How to Save Money on a Camera Upgrade

Howdy!  I haven't been around for awhile.  It was easy to post during my college years, but teaching is super busy!  I'm home because our teacher inservice got cancelled due to ice, so I decided to take the opportunity to post.

In the year and couple months since my last post, I have upgraded my camera again.  This time, I have upgraded to a Canon EOS 70D, and I've been very pleased with it these past few months.  Mostly, I just appreciate the fact that I can can play with exposure much more with this camera.  My f-stop can go lower, my shutter speed can be faster, my ISO can go lower/higher, etc.  I really do feel that it has improved the quality of my shots.

Anyway, enough about the camera itself (that is perhaps for a different post). My main reason for writing is to let others know how I handle camera upgrades and the cost of a different camera.

Do I?....

1) Save up money in a special account until I have enough for that awesome camera? NO
2) Do I watch sales around stores in the area?  NO...though this isn't a bad idea, it's just not what I do.
3) Do I splurge randomly on a brand new camera that I really want? NO
4)  Do I ask for a camera for my birthday or Christmas so it's free for me and my family shoulders the cost? NO

To sum it up, there are three things I have done every single time I've upgraded a dSLR and will continue to do.

1. Research cameras like crazy before you decide which model you want.  

This time, I was trying to decide between a nicer crop sensor camera and a full frame camera.  I went through exhaustive internet searches, talked to an expert at a camera store, and did some soul-searching about what I really needed. I ultimately decided on a crop sensor (maybe more about why in a different post--though cost was definitely a factor).

THEN, once I had narrowed down to the camera type, I had to find the right model.  I am already deep into Canon and wasn't interested a brand switch (why bother?), so that brought me to the Canon EOS 80D.  Now, here's the real trick if money is a concern for you.

If you type in Canon EOS 80D into Google, you can get a sense of the price.  Depending on where you buy it and the accessories included, it can run you anywhere from $1,200 to $1,800.  The lowest I could find was $1,100 with body only and zero accessories. Now, my goal was to lower that cost.

At this point, I researched the differences between the 80D and the 70D, which was the model that was slightly older.  The only huge difference was in the video capabilities of the 80D.  I am not a videography person, so this particular feature was of zero importance to me.  With that, I settled on the older model of Canon 70D.  Type that camera into Google, and your average price is about $850 including a kit lens. Right off the top we've shaved $400 to $1000 (depending on store and bundle).

My personal advice to you is: ALWAYS check out older models.  They are always cheaper and they are always virtually identical to the new model.  You're paying hundreds of dollars more for minute changes and the fact that it has a different model name.  There might be some cases in which those small adjustments do matter to you (do your research), but most of the time you are not going to notice much.  I don't feel like one feature is worth $500.

2. Don't be so afraid to buy used or refurbished gear.

After deciding on a model and checking out prices for cameras, I always turn to my old standby...eBay.  I prefer eBay over Amazon simply because I can usually find a better price there.

I searched for a used/refurbished Canon 70D and perused the many options.  A lot of people are scared to buy anything off of eBay for fear of buying a lemon, but it's really just a matter of using the safety features that eBay has built in for you.

Always pay attention to:
1) Seller location: I like to buy cameras only from U.S. sellers.  I worry that I won't get what I think I'm getting from the sometimes-shady Chinese ebay accounts.
2) Seller ratings: Make sure the person has a high percentage of positive feedback and has (hopefully) made a lot of sales so that the percentage means more.
3) Quality of the seller description:  READ EVERYTHING CAREFULLY.  Look at pictures, read descriptions, etc. with a close eye before you decide it's a good-to-go used or refurbished item.

Using those precautions, I have NEVER had an issue with any kind of purchase on eBay, nevermind the cameras I have bought.  Ultimately, I found a refurbished Canon 70D for $700, which shaved another $150 off of the average price.

3. Sell your old camera to partially pay for your new camera.

The last step I've always taken to soften the blow of buying a fairly expensive item is to sell the old camera on eBay.  I always make sure that the new purchase is in good working condition for a few weeks, then post my own listing and sell my old camera.  You'll never get what you paid for it, but you can usually get a few hundred dollars on auction.  I sold mine for about $350, which cut off about half the price of my new camera.

I don't have a lot of advice for how to sell your camera other than to provide lots of pictures of the item and a thorough description.  Also...don't get greedy and overprice. Remember, your camera is an old model now, too.

Final thoughts...

If I sound like a cheapskate throughout this post...it's because I am.  I prefer to call myself "thrifty" or "frugal", though....   I am not in a shaky financial situation, especially now that I am out of college and have been working full-time consistently for over a year.  I could buy a full-frame camera brand new from the store, but I am not a professional photographer and I don't make money from my photography.

