Camera for mountain photography?

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neilus 06 Aug 2014
Hiya
Ok i will apologise in advance for the fact that i honestly have not invested too much time looking into this...I dont know why but i just find digital cameras to be the most brain-warpingly complex of devices, with a list of specs that honestly might as well be Arabic for all i know...
I took a simple Canon Ixus 115HS (12Mp) on my last trip to India and was disappointed with my pictures, so I need a new one, and i dont really want to spend more than 300.
Im off to Krgyzstan in a few weeks, so id like something good enough to capture the depth of big landscapes with clarity, which is where my old Ixus failed pretty miserably.
The most basic of google "entry level dslr" search has led me to the Nikon D3200, does anyone have any experience with this model?
Id really appreciate any advice at all...
Cheers guys!
 d_b 06 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:
The D3200 is a good entry level SLR, but you can get some excellent compacts for the same money.

My experience is that when I take a compact it goes in a pocket or gets strapped onto my rucsac and I take plenty of shots, but I end up with almost nothing when I carry an SLR because it spends the day in my bag.

£289.99 will get you a panasonic DMC LX-7, which is their latest replacement for one of my all time favourite landscape cameras. It's on my new camera shortlist after my last compact finally started giving up the ghost.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Panasonic-Lumix-Camera-LEICA-Summilux-Black/dp/B008...
Post edited at 14:38
 Pina 06 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

Get something like this. http://www.wexphotographic.com/buy-panasonic-lumix-dmc-lx7-black-digital-ca...

It's light and will produce DSLR quality photos. I've got a range of cameras from point and shoot to DSLRs and can say that this sort of premium compact camera is probably one of the most practical for mountain use. The use of a leica lens with panasonic electronics remains one of the best pairings in the world of photography.

There's a few other models but if you're not too camera savy this is the sort of thing I would reccomend.
 d_b 06 Aug 2014
In reply to J_Trottet:
I just edited my post to suggest the same thing. I have had an LX3 for years, which has given great service. I'm seriously considering the LX7 as a possible replacement.
Post edited at 14:40
neilus 06 Aug 2014
In reply to davidbeynon:

Brilliant, that was what i was thinking, why would an entry level dslr neccessarily be better than a mid range point and shoot?
The Lumix you mentioned is only 10mp...seems a bit low?
Cheers
 d_b 06 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:
My advice would be to not get hung up on resolution. Beyond a certain point the pixel count isn't really that important to image quality. You can print fairly big images from a 6mp camera and not be able to see the pixels unless you get close up and squint.

High resolutions can actually work against you, as bigger pixels are better at capturing light and tend to have lower noise than small ones. So all other things being equal a lower res camera can give better images than a high res one.

You can see this with things like the Nikon D3 and D3X, where the older D3 is actually better in low light than the newer high res model.
Post edited at 14:54
 eduardo 06 Aug 2014

> The Lumix you mentioned is only 10mp...seems a bit low?

A bit low for what? 10MP is plenty to produce a decent size A3 print.
You could spend £5k for the flagship professional Nikon slr and you'd still only get 16MP.
High MP on a cheap camera is more of a marketing ploy than a feature which will lead to better photos.


 PPP 06 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

Most of my photos in the profile are taken by Olympus E-PL5 with either 14-42mm kit lens or Lumix 20mm F/1.7 lens. I am more than happy, especially after having a large DSLR with few not-so-compact lens.
neilus 06 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

Thanks for the replies so far! So it seems this Lumix DMC LX-7 might be a good buy based on the almost unanimous praise...
Its either that or...a MSR Hubba HP, but Ill save that for another thread
Thanks
 Garbhanach 06 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

Things to consider is a compact as versatile or going to give the same low light performance or dynamic light range as the Nikon D3200, do you want to experiment with different lenses later on or add off camera flash or lens filters, will the digital viewfinder on the compact be visible for good composition and focus in bright sunlight compared to the SLR, what if the compact gets dust or sand in the lens, the Nikon lens and sensor can be cleaned.
I agree with other statements that high megapixels are not necessary but they do give the option to crop without loosing resolution
 Fraser 06 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:
>
> I took a simple Canon Ixus 115HS (12Mp) on my last trip to India and was disappointed with my pictures, so I need a new one...

What exactly was disappointing about the pictures you took in India? Knowing this might influence what suggestions folk make for a replacement.
 Michael Ryan 06 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

> Thanks for the replies so far! So it seems this Lumix DMC LX-7 might be a good buy based on the almost unanimous praise...


