How much should I spend?

[Tacitus]

I don't think there's a solution to what you're after. I don't think there are any single-lens solutions that do wide angle, long zoom, low light etc etc. You need to manage expectations and you will probably find you don't need as long a zoom as you think you do anyway because it seldom generates interesting shots in a general walkabout/holiday context. You'll look back at photos and realise all you've got is up-close shots of distant stuff you don't care about simply because you could get the up-close shot.

I use a Panasonic GX80 with a Panasonic 14-140 f3.5-5.6 lens. The lens is slow, but because the dual image stabilisation is very good I get away with indoor shots, but I'd not use it in a genuinely low-light situation. For that I have a Panasonic 25mm F1.7 prime lens.

With that said, I think you should get a MFT camera with a lens to get you going and buy a prime down the line so you can get better indoor shots later on. A quick glance at MPB, I'd say get the EM5 mk 1 for £224 and a 14-42 kit lens/Oly 12-50/Panasonic 12-32 (best of the bunch, lowest zoom range). Remember you can crop images at home to get a more up-close photo of your kids without sacrificing too much - 16mp is enough to let you do that.

Good luck with whatever you end up with - should beat your phone easily

 

[GTRacer]

I don't agree, when I look at photos my camera phone has taken they are rubbish.

Here is one I took in Wales.

Thanks!

What phone do you have?

A lot of these are more to do with lighting , the Snowdonia photos are taken at different times and in different conditions. The PC one, you didn't wait for the camera to focus on the LEDs and you didn't bump up the exposure a tad. The waterfall, ok so you *do* need a long zoom for that kind of framing but again, it looks like you didn't wipe the lens clean and let the phone overxpose the scene so it's all washed out. Understanding light and the way it affects a scene, and the how to use your camera (phone or otherwise) to translate what you see in your mind's eye into a photograph takes practice. It's doesn't take a lot of time to get to know the basics and you'll be a lot happier with your photos once you get a grasp of them. A super zoom isn't as useful as it sounds on paper too, you'll need some very steady hands and a lot of light to get sharp images out of those kinds of cameras (aside from maybe the £1.2k Sony RX10 III).

This was taken on an iPhone SE as I was just wandering around Kew Gardens:

Spoiler

 

[danlightbulb]

I have a samsung galaxy a3 currently but some of those pictures would have been from my old s4. Those night shots, and the dark one of the pc build, we're the best I could get. The phone just wouldn't focus properly. All of the settings are on auto at the moment. The phone can take a reasonable picture I guess of a scene in good light.

Maybe I'll just buy the £90 Sony w830 because I haven't been convinced a more expensive camera is justified.

 

[Columbo]

I have a samsung galaxy a3 currently but some of those pictures would have been from my old s4. Those night shots, and the dark one of the pc build, we're the best I could get. The phone just wouldn't focus properly. All of the settings are on auto at the moment. The phone can take a reasonable picture I guess of a scene in good light.

Maybe I'll just buy the £90 Sony w830 because I haven't been convinced a more expensive camera is justified.

Thats £90 wasted in all honesty, the only difference really would be that you can zoom on the Sony. I very much doubt the image quality is going to much better.

 

[danlightbulb]

Thats £90 wasted in all honesty, the only difference really would be that you can zoom on the Sony. I very much doubt the image quality is going to much better.

How can it not be better? I know the sensor is the same size but the phone has a tiny lens and the Sony at least has something that resembles a big proper lens?

 

[Columbo]

How can it not be better? I know the sensor is the same size but the phone has a tiny lens and the Sony at least has something that resembles a big proper lens?

Because all of the same physical limitations apply like diffraction, light gathering ability, sensor size and aperture limitation.
As you have specifically talked about low light you need to understand that f6.3 on a 1/2.3" sensor is basically a pinhole of light hitting a teeny tiny sensor meaning that in anything but the best of light the ISO will have to raise in order to maintain decent shutter speeds.

As the ISO increases noise is introduced and image quality decreases, the general rule being that the smaller the sensor the faster the rate of that degradation.
Due the size of the lens aperture diffraction will also degrade that image quality further.

