zoom) that they find valuable.
One thing to note is that lenses are very valuable, and hold their value for a long time- it’s an investment. A camera body might get refreshed every year, but a new version of a lens takes a while. So I always say to invest more in quality lenses that multi-featured camera bodies, if you have to choose.

Fixed vs Variable Apertures
This is an area that it’s easy to miss initially that messes people up in the long run.
A fixed aperture is one that is constant the whole time. With fixed focal lengths (ie. 50mm 1.8), it is always a fixed aperture. With zoom focal lengths (ie. 24-70 2.8 or 24-135 3.5-5.6), the aperture could be variable or fixed. The 24-70 2.8 is fixed- it only has 1 aperture number listed (which is the widest the lens will go). A variable length generally has 2 numbers listed. The first number is the aperture at the widest focal length, and the second is the widest aperture at the longest focal length. This means that for the Canon 24-135 f/3.5-5.6, At 24mm, the widest aperture you can get is f/3.5. At 135mm, the widest you can get is f/5.6 (And it gradually decreases across the zoom). Most zoom lenses on kit packages with everything thrown in includes a lens like this. It’s highly flexible in terms of zoom range and is fine when you have a lot of light, but when you are indoors you will find yourself struggling. You might find that f/3.5 is what you need to be at to get proper exposure, but when you zoom in, the lens forces you to drop to f/5.6, and now all your images are too dark (underexposed). So I always recommend to finding a fixed aperture lens. These are more expensive, but totally worth it.

The other decision is what focal lengths to buy. Again, this is all dependent on what your wanting to use it for. The wider the lens (16mm), you get more scenery, but you also get distortion (subjects in the edges of the frame get stretched). The longer lens (200mm) also you to have a greater reach from far away, so it’s necessary for sports photographers on the sidelines taking images of the opposite end of the field. A 50mm lens (on a full-frame camera) is basically the natural perspective of the human eye.

So there you have it- pair this with Part I and you should be able to choose a decent camera/lens combo that fits in your budget and suits your needs. Any other questions on this? Hope it was helpful! :)

What Camera Should I Buy? (Part I)
- March 14, 2012 - posted by chicago wedding photographer nate mathai

categories: Math Class, Personal
tags: buying, camera, chicago wedding photographers, dslr, tips

interested in booking? Head over to the the contact page or shoot me an email to info@natemathai.com

First, I recently realized that I’ve lost track of my personal Facebook messages…it started getting a bit busy there and I missed a bunch of messages. So I’ll be trying to catch up there as well, but just a heads up-
1- Best way to reach me is through the contact page
2- My facebook ‘fan page’ now has a message inbox, and I’ll make it a point to check and respond to that better ;)

I got a handful of photo-related questions too, so I figured I’d post here as it’s sort of beneficial for others-

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Now, a common question that I seem to get regularly looks something like this: “Hey Nate, I’m looking to buy a dSLR, what do you recommend? I don’t need something big, expensive and fancy like you, but just something that takes great images just by pressing a button, and works great for sports, landscapes, portraits and shooting in complete and utter darkness. Let me know!”

OK, so that’s not verbatim, but I feel like that’s the initial intent that people have without realizing it. And to start, if I found a camera that was cheap, lightweight, and created beautiful images with no work on my part in all situations, I would own it…and not tell you about it so I could keep my job ;) But seriously, as with all purchases, it’s important to realize that there’s a give and take in terms of cost and benefits. The big thing is to realize what it is that you are wanting/needing, what are your priorities, and where you are willing to make sacrifices. Then you’ll be able to get the perfect camera that fits you.

To start, I would say there are three “F”s to think about figuring out what camera to get:

Finance
How much are you willing/able to spend? This is the best place to start. What’s your total budget for your new camera purchase? Take everything into account- camera body, lens(es), batteries, memory cards, flash, carry case, etc. The little things will add up, so its great to plan in advance what your maximum budget right now, and then work to se what fits beneath that. It’s not worthwhile to compare top of the line features if you’re only able to spend $100.

Function
What are you planning to use the camera for? This is where sacrifice initially comes into play, and what can help separate the iPhone from the P&S from a dSLR. I would say about 80% of my personal images are taken with an iPhone, 19% with my dSLRs, and about 1% with my P&S (though the wife primarily uses that one). Reason being? The iPhone takes quality images and its always on me. The dSLR gives me most creative freedom, and I already own it. The P&S, for me, is a great travel camera when I want more creative control without having the bulk/weight of my dSLR and lenses. It’s sort of a forced limitation, because I tend to want to bring every lens and constantly shoot everything when I’m carrying my dSLR.

The next important thing to set priority in is when you’re planning on using it the most. Are you needing to take images at night/low light situations? Constantly needing fast-action sports pictures? Primarily using it to take pictures of flowers, trees and portraits outdoors? Need one that doubles as a video camera easily? Each of these situations require a different feature set (and different lenses for dSLRs).