Yes, I would say so....metal body, fantastic camera, great low light sensor - get a leather case with it.

It's either that or the Sony RX100...you can pick up the RX100 vers. 1 for less than £300. My current compact.
neilus 06 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:
Im not 100% sure Fraser, i just recall seeing some pics on another forum of some of the views where i also took pictures and could hardly believe it was the same place. They seemed so detailed, crystal clear and somehow like you could reach out and touch the icy slopes of these beautful 6/7000m mountains, and i remember thinking "right, i need a new camera!". I wish i could find them for reference; but i vaguely remember that the poster said he used a Nikon D3200, thats when i thought about a DSLR.
A lot of the reviews of the Lumix say it has a "fast lens"...needless to say I have no idea what that is, or indeed why i might want one...?
Again i have to confess that i really cba investing huge amounts of time trying to figure out what all this jargon means in real terms. Its a definite feeling of "outdoor/technical spec online comparison/review gear choice research" burnout...im sure im not the only to suffer from this! As I said im planning a trip to Kyrgyzstan as well, and im well and truly maxed out on the "looking up stuff on the internet" front
Thanks for the replies!
Post edited at 19:36
 d_b 06 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

Whatever you buy, you should get at least 1 spare battery. Maybe 2.
 eduardo 07 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

It's possible that your previous camera could have delivered far better results than you achieved, so being arsed to try to work out why they weren't as good as you would have liked may be more helpful than just buying another camera. It's quite possible that the good photos you saw may have been down to the photographer knowing what (s)he was doing, and not just having a different camera.
 The Lemming 07 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

> Again i have to confess that i really cba investing huge amounts of time trying to figure out what all this jargon means in real terms.

May I suggest that a dSLR is probably not the camera choice for you, if you are not prepared to invest time in reserching what the jargon means.

Without understanding the various components of a dSLR and how they all come together to capture an image then there is a high likelyhood of capturing poor quality images 99% of the time.

To get the best of a dSLR you need to know about stuff like:
lenses
shutter speed and how they affect a picture
Aperture sizes and how they affect a picture
ISO settings
Flash settings
Tripods and when to use them
Filters
Sensor size
Pixel count on the sensor. Too many make images look worse

You could of course keep a dSLR in AUTO mode, but then you would have a very heavy compact camera producing images comparable with a compact camera.

Unless you are prepared to dedicate months/years of learning how to use a dSLR then you are better investing time and money into a quality compact or prosumer camera.

If used correctly a compact or prosumer camera will compete well against a dSLR. Cameras are just tools to do a job and as the saying goes, a bad workman always blames his tools.

On a personal note, as camera technology advances so quickly, I now buy secon-hand cameras which are maybe one or two generations behind. This is because people like to upgrade in the hope that a new camera will instil special powers when taking photos.

I have a Nikon D5000 my mate has a Nikon D40. If we both used the same lens to shoot the same subject you would not be able to tell the difference, provided that you did not pixel-peep.
 Toerag 07 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

the advantage with a DSLR is the lenses in that you can get shallow depth of field easier (think of the subject in focus and everything behind and in frotn being blurred.) For landscapes this disappears and you're just as well off with a compact. The RX100 gets very good reviews. The other question you need to ask yourself is do you need a zoom lens?
 roddyp 07 Aug 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

> To get the best of a dSLR you need to know about stuff like:
> lenses
> shutter speed and how they affect a picture
> Aperture sizes and how they affect a picture
> ISO settings
> Flash settings
> Tripods and when to use them
> Filters
> Sensor size

All of these (bar lenses) also apply to decent compacts. LX-7 shoots raw, has full manual mode and can take filters via adapter

> Pixel count on the sensor. Too many make images look worse
Never heard that before?? But agree pixel count is definitely not a good way to measure image quality.

One big change with DSLRs is the amount of dynamic range available in Raw images. I'm always amazed at how much detail you can rescue from an apparently overblown sky with my D7100 compared to the LX7.
 The Lemming 07 Aug 2014
In reply to roddyp:

> Never heard that before?? But agree pixel count is definitely not a good way to measure image quality.

I was trying to be as simple as I could for somebody that does not want to bone up on jargon. I'd like to explain that too many pixels crammed onto a sensor creates unwanted noise. Its this unwanted noise that degrades the image quality.

