Camera Features that Materially Improve Your Photography

[carbon_dragon]

<p>As a successor to my Cameras Do Matter post, are there features of any of your cameras which you believe materially improved your photography?</p>

<p>I'll start. Canon 5D - Giant bright viewfinder - makes it easy for me to see what I'm getting much better than many of my other cameras. Leica M8 - Infrared sensitivity allows me to use it as an IR camera and get a whole new range of pictures without expensive conversion (I like this one because it's typically considered a flaw). Leica M8 - size and weight lets me carry it around the whole day without so much pain in my back and shoulder (ok, this may not improve my photos, but without it I leave earlier ;-) Canon 5D and Sony A350 - Image Stabilization - improves sharpness of handheld photos.</p>

[py-photography]

<p>VF in the 7D made a huge diffrence for me. Not having to crop out stuff that I didn't know was there in the first place.<br>

IS on lens, has allowed me to get shots I owuld not otherwise have been able to get or even attempt for that matter.</p>

[pge]

<p>Vibration reduction is the biggest one I can think of, allowing hand held shots where they were not possible in the past. High iso capability, although overstressed these days, also allows me to get shots I could not have had before. The switch from film to digital allowed me to learn far more rapidly in the studio rather than waiting a few days to see that I made the same mistake on every shot on the roll of film.</p>

<p>As for viewfinders, nothing has changed, my Nikon fe had as bright a viewfinder as my D700, and both pale in comparison to my 1978 Hasselblad 500 c/m.</p>

[gertle]

<p>Two words: Auto focus.<br>

And built in diopter aduster.</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>The bright, large type menu on the back screen with all the settings.</p>

[KenPapai]

<p>Do tripods count? Lens hoods? Granted tripods are not camera features but hoods sort of are (of the complete system).</p>

<p>Otherwise grids in your VF, like the 7D has -- very sweet.</p>

[Matt Laur]

<p>High FPS. If you're shooting action, no matter how good your timing or how experienced you are, if matters. Likewise, the latest generations of AF systems. The success (in terms of the keeper ratio) speaks for itself.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>Every improvement that's been significant to me has been related to my preference for handheld candid photography.</p>

<p>First up would be VR or any form of image stabilization. One of the best things ever developed for the candid photographer, especially those of us with shaky mitts.</p>

<p>Next up would be high ISO performance with digital, which I was already approximating by pushing b&w film for many years. A close cousin would be fast zooms.</p>

<p>Years ago when my eyesight was better I would have added a bright, crisp viewfinder for manual focusing in dim lighting. Now I'd say good AF performance in dim lighting is more important than the viewfinder for my purposes.</p>

[Lou_Meluso]

<p>I like my rangefinders but having an slr with a pentaprism is a big help in framing. </p>

[ben_goren]

<p>Live view. No question.</p><p>And laptop-tethered live view is as much of a game-changer as live view by itself is.</p><p>Combine that with a tilt / shift lens, and you’ve got most of the goodness of a view camera

and all the goodness of digital.</p><p>Cheers,</p><p>b&</p>

[jay a. frew]

<p>Overall, the most important thing for me was the purchase of a DSLR. I wish I had one when I started in photography...the instant feedback provided by digital can really flattened-out the learning curve. My film photography has improved because of my use of digital cameras.</p>

<p>I'll add a vote for Live View combined with the ability to zoom-in to 5x and 10x (Canon 40D). It is indispensable for me when shooting close-up/macro subjects from a tripod. I never use my angle finder, for macro, with this camera</p>

<p>I replaced my 10D with a 40D because it allowed me to shoot without using my reading glasses in the field. This was a BIG DEAL for me...with the 10D (and to a lesser extent, my EOS 3) I was forever putting my glasses on or taking them off. The 40D "info" menu text is large and bright.</p>

<p>Cheers! Jay</p>

[StuartMoxham]

<p> The biggest thing that improved my photography happend almost 20 years ago when I started doing my own B&W darkroom work. I learned alot about metering properly by printing my own work. At some time I did a partime city and guilds course on portrature I had hope to learn about posing but learned more about studio lighting which turned out to be really usefull after that I did a hand color printing course and learn how to produce hand enlarged color prints. The next thing that improved my photography was the time I spent working as a cruiseship photographer. In that time I really learnt how to balance daylight with manual flash and also learnt how to print color with a minilab that tries to out think you, quite different from hand enlarging but somehow very similar at the same time. I learnt to read negs and learnt when to apply color corrections and whether I should apply plus or minus density and how much to apply to counter act what the machine was thinking. In the end I rarely had to reprint a neg and could run roll after roll through the printers without really having to think about it. Cameras never really improved my photography that much back in the film days medium format gave me bigger negs that produced smoother images with more detail and they were easier to handle in the darkroom. 35mm autofocus cameras made life easier because they would track rally cars or could focus in dark places. The best thing was that an N90s and mb10 or EOS1 with motor winder would balance better with a sunpak 555, 622 or a metz hamerhead compared to an FM2 and would not feel so top heavy. Now today I enjoy digital. I have similar control over my images today with out needing a lab or darkroom. I can see the results on a computer screen and I can experiment without having to run film costs which is nice. I don't really have digital cameras that have great hi ISO by todays standards (D1h and D80) but they are cleaner than film and I can get great images with them.</p>

[swilson]

