A camera for a non photographer

Jim K

Jim K

Final Approach
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Richard Digits
I'm frustrated by the amount of cool stuff I try to take pictures of from the air that turns out looking like nothing. Here's a perfect example:
20220120_114918(0).jpg

I assume it's because the phone camera is set up to be pretty wide-angle and optimized for close up shots. I know nothing about photography, and I can't afford another hobby either time or money wise. Is there a way to get decent shots from the air without spending months learning about lenses and settings? Are cameras automated enough now days that I can go buy something and produce reasonable results?

I'm afraid this is kind of like the guy who wants to go buy a sr22t for his first plane.... which is why I've never delved into it before. Maybe it's not as complicated/ expensive as I think?
 
It really puts a damper on trying to get your non aviation friends to go up with you and experience flight. So much is lost and the response is much like the picture...meh.
 
While flying I use a Sony RX100 - a pocket-sized point-and-shoot camera with a zoom lens. It does very nicely. You can either do all the settings manually, or set it on 'P' (Program mode) and forget it as the camera does everything automatically. That said, you can still get some very nice images with a single-lens phone. But the nature of aerial photography (haze, motion, reflections, window tint, etc., etc.) is such that for best results the images almost always need some work with a photo editing software. That need not be complicated. I tweaked your photo with just a few of the tools in the software I use (Luminar AI by Skylum) and it came out like this.

20220120_114918(0).jpeg
 
I didn't get the clean up that Pilawt shows but I copied it and run some iPhone 12 dress up on the photo. I did crop the wing out of the picture. Just having fun ...

upload_2022-3-15_1-50-52.png
 
Honestly...(I hate to admit this and the diehard shutterbug i was in a past life is about to cringe)....I'd upgrade my phone camera if I were you.

I know, i know....hear me out.

Phone cameras have come a LONG way in the past few years. My recently-purchased iPhone 12 Pro absolutely blew me away with its photo quality in all kinds of light conditions. I used to chuckle at the big'ol 3-lens monstrosities, but I see people pumping out STUNNING photos in seconds now, hot off the camera, that would have taken me hours of post-editing ten years ago. I honestly haven't touched my beloved Canon DSLR and its fancy bulky lenses in ages.

Great optical zoom is very important, not just cheap digital zoom that gets more grainy/pixelated the more I zoom in. Point-and-shoot simplicity that fits in my pocket. Tap where you want to focus/adjust light compensation. Pinch to zoom, which automatically switches between lenses for optimum quality/angle. Quick, easy enhancements/filters/edits on the spot. Easy panoramic shots, collages, the works. Uploads to whatever cloud/yootoob/faceyspace you want in real-time.

And you get a super nice phone, that does lots of other super nice phone stuff. Yes, you can probably get a cheaper dedicated beginner-friendly camera that takes good photos. If you have no desire/time/money to delve into the nitty-gritty of lenses, aperture settings, shutter speeds, etc, and you happen to be in the market for an upgrade, it may be more worthwhile to upgrade your phone, and have it all in one convenient package.

Also, no matter what you get, a commonly overlooked factor is the cleanliness of the windows you're shooting through. Wiping the layer of dust and grime during preflight can make a surprising difference in making the photos "pop" more, reducing the hazy flatness that makes them feel boring to others.

Best of luck!
 
If you have an Android you know you can go into pro mode and mess with the white balance, color balance, shutter speed, etc...right?

These were all taken at the same time and just messing with the pro tools on an android camera - and I'm no photographer, I was just messing with stuff.

469.jpg 473.jpg 474.jpg 477.jpg 479.jpg

Serengeti 2019 in case you were wondering where.
 
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Agree with what others are saying above. An actual long lens to zoom in optically rather than digitally helps some, but the distortion of the window still limits you more than anything else. You really have to get outside the window to get a decent shot. Upgrade your phone and use that. JMO
 
drummer4468 said:
Honestly...(I hate to admit this and the diehard shutterbug i was in a past life is about to cringe)....I'd upgrade my phone camera if I were you.

I know, i know....hear me out.