Features
Now that you’ve figured out what you need and what you’re using the camera for, the next step is figuring what what camera features you are choosing between, and also know what you need to focus on. Camera manufacturers will market the heck out of everything that will be beyond your needs to sell you something, so hopefully these quick tips can clear up some of the confusion. (Note that this isn’t an in-depth discussion of all factors and just scratches the surface of these things…I can go into much more detail, but it’s highly unnecessary for the general camera buyer)

>> Megapixels
When printing an image, there are two numbers to note: PPI (pixels per inch) and megapixels. The PPI is normally the requirement of where you are printing it at, and a general print should be around 240ppi (300ppi is very high quality, you can get away with 200ppi, even less for poster/billboards). PPI represents, as it says, how many pixels of data there are for each inch of the image. So the lower the number, the less data is present per inch, and so the image is less sharp because the computer/printer is making up data for the remaining space.
Megapixels (a million pixels) is the total area of the image. So going back to your geometry class, Area = Length x Width. Now if we just substitute values for these things, here’s an example:

So those are the factual numbers, now for some real life scenarios. I’ve printed 30×40 canvases on my 5D (12MP camera). I’ve printed 16×24 from 30D (8MP). I know people who’ve printed quality canvases around 16×20 from their iPhone4 (5MP).

All of this is to say that camera companies keep playing the MP game (above 30MP recently), which is far more than you’ll ever need. At what size are you planning on printing images? Are you even considering printing images? (Personally, I think you should…but that’s a different discussion.) My recommendation is not to get caught up in the megapixel war. Generally, most dSLRs out today will have a minimum of 10MP (the latest iPhone is 8MP) which would be more than enough for most of your needs.

>> ISO
ISO is the sensor’s sensitivity to light. ISO100 is low. ISO12800 is high. The less light you have available, the more sensitive to light you want your camera sensor to be. The benefit of higher ISO is that you get brighter images in darker settings. The cost is it degrades quality, bringing a lot of grain. A lot of times, what the camera is doing is making up data where it can’t really find it, making larger image files as well. So the important thing is not just how high of an ISO can it achieve, but what is the quality. A better question- what’s the highest USABLE ISO? And that would different to each person’s taste. Commercial photographers might not go higher than ISO200, while you might be perfectly fine with the grain in ISO3200. If you’ll be taking a lot of indoor pictures with no flash, you’ll probably need to be at least at ISO800, but outdoors between ISO100-ISO400. So depending on your need, that would help you decide how vital high ISO is for you, as well as how high you need.

Outside of those two factors, here are a couple things to help figure out which brand/camera to get:
> Get a camera brand your friends have. It’s easier to learn when you are using the same gear as someone else that you know. It’s easier to share/borrow lenses, too!
> Find out what “feels” good. Go to a store and pick up the camera. The ergonomics are very important, and there are small details that differ from camera to camera. The review button on one camera might be in an entirely different location on another camera. You’ll be able to learn the ergonomics, but its best to feel the camera and figure it out in advance- is it too heavy? Does it feel solid enough? Are your hands too big/small for it?
> dSLR video is not easy. It’s easy to jump to a 2-in-1 for video and pictures, but a dSLR is not extremely easy for moving action videos. Manual focus, adjusting shutter speed, manual zoom, and other details make it much more time consuming then just buying a dedicated flip or using your phone for the quick videos. Again, it depends on how often you plan on taking videos and how quick/easy you want it to be.

For some, you might decide that your phone camera will more than suffice for your needs. For others, your budget might tell you to buy a high-end P&S to get great quality images with a bit of creative control, but have something that is lightweight and easy to carry. For others, the dSLR is the way to go for you. For that last group, the next decision is the lenses and accessories, which I’ll post about later. Hopefully this was helpful for you guys- let me know (if I get more questions, I’ll try to answer them semi-regularly as well)!

Babymoon 2012
- January 16, 2012 - posted by chicago wedding photographer nate mathai

categories: Personal
tags: baby, babymoon, bongo room, chicago, chicago wedding photographers, couples, downtown, grand lux, illinois, maternity, portraits, second city, wyndham

interested in booking? Head over to the the contact page or shoot me an email to info@natemathai.com

Babymoon? Yeah, I had no idea what that was either. But my wife sure let me know early on that we were taking one. :)
Seriously, though, the wife and my schedules have been very busy that its been a bit difficult for us to actually have some extended time just to relax. And since the wife is unable to relax while being at our house (she will always find something to clean, fix, organize, work on, etc.), it was necessary for us to physically get out of our place and get disconnected from everything.
We spent the weekend in downtown Chicago and stayed at the Wyndham. A week ago, Chicago was boasting an unseasonable warm winter with 50 degree weather…sadly this time around we were in the teens. Coupled with me being a little under the weather, the plans didn’t go exactly as we expected, but we still had a great weekend away. We spent a good deal of time just laying around and watching movies, before catching a showing of Second City- I feel like at every improv show I go to, there’s about 2 people who are extremely funny and make the show worth it, and then the remaining cast is just OK. Definitely had a good laugh though! Afterward, we had dinner at the Grand Lux…the wife was initially wanting to go someplace we’ve never gone before, but I was in the camp of getting something that we knew we’d like. I won this one. :)
We ended off our weekend stay at the Bongo Room, which is small and busy, but had a great brunch (according to the wife who got a chocolate tower french toast…I’m not much of a foodie so I stuck with an egg sandwich). All in all, it was definitely a great escape for us to just spend time with each other and plan and look ahead to 2012, as we get ready to raise our first child in this world.

We also planned to do a faux-maternity shoot (“faux” in the sense that I’m not really a maternity photographer), so I brought a handful of gear along. But the cold weather and my sickness didn’t allow us to do as much as we/I envisioned. But one thing that I always wanted to try was “freelensing”, and I finally used this opportunity to mess around with it! I took a handful of images of people passing by our hotel room on the streets below (all the freelensing images were shot with the 135 f/2)-

The wife wanted to make sure that both of us were in some of the images together, so we set a few up with us two, but then I got to have a bit of fun just photographing my model (and doing a little freelensing on her as well) :)

March 25th is right around the corner!