I received a few questions on which camera should beginners buy - a DSLR or a GoPro or is a phone sufficient. So today, let’s try to demystify that. I don’t consider myself an expert in photography, but have a love for photography - so have been using one or more of these for the last 15 years or so in our travels. As camera quality has evolved, especially in the phone, our usage has evolved too. I’ll cover what I use in the end.
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Remember - these tips are for a beginner, not for a professional photographer OR a person who uses the content created by this professionally.
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Before I go over the details - overall my recommendation for beginners is:
If you are looking for photos or videos for your portraiture, personal use or for social media - a phone is more than enough.
If you are looking for photos for specialized use like wildlife / event photography/videography or you want to blow up your photos - you need a DSLR or equivalent (like mirrorless etc).
If you are looking for action footage or underwater footage - you need a gopro!
Let’s start with pure static photography -
A gopro has a nice wide angle - which gives great perspectives of citiscapes, landscapes, especially when you want to capture a wider perspective of the shot. It works best for outdoor - indoor photographs are grainy and not impressive at all. It gives limited options to modify the settings - so works well for beginners.
Compared to that - a DSLR gives a wide range of options -
You can change lenses based on what you are shooting - telephoto lens for wildlife photography, prime lens for macro and portrait photography, and more.
It also allows you to adjust settings like aperture, shutter speed, ISO, and so on - but for a beginner, you can also use the auto mode and you get a great picture quality.
The image quality compared to a gopro is richer, sharper and has more depth.
Compared to a gopro - a DSLR performs very well in low light conditions. Yes, you may need to adjust the ISO and shutter speeds and may need a tripod, but it gives a much better output.
A phone camera and setting these days allows you to get great output on the phone - the portrait mode to get the nice bokeh effect on the background, the wide angle mode to give you a finish similar to a go pro, good low light photography as well.
So for a beginner,
if you are shooting static photographs mostly for social media sharing or printing medium sized prints, a phone is more than enough. (4/5)
If you are shooting wildlife, which requires a telephoto lens, you will need a DSLR. (5/5)
A GoPro for static photos may not be required as a lot of it can be done in a phone itself these days. (3/5)
Next let’s talk about action footage
Let’s say you are going on a roller coaster or you are going swimming / snorkeling / scuba diving or you are trying to document your drive / hike or you are shooting in the rain - a go pro works best in such scenarios. They are shockproof and waterproof, easy to mount - you get attachments to mount it on helmets, on your chest, arm, car, bike handlebars and so on. You can take it on dives upto 10 meters and with a dive housing, you can take it upto 60m. I myself have taken it when I went snorkeling recently. They are so sturdy that if you drop it, you can just pick it up, dust it and continue shooting.
Both the phone and DSLR don’t compare well to this in terms of action footage -
a DSLR is bulky and heavy to carry and needs some level of stabilization when shooting, so not ideal for action footage where you need something small and handy. Ofcourse, you do get casing for underwater footage which gives beautiful quality - but the costs mount up and unless you are doing it professionally or have money to spare - I don’t recommend it.
A phone with a casing may be possible to use, but it does not have a range of attachments like the gopro and is still bulkier than a gopro.
So if action footage is your thing - then go pro undoubtedly wins.
Let’s talk about video coverage - not the action footage that we spoke about earlier.
If you are looking for high quality video shoots, let’s say you are capturing an event like a kids birthday or are vlogging your travels or your daily life - then a DSLR will be ideal - as they can be used for continuous shooting for longer periods.
If you are looking for short snippets of video for your social media - then a phone is a much better option - always available and gives reasonably decent quality videos.
Let’s talk about convenience and durability
A gopro wins handsdown when it comes to convenience and durability. It is extremely light and fits into a small pouch or bag. Or you can just hang it around your wrist or neck. Or carry it on a swim. It is atleast 5 times lighter than a DSLR. (5/5)
If we are talking only about convenience, a phone is ideal. You always have it on you and you don’t need to ‘set it up’ when you need to take a picture. Durability is not great as if you drop it, you have to shell out money to buy a new phone or fix your screen. (4/5)
The DSLR is least convenient and durable - it needs utmost care of the body and the lens. It’s heavy to carry - upwards of 600gms - so if you are walking long hours, it can be cumbersome. You may also need additional lenses and a tripod to suit different needs. (3/5)
From a pricing point of view
Depending on the version you go for - gopros are available at around 45K. You also need additional accessories like chest harness, helmet attachments, dashboard attachments etc based on your need. Those will be extra.
There are so many options available for DSLR but a beginner DSLR can start from 35K. You will need additional lenses and tripods based on your needs. I’ve linked to few of the best in the description
Don’t even get me started on the phone pricing. There is one at every budget. I personally am an Apple fangirl.
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So to reiterate my recommendation for beginners is:
If you are looking for photos or videos for your portraiture, personal use or for social media - a phone is more than enough.
If you are looking for photos for specialized use like wildlife / event photography/videography or you want to blow up your photos - you need a DSLR or equivalent (like mirrorless etc).
If you are looking for action footage or underwater footage - you need a gopro!
What do I use?
5+ years ago, I used to lug a DSLR around during all my travels. Yes, we got some awesome photographs out of it.
But as phone cameras have improved, we almost always use our phone these days - for both photos and videos.
I love the water - so I have started using the gopro for underwater footage.
I have an old Nikon DSLR which we use mainly for wildlife photography. So a lot of the photos you see in my background are shot using that. We rent the telephoto lens as the usage is only a few times a year.
And recently I bought a Canon mirrorless camera for my YouTube video shoots. Before that I used the gopro for it - and the video and audio quality was not great for indoor shoots.
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