If you are not worried about cost, this post will not apply to you.  To fellow frugal hobbyists, however, I hope that you found something useful that can help you upgrade in a way that doesn't break the bank. 

Experiments with Wide Angle Lenses

So, it's been quite a long time since my last post, though I have an excuse.  I started a new job and it occupies quite a bit of my time.  However, though my blogging has slowed considerably, I still find the time for my photography hobby and have had a few new developments since my last post.

I'm not a frequent "upgrader," but recently I bought a Canon EF-S 10-18 mm f/4.6-5.6 STM lens to provide me the opportunity for more wide angle shots--whether they're landscapes or close-ups.  The lens was around $300 on Amazon, which is more than I usually like to spend, but it's actually a steal in the world of wide angle lenses.  I've wanted a wide angle lens forever, but was never willing to settle for an edge-darkening, piece-of-junk $20 lens attachment OR to shell out the ridiculous $2000 for a "real" one.  I was browsing Amazon--probably to placate myself after a long day of teaching--and I stumbled across this reasonably priced lens.  My first paycheck was days away, so I thought "what the heck?" and bought it.

So far, I've been pretty pleased, though there's a bit of a learning curve for figuring out which situations are best for this lens.  So far, most of what I've done have been landscape shots, though I would like to use it more for macro shots to get more background in the photo.  I'm getting a little better about figuring out when/how to use it, though I probably won't have time to hone my craft until a major break in the school year.

Below are a few of the test shots I've taken in the month that I've had the lens.  As I said before, I'm still not great with it, but I'm still happy I made the purchase.

Starting a Photography Website

Historically, Facebook and Flickr have always been my standbys in terms of sharing my photography with the world. While both of these sites have been fantastic for getting feedback as to what people do and don't like, they have their limitations.  Facebook is a highly personal site that I keep on lockdown, so I have an extremely limited audience.  Additionally, Facebook photos are not the highest resolution and become somewhat disorganized and hidden in my myriad of albums.  Flickr is great in terms of getting feedback from more serious photographers and sharing with a wider audience, but it can also become easily disorganized.  Good (but older) photos can get lost as more and more are added, and I haven't always done the best job keeping my albums well organized.

So, I decided to make something more attractive, personal, and public by creating an online gallery.  I chose Weebly because I was told by several people that it is more user friendly than many other free website-hosting options.  Having worked with the very unwieldy Google Sites for a class this spring, I was eager to find a better option.

Here is the finished project:

http://tiararae.weebly.com/

I'm quite happy with the layout and gallery options.  I feel like I achieved something that looks cleaner, simpler, more professional, and offers better showcasing of my favorite photographs.  Though I chose to stick with the free version, you can choose to pay to get rid of the "weebly" name in your site title and to unlock various more advanced settings.

I would recommend getting an account and tinkering around if you're looking to create an online gallery like this.  There are dozens of other layout options and infinite opportunities for personalization, including slideshows, blogs, surveys, etc.

Good luck and happy website-building!

Easy Watermarks

As my photography hobby has progressed, I've started to worry about the "safety" of some of my better shots.  Not all of my photos are good enough to be sale-worthy, but I've started experiencing an uptick in local businesses and universities asking me if they can use certain shots for brochures, websites, etc.  I'm generally fine with providing a photo if someone asks for permission (though I have begun to question doing this for free), but I know that there are many people lurking on the internet trying to make use of others' content for profit.

For this reason, I started to seek out quick ways to watermark my favorite shots.  There are several websites out there for this purpose, but the one I'm partial to is Watermark WS or https://www.watermark.ws.

This site allows you to upload a logo or simply use text to protect your photos.  You can also adjust opacity and color (though a logo's color would have to be changed in a different program prior to uploading).  It also (awesomely) allows you to save a watermark as a template, which can be easily applied to photos on subsequent visits to the site.  Finally, you can chose to have a single or tiled watermark depending on your preferences.  Examples of watermarked photos are shown below:

Here is an example of a logo that was uploaded and applied via Watermark WS.

Here is the same logo using the tiled setting.  I can't say I use this setting often, but it's probably the best in terms of protecting your photos.  It's a lot of work for someone to attempt to Photoshop out all of those watermarks.  If they're too lazy to take their own pictures, they're probably too lazy to do that much editing.

Here is a text-only example.  You can see that a copyright symbol has been added.  There are several other copyright/trademark symbols available on the website.

One slight bummer to the free version of this website is that you will only be able to upload one or two photos at a time due to very limited (10 MB) file capacity.  For bulk watermarking, you may want to upgrade your account.  I wanted slightly more storage, but I'm not "big time," so I chose a Plus account for $5/month.  This allows me 250 MB of storage and batches of up to 100 photos.  This is more than enough for my needs.  If you're looking for something to service huge batches of photos and large file sizes, they also have plans that allow up to 5000 MB of storage.  More detailed information on the specifics of each plan is available on the website.

