Reply To: A conversation with a friend

[Bill]

It happens all the time.  New(er) and better dSLR’s really empower people to reach sometimes unobtainable goals.  It’s not that they can’t be a good photographer, it’s just they think that all you do is point and press a button and the camera does all the magic for you.  It just doesn’t happen that way.

Yes anyone can take pictures with a camera, but are they any good?  Just like a gun, anyone can pull a trigger and shoot a gun, but can you hit the target?

I have no problem with anyone using an entry level camera, but when your charging people for photos, no matter the camera you use, you better be able to provide good images.  Again, you can use you iPhone for all I care, as long as the shots are sharp, in focus and good.

Her camera is on the older side, 10MP single processor [Digic 3] , looks like it came out back when Vista was newer, so it’s at least 5-6 years old, by my guess.  The good points to that camera is that it will take lenses that are better quality then the kit lens that it came with.  I have a T3i I use a secondary backup, and I can put any of my “L” series lenses on it just fine.  Her XS can shoot RAW, I doubt that she is, but the camera does have that capability.

The real down side to using that camera is that it only has 7 focus points and a top frame speed of 3fps.  If she were trying to capture those fast moving objects like you, she may have a problem.  The other downside is, this is a consumer level camera, not made rugged enough for the  everyday photographer.

It is also a crop sensor, not a full frame, so you have to take the 1.6 x the focal length when using lenses that are not designed for APS-C [crop-sensors]. Basically saying you loose about 60% of the image due to the crop sensor.  This is good and bad.  Good if you are using a long lens to zoom in, because it “appears” to give you more focal length.  For example a 200mm lens on that camera would give you the appearance of a 320mm lens (200mm X 1.6 focal length =320mm).  Now it’s not actually 320mm, it looks that way due to the sensor is designed. The bad thing about crop sensors is when trying to get wide-angle lenses, a 24mm appears the same a 38mm and 50mm appears the same as 80mm and so on.

Maybe you can suggest to your friend to take some courses that are provided online, many of them on youtube and many are free.  Community colleges and other groups offer training for free or very little cost and a lot of them are hands-on and small groups.

Here would be my suggestion for her.  Learn your camera, if it’s a cheap one, so what, learn it and what it can do.  All the features options and adjustments.  I am sure she is probably shooting in Auto, start off slow and maybe try to have her move over to the other modes like TV[shutter priority or Timed Value] or P[Program mode] and eventually moving up to M for for manual where you have a ton of control over how the images are shot.

Have her try this link Canon for reference.