by Richard Pahl

Created on: February 09, 2009   Last Updated: March 07, 2009

As a semi-retired professional photographer, I have some thoughts about how much camera one needs. Who is your target audience? Are youshooting for your own enjoyment? Areyoushooting snaps to send to Grandma? Are you "Uncle Harry" and you're shooting your niece's wedding? Do you enjoy giving slide shows? When you do does your audience try to sneak out after the first slide? Are you trying to get a photograph published. . . anywhere?

There are many different skill levels of photographers,from a snapshot taker to a wannabe professional. Note I have left out the classifications of Advanced Amateur and Professional.These people know what equipment they need to accomplish their jobs. The advanced amateur (AA) is undoubtedly into competition photography, and the Pro is making his bread selling images. Budget comes into question here. Good to excellent consumer-grade point and shoots range from $200 to $500. The average camera user only needs to take stand-up pics of family standing in front of scenery or monuments, places of interest, etc.

A cellphone or a two hundred buck camera is plenty here. Students of photography will find the low dollar investment is adequate for their first class. There the teacher (if she/he is skilled in art) will let you know if you have an "eye". If he/she says you do, and your friends and relatives keep saying that you take good pictures, and if you want to progress in photography, you might want to spend four to five hundred dollars for a better quality camera. If and when you decide to continue your studies of photography on a college level, a good "pro-sumer" camera is in order. An example of a good pro-sumer rig is a Canon Rebel. This is an introductory SLR Digital camera that uses interchangeable lenses, and has much more control over your images.

Start winning contests and/or get published regularly, and you're ready for the Big Time. What you are likely to be taking pictures of? For example, if you like to shoot sailboats, you probably want a nice quality, but you are not too interested in frames-per-second (FPS) burst speed. If you are attempting to shoot a rodeo, the FPS rate will be of interest to you. Generally, the faster you want the burst speed to be, the smaller the mega-pixel count will be. I shoot horses and riders in western speed competitions on a professional level. My prime camera for that is a Canon EOS-1D, known as the world's fastest camera. It can shoot eight and a half frames per second.

It has "only" four and a

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