We had a pixel arms race on compacts and now it would appear that this race has moved to dSLRs and phones.
In reply to The Lemming:

> Unless you are prepared to dedicate months/years of learning how to use a dSLR then you are better investing time and money into a quality compact or prosumer camera.

When I used my old Olympus SLRs, I only had at most 36 frames to use (okay, I could take spare films...). I had a decent viewfinder that let me compose properly. So I took my time and some care in choosing scene, selecting appropriate control settings, etc, and held the camera nice and still, or used a tripod. The pictures I took were nice and crisp, and some were pretty good.

Then I bought a compact digital, and, since you can merrily snap away easily with loads of space on a memory card, I took no time to compose or think about the shots. Result: a load of crap 'snaps'.

The message of this isn't to buy a DSLR, but to take time and care thinking about what to photograph and how, whatever camera you use. I still need to do this, as I haven't yet overcome the 'point and shoot' laziness with digital cameras.

From an imaging technology point of view, I'd agree with the other comments that more MP isn't necessarily a good thing. Given a fixed sensor size, the more MP you have, the smaller each pixel sensor is, and the more space on the sensor used for non-imaging function (e.g. electrical connections and data transfer). So, rather than the signal from the pixel being dominated by the light input, the ratio of background electrical noise rises, and the picture becomes noisy, fuzzy, indistinct, etc. especially so in lower light levels. The nearest equivalent effect in film photography is, strangely, the use of a faster film, e.g. 1600ASA, where the large grains become prominent, and have a visual effect similar to this noise.
 d_b 07 Aug 2014
In reply to Fraser:

> What exactly was disappointing about the pictures you took in India? Knowing this might influence what suggestions folk make for a replacement.

One thing that occurred to me is that maybe the pictures from the old camera are better than he thinks they are.

A lot of cameras produce images that look a bit flat on a monitor, but can look great with a bit of curve/level tweaking.
neilus 07 Aug 2014
Thanks everyone for some really helpful replies. It seems my previous "push a few buttons without knowing what they do", shoot and hope for the best is not really good enough. Need to at least have some clue about basic aspects such as shutter speed, exposure and iso stuff...
Ive had a good look at my pictures and tbh they're not that bad. In optimal light the results were good, the problems seemed to arise in dawn/dusk light, cloud cover and glare from the snow, and i guess i need to get more tuned in to when these problems are there, and what settings i need to adjust. Ive submitted some pics to my profile (awaiting approval) so you can see what I mean!
Anyway, seems the old Ixus is scrap, some crud inside the lens which ive been noticing seems like its there to stay. The dude in the shop said for what it would cost to service I might as well get another camera Or i might as well have a go myself? I cant see what i have to lose...
Cheers fellas!
 Siward 08 Aug 2014
In reply to captain paranoia:

Could you not buy a really, really small memory card thus making every shot precious?
 The Lemming 08 Aug 2014
In reply to Siward:


You mean like a Micro SD card with 32Gb capacity.

To the OP, I have had two dSLR's since 2005 and before then it was cheap ponte-and-clicks all the way except for a period at college where I borrowed a traditional SLR for a photography course.

In the last couple of years I have been pondering about the weight of the dSLR and that I don't bring it out often. There is also the fact that I have a camera/video as part of my phone and tablets which makes me once more think long and hard about the need for such a hefty bit of kit.

And then I go away on holiday, or turn up to a mate's wedding with my monster of a camera,compared to a smart phone, and the captured images blow everything else out of the water. Once again I fall in love with the image quality of what I capture.

If you put a dSLR up against a phone and compact and then put them all in AUTO to shoot the same subject, you would have to pixel peep really hard to tell which camera took which image. However once you put the dSLR into any one of those manual modes and start fiddling with even just one of the settings you can occasionally get breathtaking results. In my humble opinion, its the glass rather than the body that is more important. Even the most basic budget dSLR can compete with a flagship dSLR once unshackled from a kit lens.

You can also get breathtaking results with a point-and-click once you understand their strengths and weaknesses too.