Phone cameras have come a LONG way in the past few years. My recently-purchased iPhone 12 Pro absolutely blew me away with its photo quality in all kinds of light conditions. I used to chuckle at the big'ol 3-lens monstrosities, but I see people pumping out STUNNING photos in seconds now, hot off the camera, that would have taken me hours of post-editing ten years ago. I honestly haven't touched my beloved Canon DSLR and its fancy bulky lenses in ages.

Great optical zoom is very important, not just cheap digital zoom that gets more grainy/pixelated the more I zoom in. Point-and-shoot simplicity that fits in my pocket. Tap where you want to focus/adjust light compensation. Pinch to zoom, which automatically switches between lenses for optimum quality/angle. Quick, easy enhancements/filters/edits on the spot. Easy panoramic shots, collages, the works. Uploads to whatever cloud/yootoob/faceyspace you want in real-time.

And you get a super nice phone, that does lots of other super nice phone stuff. Yes, you can probably get a cheaper dedicated beginner-friendly camera that takes good photos. If you have no desire/time/money to delve into the nitty-gritty of lenses, aperture settings, shutter speeds, etc, and you happen to be in the market for an upgrade, it may be more worthwhile to upgrade your phone, and have it all in one convenient package.

Also, no matter what you get, a commonly overlooked factor is the cleanliness of the windows you're shooting through. Wiping the layer of dust and grime during preflight can make a surprising difference in making the photos "pop" more, reducing the hazy flatness that makes them feel boring to others.

Best of luck!
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My MIL has a newer iPhone, and the photos she takes with it are incredible. Knowing her.... it's definitely the hardware, not skill. The problem I have is I'm REAL hard on phones. The longest I've gone without breaking one is 18 months, so $1000 phones are just not an option. That why I was thinking of an actual camera. Do they make point & shoot cameras any more or is it just phones and giant DSLR's?
 
Jim K said:
The problem I have is I'm REAL hard on phones. The longest I've gone without breaking one is 18 months, so $1000 phones are just not an option.
Click to expand...

A phone in an Otterbox Defender case is darn near indestructible. A bit bulky for my tastes, but still way more streamlined than just any about any dedicated compact camera.
 
Jim K said:
My MIL has a newer iPhone, and the photos she takes with it are incredible. Knowing her.... it's definitely the hardware, not skill. The problem I have is I'm REAL hard on phones. The longest I've gone without breaking one is 18 months, so $1000 phones are just not an option. That why I was thinking of an actual camera. Do they make point & shoot cameras any more or is it just phones and giant DSLR's?
Click to expand...
I'm hard on phones too. Metal dust eats speakers alive and cases suck. Current phone will be 2 years this month. Longest I've gone without shattering a screen. Unfortunately nobody makes the shattershield screen Motorola had.
 
I may or may not be going on a long trip, but if I do I've pretty much decided to upgrade my iphone XR with busted camera (see pics below) with a new 13 pro and lots of memory. I will still bring along a Cannon point and shoot in the event something happens to the phone, but I believe the camera phones have come far enough that it will be my primary.

This is what happens if one lets vibration kill the optical image stabilization.

upload_2022-3-15_9-4-29.jpeg

45ab9014-ce77-457c-9e46-5a33c10bfaa3-jpeg.3500501
 
drummer4468 said:
Phone cameras have come a LONG way in the past few years. My recently-purchased iPhone 12 Pro absolutely blew me away with its photo quality in all kinds of light conditions. I used to chuckle at the big'ol 3-lens monstrosities, but I see people pumping out STUNNING photos in seconds now, hot off the camera, that would have taken me hours of post-editing ten years ago. I honestly haven't touched my beloved Canon DSLR and its fancy bulky lenses in ages.
Click to expand...
Well, I can't say I haven't touched my DSLR in years obviously, but for point-and-shoot type of photos, I do reach for my iPhone 12 Pro Max. A photo taken in a low light setting will have quite a bit of noise, but I like it for the interior of airplanes. I also use it for vacations... I usually leave my big boy cameras at home!
 
