Do I really need a DSLR?

[buggy2727]

So I've lived on the DIS boards for the last 3 months and 5 days before our trip I decide to buy a new camera. For the last 6+ years, my Nikon D40x has been my primary (only) camera. For the last 3 years we've had many fights and it's been misbehaving but this weekend I think I decided we are ready to go our separate ways. I had my son's first communion and most of the family shots are terrible. I will say, I love taking pictures (mostly of my kids) but I'm not a hobby photographer. I mostly point and shoot and underutilized my camera's ability - I set it on auto and just click. First the camera started locking up on me - it would focus but then not actually take the picture. I'd refocus, change position, change zoom, shut it off, pop out the battery, etc. Sometimes it would "reset", sometimes not. When this happens, the only way I can take a picture is to switch it to manual focus. I don't have to "re"focus since the camera already focused, it just seems like the shutter locks. I've sent the camera to Nikon twice and they've sent it back saying they found no issues.

The latest "issue" is that my flash is not firing when it should be and my pictures are way underexposed. I don't know much but I do know when to use a flash. And I can't "force" it to use the flash.... But this weekend, what finally put me over the edge (besides the locking, and no flash inside church) was about 5 of my family shots were completely washed out - the faces were non-existent. The only way I could find humor in the situation was that we were in church so maybe it was the light of a spirit around us that caused it.

Sorry, I'm rambling... So we leave on Friday for WDW and I need to decide today if I'm buying a new camera or not and what type I should buy. Honestly, I'd love to get more into photography but with 3 kids and a full time job, my hobby right now is my kids. I mostly point and shoot however, my kids are very active in sports so I really would love a zoom (a new lens with zoom, maybe around 300mm, was going to be my next purchase). I don't really play around with the settings so the question is, do I really need to spend $750 on a new DSLR and a 300mm lens or should I just get a good P&S that also has a great zoom? They do both indoor and outdoor sports, I don't typically enlarge prints larger than 8x10 (mostly 5x7) and I really, really don't want to buy something that has a ton of features I won't use. I leave it up to the professionals to discuss...

 

[havoc315]

Nobody needs a dSLR. Particularly if you shoot primarily in auto modes.

But let's break it down a bit - some mirrorless cameras now match dSLRs in image quality. They use the same size sensors in some cases (such as the NEX), or just slightly smaller sensors (Panasonic/Oly).
So you can definitely use either a dSLR or the mirrorless cameras for really good image quality.

But putting aside image quality, different cameras can have very different focus systems. And fast/accurate AF is critical for doing telephoto sports. dSLRs overall, tend to have the best AF systems for sports (with differences between cameras).
So if planning a lot of outdoor sports, it's a good reason to still lean towards dSLR. If you go mirrorless, read reviews carefully about their AF systems. Also look at burst rates (frames per second).

Indoor sports --- Indoor sports are very very difficult to capture with any basic equipment. On a budget, the best way to capture indoor sports is to use a short lens with a decent aperture. All your shots will be fairly wide angle unfortunately. But if you start to use a telephoto lens zoomed in, you won't get enough light to capture sports.. You'll get dark, blurry, grainy images. (The solution is a very expensive telephoto 2.8 lens... but those lenses range from $700 to $3,000+ just for the lens).

Point and shoot cameras/compacts --- Smaller sensors, tend to have inferior AF systems. On the flip side, because it is a smaller sensor, AF is less critical. But still, tracking AF tends to be poor.
More importantly, P&S cameras can create stellar images in really good light, with stationary objects. If you need to raise the ISO --- which happens in reduced light, or the faster shutter speed needed for sports, then the image quality goes downhill pretty quickly. You end up with images that look fine on Facebook.. but larger prints will look pretty bad.

 

[buggy2727]

Thank you! This is great info - when considering "burst rates" is this what I'm looking for?? ....14fps burst shooting.... I'm assuming a higher number is better? Any suggestions for mirrorless cameras?

For apertures, the smaller the better? And this is what I'm looking for to compare cameras correct? ....maximum apertures of f/3.5 at the 24mm wide-angle setting and f/6.3 at the 720mm ....

Thank you!

 

[havoc315]

Thank you! This is great info - when considering "burst rates" is this what I'm looking for?? ....14fps burst shooting.... I'm assuming a higher number is better? Any suggestions for mirrorless cameras?

For apertures, the smaller the better? And this is what I'm looking for to compare cameras correct? ....maximum apertures of f/3.5 at the 24mm wide-angle setting and f/6.3 at the 720mm ....

Thank you!

Correct.

But burst shooting -- you can't just look at the frames per second. You need to check whether it continues to auto focus between shots, and how many consecutive frames before it fills the buffer and fills up.

For sports, anything better than 5-6 fps is pretty good. But if you can only take a half second before slowing down, it's not very helpful.

For indoor sports -- an aperture of 6.3 is useless.
Really, you want an aperture of 2.8 or better. You can get away with a bit smalle under good circumstances. But 6.3 really would be no good.

But remember, aperture primarily deals with light gathering/exposure. If you have a very long zoom, then you need a fast shutter speed, which impairs your light gathering. Which in turn, causes a boost in your ISO, in turn destroying your image quality.

 

[photo_chick]

OP the issues your camera has could be a number of things, only one of which is an issue in the body itself. But that aside, the one thing that sticks out to me in your post is that you like to leave it on auto. If you've only ever used the lens that came with the camera and maybe a 50-250mm then you've essentially been using your DSLR as a point and shoot. Actually some of the current point and shoots are far more capable than a D40 with a kit lens and 50-250.

Check the buying guides at dpreview.com and look at the features on current cameras. Think about what you really need in a camera. How much zoom? Low light? Etc. and make a list. It will help narrow down your choices and possibly point you in a direction.

 

[Atlas722]

Indoor sports: I've used my Nikon D3000 at high school basketball games and have gotten good results. I had a Nikon Coolpix L24 that also took good pics of indoor sports games, but I had issues with its battery compartment door and at the end of January of this year, I threw it I out.

My Droid2 phone has a camera, but I've had blah results indoors when it comes to sports. I sometimes use it's camcorder for this, and I make screen caps on my
computer.