Would I swap my dSLR?
Not at the moment however I am intrigued with the new smaller cameras hitting the market with interchangeable lenses. Maybe one day I will look into them.
 franksnb 08 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus: to capture detail you need a large sensor. your cannons sensor is 6.17x4.55mm. You can get compacts with APS-C type sensors 25.1×16.7mm. This would be much better.

this may be a happy medium between your budget and sensor size...
http://www.dpreview.com/products/sony/compacts/sony_dscrx100m2

 franksnb 08 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:
if you were willing to go a bigger I would recommend the Fuji X-M1 which is a nice camera, has interchangeable lenses and set up for novices. lots of people love the X-e2 which is practically the same but set up for more knowledgeable folk.

you can get one second hand for £300.
Post edited at 14:31
 The Lemming 08 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

If you want to go second-hand off fleabay, then you coan't go far wrong with either a Nikon D40, D50 or D60.

You could get yourself an excellent bargain. A few years ago I picked up a Nikon D40 body for £110 including postage and shoved a kit lens on it which was going spare around the house. My mate still uses it to this day as his go-to camera and you should see his skiing shots once a polarising filter has worked its magic.

I'm sure Canon do some excellent old-gen cameras but I don't know anything about them. I have never bought a lemon when choosing second-hand cameras. touch wood.
 Hannes 09 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

I'd suggest a canon 100D and combine the kit lens with the new cheap 18018mm lens. You want a wide angle for these things. If that is a bit much try to find a canon 600D and supplement it with the 10-18 new or 10-22 off the used market. Reason I'm suggesting canon is simply for the excellent 10-18mm lens they released recently which is £299 at official price.

Put the camera in Av mode and turn the f-stop to 8. Everything will be sharp and crisp but bear in mind that all digital photos should be post processed for optimum results. Because of this I'd shoot in raw (the camera saves everything the sensor sees which means you can do a lot more with the file without it falling apart into a grainy mush) or raw + jpg if you are a little lazy.

Micro four thirds cameras are great from weight but aren't much smaller physically than a aps-c dslr (like the d3200 and 600D) and wide angle lenses are difficult to find for a decent price. Battery life generally leaves a lot to be desired as well.

Whatever you get, invest in a circular polariser filter (helps your landscapes pop), a couple of extra batteries and a couple of memory cards.
neilus 09 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

Thanks again...It has begun. Ive bookmarked a digital photography jargon-buster which im wading through as we speak.
I looked a bit at the Lumix L7 which a few of you recomended and the SOny RX100 mentioned above was a model which kept cropping up (no pun intended) as a main rival to the Lumix. So im tempted to get one of these, bite the bullet and try and get my head around the manual mode and look at upgrading to s dSLR when im slightly less clueless than i am at the moment...
Which poses the question: Lumix L7 or Sony RX100? Bear (that always looks like the wrong spelling!)in mind that the Sony is a 100 more than the Panasonic...
Cheerz chaps for all the help so far, its all very much appreciated!!!
 Pina 09 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech.htm for some technical tips. Ken Rockwell's website is pretty good once you get your head around some of the basics.
 malk 09 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

> Which poses the question: Lumix L7 or Sony RX100?

hold old, don't expect it to be that straightforward
eg the sony a5000 is much the same price as the lx7 with ~9x sensor size and interchangable lenses if you upgrade to dslr in the future..
 Michael Ryan 09 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:


> Which poses the question: Lumix L7 or Sony RX100?

Good choice.

With a high quality compact over a DSLR - you will take more photos and its way lighter, no lenses to carry - you can keep both in a pocket. You'll appreciate it on the hill.

Do get a leather case, extra battery and at least two memory cards and you are all set.

Oh, and eventually shoot in RAW and get yourself Lightroom.

Mick
 The Lemming 09 Aug 2014
In reply to Michael Ryan:

> Oh, and eventually shoot in RAW and get yourself Lightroom.

> Mick

Why should somebody eventually shoot in RAW?

I only shot in RAW for the first 6 months of my dSLR life before realising that life was just too short to faff around converting RAW images to JPEG.

At the end of the day, they are going to become JPEGS so why not cut out the middle man and shoot in JPEG?

RAW is a white elephant.

neilus 09 Aug 2014
Ok ive uploaded 2 pics to my profile; should be apparent which one came out well, and which one didnt!
In reply to The Lemming:

> RAW is a white elephant

Not if you want full control of your images it isn't. RAW isn't an acronym, it's just a name for an uncompressed, or raw image, straight off the sensor. With raw images, you can maintain the full sensor image quality during any subsequent image processing you choose to do, before finally committing to a publication quality and format. You then have control over the level of compression to use if you choose to compress to JPEG, and you thus have control of the degree of loss of detail that compression causes; look for the control 'quality factor' in the compressor.
If you save to jpeg at the camera, you've permanently lost some of the image detail captured by the sensor; since jpeg is a lossy compression method, the detail is gone forever.
neilus 09 Aug 2014
In reply to captain paranoia:

hey if you guys wanna get into a ding-dong about file formats, you go right ahead all part of the learning curve for me!
 Michael Ryan 10 Aug 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

> Why should somebody eventually shoot in RAW?