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Consider a bridge camera such as Canon Powershot or Panasonic Lumix- these run, depending on model, around $400 to $600. The lenses aren't interchangable, but go from wide-angle to a decent zoom.
Alternatively, get a used DSLR and lens from B&H photo (in NYC) or KEH camera- both of these places have good reputations. A 50 to 250 mm lens should work for you. I tend to use a 50-500 for myself:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jacksilver/albums/72157699298551984
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jacksilver/albums/72157695637455422

I use the 50-250 in a passenger jet (see start and end of this series- I've gotten the URLS):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jacksilver/albums/72177720295803949/page1
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jacksilver/albums/72177720295803949/page4
 
Racerx said:
I'm hard on phones too. Metal dust eats speakers alive and cases suck. Current phone will be 2 years this month. Longest I've gone without shattering a screen. Unfortunately nobody makes the shattershield screen Motorola had.
Click to expand...
That plastic screen Motorola was awesome. I can't understand why that never took off. That was the longest lived one I had, and I didn't even have it in a case. It eventually died of force blunt force trauma...I had it on the seat of my pickup and it fell on the road when I opened the door and something came apart internally.

My last one was a cheap Samsung in a good case. All was going well until I managed to slam it in the door of the combine this fall. I'm now back to my backup that has a broken screen.
 
You can buy a used Pixel phone (or iphone) one generation behind and then buy this case and lens from this site: https://www.shopmoment.com/products/3-lens-moment-starter-set
Worked very nice for a while for me and you can keep the lens and upgrade your phone and just buy another case and use with the newer phone.
There are also those universal clip on lenses but I like the ease of just popping on and off the lens to the case that aligns it properly without thinking about it.
 
Cap'n Jack said:
Consider a bridge camera such as Canon Powershot or Panasonic Lumix- these run, depending on model, around $400 to $600. The lenses aren't interchangable, but go from wide-angle to a decent zoom.
Alternatively, get a used DSLR and lens from B&H photo (in NYC) or KEH camera- both of these places have good reputations. A 50 to 250 mm lens should work for you. I tend to use a 50-500 for myself:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jacksilver/albums/72157699298551984
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jacksilver/albums/72157695637455422

I use the 50-250 in a passenger jet (see start and end of this series- I've gotten the URLS):
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jacksilver/albums/72177720295803949/page1
https://www.flickr.com/photos/jacksilver/albums/72177720295803949/page4
Click to expand...
Those are the kind of pictures I'd like to be able to produce. What's the cliff notes version of selecting lenses? How much do I need to know about settings?

Can I get a reasonable setup under say...$1000? Bonus points (as in can sell it to my wife) if I can also use it to take awesome pictures of my kids.
 
Jim K said:
I'm frustrated by the amount of cool stuff I try to take pictures of from the air that turns out looking like nothing. Here's a perfect example:
View attachment 105445

I assume it's because the phone camera is set up to be pretty wide-angle and optimized for close up shots. I know nothing about photography, and I can't afford another hobby either time or money wise. Is there a way to get decent shots from the air without spending months learning about lenses and settings? Are cameras automated enough now days that I can go buy something and produce reasonable results?

I'm afraid this is kind of like the guy who wants to go buy a sr22t for his first plane.... which is why I've never delved into it before. Maybe it's not as complicated/ expensive as I think?
Click to expand...

I am a total neophyte to this as well, but I fail to see what is so outrageoous bad about that image. It looks good to me. What am I missing?
 
sarangan said:
I am a total neophyte to this as well, but I fail to see what is so outrageoous bad about that image. It looks good to me. What am I missing?
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The point of interest is the hotel, but you can barely see it. You can zoom in, but then it looks muddy. Editing the image improves it, but there's just not enough detail there.
 
Jim K said:
Those are the kind of pictures I'd like to be able to produce. What's the cliff notes version of selecting lenses? How much do I need to know about settings?

Can I get a reasonable setup under say...$1000? Bonus points (as in can sell it to my wife) if I can also use it to take awesome pictures of my kids.
Click to expand...
The one I linked fit's that description perfectly. Very easy to use if you're not doing anything fancy.
 