Look for general day to day stuff I'm sure it will be fine but I think you probably need to understand the limitations involved a little more and know exactly what to expect from a £90 camera, particularly you expectations from it.

 

[danlightbulb]

Just out of interest, was an old basic 35mm film camera better image quality than these digitals? If the sensor is key, well an old 35mm camera was full frame wasn't it, something you have to spend many hundreds for now.

 

[Raymond Lin]

If you never am going I turn them digitally and only print to size then 35mm film is fine.

The problem is how good are you in exposing the shot in 1 go, and don't have any way yourself to tweak the images. Do you know what film stock is best for which situation? What ISO for what daylight condition?

 

[danlightbulb]

I'm not suggesting I go back to film, was just wondering really how the resolution of 35mm film compared to the resolution of a full frame digital.

I think I might pop into jessops and have a look at the rx100. If from the shop I can zoom in to see a person on the other side of the mall, then it might be ok?

 

[GTRacer]

35mm tops out at around 20MP, of course this is all dependent on lens/film/shooting habits. Both film and digital look great enlarged but I prefer the colours (and workflow) I get out of film.

 

[danlightbulb]

Ok so I've been reading about photography lol.

Particularly about aperture. I really like how a photo subject could be in focus and everything around it out of focus. I understand that this is achieved by having a larger aperture. Would the rx100 allow this type of thing to be done? My phone doesn't have settings for aperture.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Ok so I've been reading about photography lol.

Particularly about aperture. I really like how a photo subject could be in focus and everything around it out of focus. I understand that this is achieved by having a larger aperture. Would the rx100 allow this type of thing to be done? My phone doesn't have settings for aperture.

It's also to do with distance between camera to subject and subject to background.

And at a wide angle, you can shoot at F/1.4 and everything can still be in focus.

For example, all these with the same camera, same lens, same aperture.

This is at F/1.4, everything is in focus.

 

[danlightbulb]

So photo 1 is pretty much what I'd get with any standard phone camera (sorry not knocking your photo quality - i just meant in general with the focus throughout the image).

So could the RX100 take photos like numbers 2 and 3 above? And also like this one, where everything is in super sharp focus:

Spoiler

Just took this on my phone. The shoes are a little blurred but not enough to get that nice effect.

Spoiler

 

[Raymond Lin]

You will get blur with a phone and RX100 but the quality of it, referred to as "bokeh" is where the money goes. Expensive lenses have nicer bokeh, generally speaking. Cheaper lenses have more rougher and less pleasing bokeh, and most instances, less of it, due to having a not wide enough aperture and also not that many aperture blades (more = more rounded).

Normally to get everything in focus, one WOULD NOT shoot at 1.4, I did that by accident. I would stop down (meaning make it narrower), like squinting your eye to get more in focus, to get everything sharp. Also, generally, when you stop down a lens, it is more sharper. Lenses, especially cheap ones, and most expensive ones are shapes about 2 stop down from their widest aperture. Very few lenses if at all are at their sharpest across the frame at wide open compared to when they stopped down a bit.

 

[Raymond Lin]

The problem also is sensor size, those above are shot with a full frame sensor. The Sony RX1R can do the above but the RX100 won't, not to the same degree.

 

[danlightbulb]

The problem also is sensor size, those above are shot with a full frame sensor. The Sony RX1R can do the above but the RX100 won't, not to the same degree.

How far away do you think the RX100 might be from those nice images of yours?

It would be great to take a photo of missus and boy like that with the blurred background. And then to take a scenery photo like that mountain one where everything is sharp from foreground to background. I think that is why I didn't like my snowdonia photos posted earlier, because they are not sharp at distance.

RX100 specs from what I can see are max aperture of f/1.8 and min aperture of f/11. That mountain photo I got off a review site was taken at f/16.

Am I understanding correctly that to get that mountain photo sharp at all distances I would have the smallest aperture, so f/11?

And to get the blured background on a portrait image I would get close to subject and go for max aperture of f/1.8?