Because it puts you in control rather than some camera programmer in Japan who sets the setting for a jpg.

Using RAW improves your photography and the quality of your images.

> I only shot in RAW for the first 6 months of my dSLR life before realising that life was just too short to faff around converting RAW images to JPEG.

Use Lightroom or similar and you will significantly increase the efficiency of your workflow - it saves time and gives you control.


> At the end of the day, they are going to become JPEGS so why not cut out the middle man and shoot in JPEG?

Oh dear, you really don't know!

> RAW is a white elephant.

Better than being a dinosaur or a lemming.

 Michael Ryan 10 Aug 2014
In reply to The Lemming:

If you are serious about photography Lemming, I'd give RAW and Lightroom, or similar, another look.

I shot just jpg for years. Now I wouldn't go back. There's absolutely no point.......unless I was travelling and didn't have access to RAW processing.

And yes, it can depend what you do with your images, but for most uses RAW is perfect.
 sjminfife 10 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

As well as Ken Rockwell I have found this site useful for understanding the basics. http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/
sjm
In reply to neilus:

I don't do 'ding-dongs'; I just present information and my opinion....
 mikehike 10 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

With ref to the 'failed' image

IMHO that is the better photo due to its composition, as you note yourself washed out colours.

Its going to be hard work lugging a DSLR, FILTERS, TRIPOD etc up that mountain.

However the shot can easily be achieved with a joby tripod atop a treking pole using bracketed exposure technique. Are you prepared to aquire the software and learn how to merge to give an HDR image (I dont mean the garish extreme HDR stuff)?

The brilliant LX7 (i own one) annoyingly has the auto bracketing on the same menu as 2 second timer, the functions are mutually exclusive to each other. Meaning you have to touch the camera between shots. This is not the end of the world as any misalignment is straightened out at the PC.

Another option is the DP1M or DP2M by Sigma, RAW only. Near full frame IQ with easy bracketing where you can set up bracketing press the 2 second timer and you have 3 images without touching the camera. These can be later merged.(i own one)

If you cannot be bothered with Post Processing on a PC find a camera that does HDR in camera and spits out jpegs.
 eduardo 10 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

With respect to your images -

"washed out colours, no sharpness" - this is more-or-less looking into the light- the camera doesn't know how to expose the photograph because it is dominated by extremely bright clouds, so it's always going to be a challenging situation to get a great photo. Sharpness isn't great, maybe because the camera's autofocus is confused by the very bright clouds again. Also, in this situation, any dust, smears etc on the lens will be brightly lit and thus contribute to a washed out appearance.

The other shot - this is more-or less lit from the right hand side, so it's less challenging lighting for the camera. You are clearly in shade, so there isn't much light shining directly onto your lens to give an overall fog on the photo from dust etc on the lens. Autofocus is going to be more straightforward for the camera as everything in the scene is more-or-less a long way away.

So - having a better camera wouldn't necessarily have helped you get great shots...
 colinakmc 11 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:
To develop the pixel count/ sensor size theme - why not have a look at a Panasonic GM1 -small, wide aperture, 4/3rds sized sensor, and goes in your pocket (in a dry bag of course)? Bit dearer but best of all worlds to my eyes. My SLR is just about to move over for one of these I think.
 franksnb 11 Aug 2014
In reply to neilus:

filters

as others have said picking a camera that takes a polarised filter would be good. and although UV filters are mostly useless, if you are higher altitude they can help with haze.
neilus 11 Aug 2014
Many thanks again for the replies chaps. It's a rather steep learning curve and there's a lot of terminology being used here which I'll have to look into. I guess I'm a bit like someone who wants to enjoy a good meal but finds the business of learning how to cook to be a bit of an ordeal! As I said, the LX7 and Sony Rx100 seem well regarded so I'll invest in one of them, and try and avoid just opting for auto every time and see how I get on.
Or I'll just use my iPhone camera...
Cheers

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