I'm not sure how helpful this will be, but my pictures come out terrible too. I've taken pictures with many cameras ranging from the cheap single-use throwaway variety to the "cost more than my car" types. The pictures still suck. I've determined (keep in my that I have a FA degree) that I am the problem. I lack perspective, so my photos lack perspective too. My wife is an artist. She can use the same camera that I use and turn out pictures that belong in a frame, pretty regularly.

YMMV
 
Rich Holt said:
I'm not sure how helpful this will be, but my pictures come out terrible too. I've taken pictures with many cameras ranging from the cheap single-use throwaway variety to the "cost more than my car" types. The pictures still suck. I've determined (keep in my that I have a FA degree) that I am the problem. I lack perspective, so my photos lack perspective too. My wife is an artist. She can use the same camera that I use and turn out pictures that belong in a frame, pretty regularly.

YMMV
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Ha...I understand. I often find myself thinking "maybe it's me..." I'm generally pretty pleased though with my photos that I take up close. The ones I'm not happy with really just need some optical zoom; I just don't know where to start.
 
I purchased a Canon 20D with some IS lenses prior to my air tour of Australia back in 2005. I never really bothered to learn much about it but in the intervening 15 years I learned a lot more about image quality (that's what I spent the latter part of my career doing: satellite imaging). It's amazing how much better things get when you take the raw images from the camera and process them down to png/jpeg with Lightroom (or whatever you like) rather than having the camera guess at what you are doing. Laptops have gotten powerful enough that the Adobe apps (which are pigs traditionally) run reasonably.
 
Jim K said:
That plastic screen Motorola was awesome. I can't understand why that never took off. That was the longest lived one I had, and I didn't even have it in a case. It eventually died of force blunt force trauma...I had it on the seat of my pickup and it fell on the road when I opened the door and something came apart internally.

My last one was a cheap Samsung in a good case. All was going well until I managed to slam it in the door of the combine this fall. I'm now back to my backup that has a broken screen.
Click to expand...
Z2 force is my current one. Screen will get scratched up a bit as its plastic. But won't shatter. Tough finding new old stock to replace it and its on android version 8 with no updates available, after 2 years its exceeded its life expectancy and soon to be retired. Just cant seem to find one I like that will be worth its salt. I never bought the hasselblad true zoom camera mod for it although was always curious how it did
 
don't we have an in-house cameratologist (not that you need one, go get yourself a cheap point n shoot so you can zoom in, they're good enough all-around cameras)? maybe it's @Brad Z ? I could be wrong but I seem to recall someone posting pages upon pages of camera advice.
 
eman1200 said:
don't we have an in-house cameratologist (not that you need one, go get yourself a cheap point n shoot so you can zoom in, they're good enough all-around cameras)? maybe it's @Brad Z ? I could be wrong but I seem to recall someone posting pages upon pages of camera advice.
Click to expand...

@Lowflynjack is an in-house 'cameratologist', but I'm pretty sure he isn't using a phone or a point-and-shoot. Actually, his sig line lists the following hardware: Canon 1DX Mark iii | Canon 1DX Mark ii | 70-200 F2.8 IS ii | 24-105 F4 IS
 
GaryM said:
@Lowflynjack is an in-house 'cameratologist', but I'm pretty sure he isn't using a phone or a point-and-shoot. Actually, his sig line lists the following hardware: Canon 1DX Mark iii | Canon 1DX Mark ii | 70-200 F2.8 IS ii | 24-105 F4 IS
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I do use my iPhone, just not for anything in the air! I'm looking at buying another 1DX Mark iii since it will most likely be the last DSLR Canon makes... $6500. Ouch.
 
