Which Camera? A Quick Primer. And the answer to the most asked question…

Every so often, this issue rears its head; Questions in various forums about cameras / camcorders and what “settings” to use for differing circumstances.

To be fair, whilst the situation does apply across all cameras types – dedicated camcorders, dSLRs, mirrorless, action and smartphones – the majority are in GoPro forums. The truth is, a lot of folk choose the wrong tool for the task at hand, so here is a brief summary of the pros and cons of each camera type.

Smartphone:

An all rounder that fits the old adage of the best camera is the one you have with you, and we all generally have access to a smartphone at all times. If you are a serious video person however, AND you have a later model smartphone from Samsung, Apple and others, then getting the free Blackmagic Camera app greatly increases your smartphone’s video capability.

Pros: Mostly always available, flexibility

Cons: Ergonomics, smallish sensor, not waterproof

GoPro, DJI Action Cam or other “action” type camera:

Designed for first person activities such as kayaking, mountain biking, snorkelling, hiking and so on.

Pros: Designed for a specific purpose, waterproof, small, excellent stabilisation, large 3^rd party accessory market

Cons: Small sensor, no zoom, fixed aperture, reasonable learning curve, ergonomics, terrible in low light

Mirrorless / dSLR:

Without getting into too much technicality, these are the workhorse camera type on the market, and they share a lot of features. The major difference between them is the sensor. If you are planning on shooting stills of anything from portraits to landscapes or sport to events, this is the type to choose from. They can also shoot video, but there is a major caveat here in that the body type is not overly conducive ergonomically for all video shooting, especially sport.

Pros: Flexibility, interchangeable lenses, large sensor, large choice of makes and models

Cons: Not waterproof (although some are weather sealed against spray, sand etc), relatively expensive, larger learning curve to get best results, ergonomics in some circumstances

Camcorder:

If you primarily want to shoot video, then a dedicated camcorder is definitely the way to go. The ergonomics of a camcorder have been honed over time, so they are perfect for long form shoots (as against a dSLR or mirrorless), they have built in optical zoom (ignore digital zoom in ANY camera), and the higher end models give you lots of control over the resultant imagery.

Pros: Designed for a specific job, not adapted as a dSLR or mirrorless often is, ergonomics

Cons: The available make / model range is dwindling sadly, not waterproof.

Summary

It is fair to say that you’ll only get out of any camera what you put into it. Forums are full of questions that basically say “what are the best settings for …?” and the truth is there is no such thing as a “best” setting as it depends on a lot of factors at the time such as available light, the environment (over or on water?), subject distance, depth of field required and more.

Consequently it is imperative that a basic knowledge of photography is obtained in order to get the best from any camera type. Key items to understand are aperture, shutter speed, ISO, depth of field, focus, exposure and in the case of video, frame rate. All of these I have covered in quick 5 minute video tutorials on my YouTube channel by the way.

Finally, to reiterate and reinforce the answer to the major questions for the GoPro and other action cameras. There is NO zoom and NO focus option. The lens is a fixed aperture type meaning you cannot change either the focal length or the aperture.

So, what does this mean exactly? It means that everything is always in focus down to a distance of around 30cm on average across all models.

And the only way to get any sort of zoom is to fudge it in post-production by shooting at the highest resolution the model is capable and then cropping the image using software such as Adobe Photoshop. Bear in mind this does not “zoom” per se, it just enlarges the pixels in the image thus increasing the graininess.