The price to performance of used cameras is absurd. My view is that digital photography tech hit maturity in 2008 with the release of the Canon 5D Mark II and Nikon D700.
There is an overwhelming amount of professional gear out there at rock bottom prices. Consumer gear can be a blast when it’s cheap enough. The right camera for a style of shooting is going to be better than whatever the newest camera happens to be. (Unless you’re doing sports/action/wildlife. AF tech is getting absurd.)
Third Party Battery Paranoia
I have had batteries fall apart, fail within months, and with a capacity far below what’s on the label. It’s difficult to find good quality third party batteries.
There is an easy way ANYONE can inexpensively capacity test camera batteries. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to capacity test camera batteries. It is a simple DIY project that only requires, ~$30, a screwdriver, and pair of wire strippers.
Picking Out Vintage Lens Winners
All lenses aren’t equal, especially when it comes to vintage and early digital camera lenses. Modern lenses will give you images that are razor sharp corner to corner. Vintage lenses can set themselves apart by how they render, the color you can get with them, interesting bokeh, or other characteristics not valued by current photographers.
On the other hand, many vintage lenses are not good. Their performance may not be good enough to set them apart from other lenses. Worse, as time has gone on some lenses have defects such as haze, fungus, balsam separation, or degraded grease, that will render them worthless because of the difficulty in repair.
I’m somewhat indiscriminate in my purchasing of gear, so I get a mix of good, bad, and average. The lens reviews will help you find a lens worth owning. These are popular film cameras that recieve frequent lens questions.
The Nikon FE10 can be a fun camera to use with the right lens for the type of photography you want to do.
I hope this doesn’t surprise you, but the best selling F-mount film lenses were the cheapest. They are the easiest to find today in good usable condition.
The “best” lenses to me are the ones that make you want to take your camera out and shoot. Yeah, vaporizing backgrounds with a giant tube fill with glass is fun. However, it’s not something I’d want to do on a daily basis.
There are tons of compatible F-mount lenses for the Nikon FM. The best experience is going to be with Ai and Ai-S manual focus lenses.
I’m going to mainly focus on what were the popular lens choices when the FM was new. These are small, light, and inexpensive lenses, which makes them fun.
The Nikon FM is a very good film SLR camera. This article will talk about the 5 best lenses for the Nikon FM, plus a few alternative lenses.
The Nikon FG is a terrific film SLR camera. This web page will cover the 5 best lenses for the Nikon FG, plus a few alternative lenses.
Additional info is below, but if you are short on time, below is the list:
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The Nikon FG-20 is a very good film camera. This article will cover the 5 best lenses for the Nikon FG-20, as well as a handful of alternative lenses.
Best Nikon FG-20 Lenses:
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Pair the Nikon FE2 with the right lens and you’ll get to experience the 1980’s magic the camera is known for.
It is compatible with AI F-mount lenses. Earlier “non-AI” lenses can damage the camera’s mount if force is used to get them to mount.
I am going to recommend compatible lenses that are lightweight, small, and fun to use. This comes with the benefit that most of them are easy to find and inexpensive.
The Canon 7D uses SD memory cards. It is compatible with memory cards up to 2TB in capacity.
In order to record video, get a card with a Class 10 speed rating. I suggest getting a card with UHS-I, as those cards are way faster than Class 10. They will have compatibility with as many cameras and devices as possible.
A 64GB SD card will be plenty of storage for most needs. The cards are widely available and inexpensive.
