What to look for when buying a compact camera
The two most common questions I get from people about photography are:
- What camera should I buy?
- What settings should I use?
This is the first of a series of addressing those questions.
This advice is solely for getting better photos at fights. This is not a general photography guide. Basic things like discussing what “aperture” and “ISO” are is outside the scope of these posts. Again, just check any photography review site. They usually explain this kind of stuff. For things that you cant check by looking at specs alone (like focusing speed or ISO performance), check the reviews on a site like DPReview. When buying a compact camera, these are the things I recommend looking for.
Manual
Your camera must have manual settings. Fights are one of the most difficult things to shoot for a camera that is in auto mode. The ring is bright, the background is dark and the action is fast. Manual mode is usually denoted by a M in the mode selection.
Decent focusing speed
It is not as critical as most people would think if you aren’t ringside but a camera with acceptable focus speed would be ideal. A lot of it comes down to technique but generally, if you aren’t ringside drying to follow the action - focusing shouldn’t be too difficult. Technique will be discussed in a later article.
Acceptable shutter lag and buffer
Again this is less of a problem if you have proper technique, but you don’t want a camera that will force you to wait a few seconds in between shots and you certainly don’t want a camera that will wait a few seconds after you press the shutter button before it takes the photo. It would be impossible to time the action if either of these were the case.
Reasonable high ISO performance
Notice I say “reasonable” and not “good”. A compact camera has a much smaller sensor than a DSLR so the noise in high ISO photos will be much higher. The higher the usable ISO is the better you will be able to freeze the action. Usable up to ISO 1600 is ideal but impossible. Usable ISO 400 or 800 is more likely.
Note that by usable, I mean that the noise level in the photos is acceptable to you.
Lens speed
Lens speed is the maximum available aperture on the lens. Aperture is actually a fraction so the lower number is actually higher. So f2.8 is bigger than f4.
On compact cameras it is most likely that the maximum aperture isn’t constant throughout the zoom range. It will be slower at the long end of the zoom - where we will need it when we are back in the stands shooting fights. Aim for the largest aperture you can get at the long end.
Zoom range
This is sometimes hard to work out because cameras often don’t list their zoom range in 35mm terms (which is the standard).
You really need all the zoom you can get if you are going to take photos of the action. To give you an idea, I use a 520mm lens (in 35mm terms) when I am about 40 meters back at events at Saitama Super Arena. Even with using such a massive lens, I need to crop the image down about 50%.
Really it is a case of the longer the better, just watch that your lens speed isn’t too slow at the long end though.
Frames per second
Frames per second really isn’t as important as you think. Even when I am shooting with a Canon 1D mk2N which gets 8.5fps, all my best photos come at the beginning of a burst. Just because you can shoot fast doesn’t mean the camera will time the punches (or other action) for you. You really have to do that yourself.
Still, with that said - the faster that better of course.
Specific camera recommendations and SLR’s will be a topic of a future post.
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