You need a camera that's simple to use, so you can minimize the time fussing with the camera and maximize flying the airplane. It should also be small and light, ideally pocket-sized, or keeping a low profile in a neck strap -- again, so as not to distract from flying the airplane. I have an Olympus mirrorless camera with interchangeable lenses that I use on the ground, but for flying I only use the Sony RX100.

https://www.amazon.com/Sony-Premium...y+rx100&qid=1647367988&sprefix=,aps,95&sr=8-3

All of these were taken with the RX100, and edited with Luminar AI: https://jeffreyjacobs.smugmug.com/Miscellaneous/RX100-demo/n-Cv8HgR
 
eman1200 said:
don't we have an in-house cameratologist (not that you need one, go get yourself a cheap point n shoot so you can zoom in, they're good enough all-around cameras)? maybe it's @Brad Z ? I could be wrong but I seem to recall someone posting pages upon pages of camera advice.
Click to expand...
LOL, Nope, not me. I can give you all sorts of good advice on how to use the camera on an iPhone 12 though!
 
Lowflynjack said:
buying another 1DX Mark iii since it will most likely be the last DSLR Canon makes... $6500. Ouch.
Click to expand...

A camera like the 1DX Mark III needs a job. I mean, a well healed person can certainly buy one, but cameras like those are normally used to make a living.
 
Bill said:
A camera like the 1DX Mark III needs a job. I mean, a well healed person can certainly buy one, but cameras like those are normally used to make a living.
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Agree. I wouldn't own one, much less three if it wasn't for the fact that I need them!
 
Pilawt said:
You need a camera that's simple to use, so you can minimize the time fussing with the camera and maximize flying the airplane. It should also be small and light, ideally pocket-sized, or keeping a low profile in a neck strap -- again, so as not to distract from flying the airplane. I have an Olympus mirrorless camera with interchangeable lenses that I use on the ground, but for flying I only use the Sony ...
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I have this model Sony as well. Excellent quality photos, small package, more powerful zoom lense and better sensor than phones. Does a great job. But as already mentioned, your windows are your worst enemy. I really miss my old Grumman Tiger. Slide the canopy back and and take great photos... Super Cubs and 185s worked ok with their large open-in-flight side windows. My RV is strictly canopy closed and latched during flight.
 
Whatever kind of camera you use be sure to have a tether if like myself you take pictures with the small window open.

Life is a barrel of fun.
 
I like the Cannon Powershot that I have - 10 or 12x optical zoom is nice. 1080p video. Fits in a pocket.
On the downside, no way to plug in an external mic. And, if you spill MEK on it it quits working - who would'a thunk.
 
Jim K said:
Those are the kind of pictures I'd like to be able to produce. What's the cliff notes version of selecting lenses? How much do I need to know about settings?

Can I get a reasonable setup under say...$1000? Bonus points (as in can sell it to my wife) if I can also use it to take awesome pictures of my kids.
Click to expand...
Cliff's notes on selecting lenses-
I mentioned "bridge cameras". The lenses aren't interchangable, but they have a wide zoom range. The price on these can go above $1000, but these should work for you:
https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/prod...1-x915641/SID/DFF?sid=06BdfhOaEGWzR25aEU5hZja
That camera has decent zoom, shoots in RAW if desired, optical stabilization. RAW makes it easier to adjust the image after downloading it from the camera if you ever decide to play around with things like LightRoom that allow you to adjust the image.

I suggested used DSLRs. The 7D2 I use runs about $400 on the used market and you might need to get lenses as well, depending on the seller, and that can bring you up to your $1000 limit.

In the little plane, I like to set the exposure to 1/1000 and use f8. Modern cameras will adjust the ISO, the sensor sensitivity, to expose the picture properly. The shutter speed is such that I don't see shaking.

One trick I use to avoid the window is shoot through the far window. We fly left seat, I'll zoom and shoot through the right window while in a right turn. The window is far enough away that the distortion is decreased.
This is a "right window" shot:
JAK_8744 by Jack Silver, on Flickr
 
Lowflynjack said:
I do use my iPhone, just not for anything in the air! I'm looking at buying another 1DX Mark iii since it will most likely be the last DSLR Canon makes... $6500. Ouch.
Click to expand...

Jack, what does that body give you at 10x the price of Canon's consumer/prosumer line?
 
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