You utter utter swines!

[russell]

The cameras on most decent smartphones are pretty good, why do you want to carry a camera around also?

[Ticktock]

The cameras on most decent smartphones are pretty good, why do you want to carry a camera around also?

I recently got a Canon 60D - my first "proper" camera since an old (probably from the '70s) SLR I used when I was a kid.
The main reason I wanted one was after trying to zoom and crop some old pictures taken with compact cameras and phone cameras and seeing the amount of noise and pixellation when zooming in just a small amount.

That and having more control over depth of field, exposure time, etc.
I think I am going to have to find a good book / take a short course to remind me of how to use all of the functionality though.

[Paddy]

I recently got a Canon 60D - my first "proper" camera since an old (probably from the '70s) SLR I used when I was a kid.
The main reason I wanted one was after trying to zoom and crop some old pictures taken with compact cameras and phone cameras and seeing the amount of noise and pixellation when zooming in just a small amount.

That and having more control over depth of field, exposure time, etc.
I think I am going to have to find a good book / take a short course to remind me of how to use all of the functionality though.

Youtube has some good tips for Canons

Get yourself a remote control, timer, some neutral density filters and a tripod.

[BigRed]

Ask any serious tog and they will say the glass makes the most differences of any component

I'd say the photographer makes the most difference

[BigRed]

The cameras on most decent smartphones are pretty good, why do you want to carry a camera around also?

Shutter speed, depth of field, differential focussing, proper viewfinder, reducing camera shake

[russell]

Shutter speed, depth of field, differential focussing, proper viewfinder, reducing camera shake

Your selfies must be awesome!

[Churchill]

Your selfies must be awesome!

Warts and all!

[eek]

Warts and all!

They can be treated you know.

[Churchill]

They can be treated you know.

Oi BigRed! Eek's got a cure for your genital warts!

On a more serious note, I've the years we've spent a small fortune on cameras and still end up reverting to our iPhones.

[doodab]

That used to be the case and was Fujis excuse for for keeping at 6 megapixels for years, and then everyone else started bringing out DSLRS with more mega pixels and matching their dynamic range

I still love my S2s, S3s and S5s for their film like qualities, but they were a commercial disaster and even Fuji realised they'd lost the war and moved on

Go back ten years and it was more megapixels at the expense of dynamic range, but I think with current technology they have managed to have both

The trade off is still there. Dynamic range has improved massively because of technological advances (gapless microlenses, back illumination sensors, other circuitry getting smaller and so on), but all other things being equal a bigger photosite will always have greater dynamic range. That's ultimately why MF beats FF beats APS-C beats 4/3rds. Of course it also means bigger, heavier, more expensive lenses.

DR is where most of the IQ improvements have come from in newer cameras. Past a certain point that was reached a few years ago there just isn't scope for increased sensor resolution to improve image quality because of lens quality and diffraction limiting. The biggest advances for me have been in high ISO performance, which with IS lenses means you can take hand held photos that were completely impossible 10 years ago. It's that rather than extra megapixels which persuaded me to upgrade last time.