 

[Raymond Lin]

It might be Aperture at F/1.8 but the sensor is a fraction of mine, so doing the maths, you need to multiply it like you do with the focal length…i.e. 35mm divided by 13.2mm = 2.65

So 1.8 aperture really is like 4.77. And that is at the wide end since at the long end it narrows down the 4.9 which is like F/13. At F/13 everything is in focus.

 

[danlightbulb]

It might be Aperture at F/1.8 but the sensor is a fraction of mine, so doing the maths, you need to multiply it like you do with the focal length…i.e. 35mm divided by 13.2mm = 2.65

So 1.8 aperture really is like 4.77. And that is at the wide end since at the long end it narrows down the 4.9 which is like F/13. At F/13 everything is in focus.

Ah I see thanks. So getting that blurred portrait shot is going to be difficult then. I'm not sure therefore, that paying £300 for the RX100 is worth the money. If Im paying that much, I want to be able to do some nice shots like that.

Regarding the distance shot, that photo was at f/16 so I guess if the min aperture on the RX100 is f/11 then multiplying that by 2.65 would give an equivelent of f/30? Therefore that mountain shot with the boats in the foreground should be doable?

Its interesting because the specs of the RX100 gives the 35mm equivelent focal length (28-100mm) but not the equivelent aperture.

 

[Tacitus]

How far away do you think the RX100 might be from those nice images of yours?

It would be great to take a photo of missus and boy like that with the blurred background. And then to take a scenery photo like that mountain one where everything is sharp from foreground to background. I think that is why I didn't like my snowdonia photos posted earlier, because they are not sharp at distance.

RX100 specs from what I can see are max aperture of f/1.8 and min aperture of f/11. That mountain photo I got off a review site was taken at f/16.

Am I understanding correctly that to get that mountain photo sharp at all distances I would have the smallest aperture, so f/11?

And to get the blured background on a portrait image I would get close to subject and go for max aperture of f/1.8?

If you focus on a nearby subject using an aperture of f1.8 you will get a blurred background (and potentially some of your subject blurred as well). Similarly, you can get a decent blur on my micro four thirds camera at f5.6 and even f8 on a suitably close subject.

You can take sharp landscape shots using a fast aperture because the subject is far away, and therefore more of it is in focus.

ie, that mountain shot could be taken easily at almost any aperture because of the distance of everything in frame. Most consumer lenses sharpen up at smaller apertures (f5.6 and beyond) but peak usually before their smallest aperture because diffraction starts to set in. The lens I most commonly use goes to f22, but I use it in good light at f8-f11 because that's the range in which it is best.

Luckily, you don't need to figure this stuff out yourself - reviewers test lenses at a range of apertures and will tell you which aperture to use for best centre/edge sharpness.

Learning to control your gear is important, so a slightly older entry-mid level DSLR or M43 camera will give you something you can get off the ground with by banging it on auto and snapping away, but scope to learn how to fully use the camera to create more satisfying images.

Use Flickr to see if there are camera/lens combinations which deliver quality images to your eye, and remember, you'll need to learn some basic post processing skills to get the most out of images.

Here for example is the EM10 II - 6500+ photos on Flickr, some are bound to be of the kind of photography you're interested in doing. https://www.flickr.com/groups/2846195@N25/pool/

 

[Raymond Lin]

Ah I see thanks. So getting that blurred portrait shot is going to be difficult then. I'm not sure therefore, that paying £300 for the RX100 is worth the money. If Im paying that much, I want to be able to do some nice shots like that.

Regarding the distance shot, that photo was at f/16 so I guess if the min aperture on the RX100 is f/11 then multiplying that by 2.65 would give an equivelent of f/30? Therefore that mountain shot with the boats in the foreground should be doable?

Most small sensor cameras can do landscapes fine because everything is in focus, it is why the iPhone needs software to fake background blur as it cannot do it optically.

You can get the same blur for £300 if you are willing to go used and go old. Get a Canon 60D or something and a 50mm/1.8 and it will do that blur all day long.