<p>

<p>Wow, I have a long list of features that have improved my photography.<br>

Being able to switch from 100 iso to much higher whenever I need to has been a great help in getting photos with available light that where hard to get in the past.<br>

Low shutter lag has had a huge positive impact on being able to get the shot right when I want it, not a second after.<br>

A good sharp long lens is allowing me to get photos that I could not have come close to getting in the past, along with this is more pixels so I can crop more then I could before.<br>

A camera that allows me to shot in raw has also improved my photographs by a large amount.<br>

Being able to shoot hundreds of photos in a day and not worry about the cost has helped a lot.<br>

A good AF has proven to be very important for many of the photos I take.</p>

</p>

[keith selmes]

<p>Rolleiflex</p>

<p>1) Its square. made me think outside the rectangular frame.<br>

2) You don't (usually) hold it up in front of your face and aim at the target, you cradle it in your hands and gaze into it.<br>

3) Its not an SLR - no swinging mirror, and its a quiet leaf shutter, you can handhold very slow<br>

4) It really is quiet - compared to SLR - and discreet.</p>

[Charles_Webster]

<p>Laptop-tethered LiveView!</p>

<p>The best thing that has happened to my studio photography since my first set of studio strobes.</p>

<p><Chas><br /></p>

[kelly_flanigan1]

<p>Focus spot on Kalart RF; having faster films thru the decades with color print films. With digital lower noise over the last two decades at higher iso's. For zoom nuts alot of 1960's stuff in 35mm was not the greatest. Nikons 80 to 200 F2.8 started a trend with better zooms. In long teles the Canon 200mm F2.8 in the 1970's was a great improvement. With digitals a move to more orderly logical controls with stuff you want to use easy to find. Having raw with digital so one has more control. Having memory be with cards! instead of a serial cable! Yea having a big bayonet with my 1962 used Nikon F; alot bigger the Exakta VX's. Probably for me is to see color print films go from say 50 to 800. Having 4 layer iso 800 films that are so easy with mixed lighting compared to the 1960/1970's stuff with fluorescents. Even with filters one got yuky colors with mixed lighting</p>

[SCL]

<p>WOW, what others said! For me, auxiliary big bright(er) focus screens which allow me to manually focus lenses on cameras which were designed to autofocus. As my vision gets dimmer, I find myself drawn back to the Leica RF cameras for focus accuracy, and a couple of SLRs in particular which have really terrific focus screens...the Leicaflex SL2, and the Canon T90. I picked up a bargain Nikon EM for $8 a couple of months ago...its focus screen beats the pants off my Nikon D100, as well as the D200 and D300s I've tried. I picked up an enhanced screen for the D100, but it is still dark and puny compared to those on cameras designed for wide aperture lenses.</p>

[ejchem101]

<p>For me I think I am most grateful for 2 things. #1 is the light metering systems of modern cameras (learning on a complete manual camera has helped me appreciate this). Also, RAW format that allows me to slightly adjust the exposure if the metering wasn't where I wanted it has been very helpful. I'm sure whenever I upgrade from my D60 there will be many other things!</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Raw format and decent looking WB presets for Fluorescent and Shade (Cloudy works better) which can cut down on a lot of selective color correction and allow some headroom for exposing for highlight preservation.</p>

<p>And yes WB setting at the time of capture makes a big difference for me during PP even when shooting Raw especially under non-D50 lighting.</p>

<p>Shake Reduction on the body of my camera keeps me from having to use flash and a tripod. A lot of keepers with that feature.</p>

[bob_bill]

<p>Built in meter (plus ambient meter). Lcd and delete button. burst mode. radio light trigger. </p>

[znabal]

<p>Over the years, in order, these item are what had the most impact on my photography: Multi-point auto focus; auto frame advance, auto-bracketing (with my EOS 10s); various in-camera metering choices tied to auto-focus points (EOS 3); histogram, changing ISO on the fly (with my EOS 5D), Image Stabilization (70-200mm 2.8L) - jeffl</p>

[GerrySiegel]

<p>I am easy. Just being able to see the image clearly and below it all the relevant data I like and I want to know. Next, having a way by thumb or forefinger to increase and decrease exposure for different target points in center weighted reflective metering. With VF reminders that say " Hey boss, you added a 1/3 stop last time, you forgot didn't you? " gs</p>

[ken schwarz]

<p>Nothing rocked my world as much as the switch to digital. Instant feedback. Zero cost for experimentation and errors. I try all sorts of things and surprise myself. My film cameras didn't record camera settings, and I wasn't disciplined enough to keep track of them manually. Now I have all of that data and more.</p>

<p>AF & IS: In the film days I had an 80-200/4.5 zoom which I never used. Too hard to focus, too hard to hold steady. Now I have a 70-200/4 with IS. Completely usable. Another revolutionary, night-and-day difference.</p>

<p>The most important recent improvement has been Live View, no question. Second most important improvement has been micro-focus (per-lens focus) adjustment. Now AF works perfectly. Hooray!</p>

[john schroeder]

<p>The biggest advancement in photography is that mistakes are now free. With film every shot cost you money. Today with digital the photographer is free to take risks and make mistakes. The more you practice with any craft the better you will become.</p>

[User_5888660]

<p>Tilt, shift, rise and swing are all important to my photography. That and an 8x10" ground glass for viewing the image help a lot. </p>