In summary, here's my overall take:

Pros:

-Attractive fonts
-Unlimited color options
-Copyrighting/trademarking symbols
-Opacity controls and tiling options
-Logo upload capabilities
-Ability to save templates for future use
-Signup and basic plans are free
-Next level plan is still cheap $5/month

Cons:

-Free version allows very little file space
-Download batches will expire after approximately a week

As stated before, this is not the only online watermarking site available, but I feel that it's a good one.  Comment with any websites you feel are superior!

New Bokeh Kit

In past posts, I have mentioned the "poor man's bokeh kit,"  which involves creating your own bokeh shapes from simple construction paper and scissors/hole punches.  While this DIY trick works, I am not particularly patient about making my own bokeh shapes, so I had essentially abandoned this trick out of laziness.  However, I received a cheap bokeh kit from Photojojo for Christmas (it is only about $25: http://photojojo.com/store/awesomeness/bokeh-kit/) and have been messing around with it for the past couple weeks.

So far, I've been pretty impressed with the results, though I'm still working out a couple technique issues.  I've actually had more luck using this kit with my telephoto lens than my regular kit lens, which seems odd, but the shapes themselves are very crisp and clear compared to my shoddy homemade ones.  Some of the shapes are a little strange, but they're fun and whimsical nonetheless.

My next goal is to move past blurry Christmas or street lights to having subtle bokeh shapes in the background with a perfectly in-focus subject in the forefront.  Hopefully, I can find a lighting situation that will allow for experimentation in that area.

Here are a few of my initial attempts:

Experiments: Macro/Wide Angle Lens Attachments

When I bought my camera, a variety of accessories arrived with it.  I haven't had time to figure out how many of them work, but I had some extra time to mess around with them today.

The first experiment involved a macro lens and wide angle lens attachment combo as shown below.

This seemed like an odd combination, so I initially took off the wide angle portion to test the macro portion alone.  First, I took a picture with my 18-55 mm lens (not zoomed in at all), and then I took the same picture with the macro attachment.  These were the results:

Without macro attachment

With macro attachment

Clearly, the second picture allows for a much closer view in the same picture.  I tried to go as far in as I could, which resulted in many very blurry/grainy shots.  This was the best one I managed:

As close as possible

The macro attachment definitely allows for a "zoom-in" effect, but the extreme close-up was less than desirable.  I don't want to judge it too quickly because my poor technique or the wrong setting may have caused the extreme blurriness.  I'll have to try this on a flower or some other outdoor subject to see if I can improve my results.

As for the macro/wide angle combo, here's an example.  I'm not wildly impressed, but as stated before, I might just be using this wrong.  The top photo is with my kit lens alone, and the bottom photo is with the attachments.  I'm still not 100% sure if these attachments are supposed to be used together always.  Until I can figure out a way to attach the wide angle attachment directly to my lens, they'll have to be a combo set.  

Without any attachments

With macro/wide angle lens attachment combo

I'll be doing plenty of my own internet research on these accessories, but let me know if you have any opinions/advice on how to use these (or if they're even worth it).  

Yet Another Camera Upgrade

Early this summer, I made the decision to upgrade my camera.  I had been rocking the Canon Rebel XSi for three years, and while it still worked just fine, I wanted to sell it while it still had some value.  After a lot of Googling, I decided to buy a refurbished Canon Rebel T4i, a newer model of my old camera.  My goal was to save money (which generally excludes the newest model from consideration), but also to have a model new enough that it wouldn't seem insanely outdated after a year or two.

I got the camera right before my trip to Spain and Italy...but I took the old camera.  I was too worried about something happening to my brand new camera in a foreign country, so I decided I'd rather risk the old standby instead.  I only really started experimenting with my new camera after I got back in mid-June.

So far, I'm very pleased with the results I've been getting.  One of my major complaints with my old camera was that I never felt like the colors I saw in person translated to pictures.  This new camera, on the other hand, produces vibrant photos right from the start.  Probably the strangest thing to get used to is not having to do as much processing with my photos.  I was so used to having to punch up the color for every single picture, that I over-processed the first couple pictures I took and ended up using the unedited original.

One other major difference between my current camera and my old camera is the ability to take video.  I haven't had an opportunity to experiment with the video setting just yet, but I'm excited to try it out to see what I can do.  My GoPro (see previous post) is wonderful for quick videos, but if I ever want to try something a little more artistic, I need to know how to film on this camera.  As a disclaimer, I will say that videography is well outside of my wheelhouse.  I dabble, but I don't really know what I'm doing...

Anyway, here are a few sample pictures I've taken since getting the new camera.  I'm pleased so far, and I should be able to have more material for blog posts as I sift through all of the accessories that came with it!