Bob Crum

As the shelter-in-place order is extended, it's a great time to contemplate entering the wonderful world of photography. You're done with sissy cellphone photos and itching to act on your long-held secret to create awesome long-lived photographs. Here's some mental spinach to help you cast off the phonetographer shackles and become an grrrreat photographer!

Many photos I see of social media were shot with a cellphone. I know this because they're all awful. Relax, just kidding. Some are good. Even when I closely examine a Facebook photo, it's sometimes difficult to tell whether it's a cellphone or a camera photo. But I can tell!

We all know that present-day cellphone cameras perform quite well when abundant light is present or when the subject isn't moving too quickly. And in most situations, shooting family vacation photos with a cellphone might suffice. But when that cellphone is deficient, the magic of the moment is gone forever without a memorable photo. If that's not acceptable, you're ready for a camera!

Present-day cellphones are ubiquitous, and convenient, for instant social media snapshots. But for field sports, a rodeo, an air show or shooting wildlife, zooming is an important facet where cellphones can't compete with dedicated cameras.

The Samsung new S20 cellphone provides a hybrid optic zoom of 3x and 30x "Super-Resolution Zoom" (SRZ) with the telephoto lens. Impressed? Don't be. While the 30x super-resolution zoom (SRZ) sounds great, beyond the 3x optical zoom, the cellphone camera is not doing any zooming. Instead, it's heavily cropping the image to simulate zooming. A fake zoom! To get 'optically' zoomed 30x, you'd need a 7" long 200mm telephoto lens on your slim cellphone.

If you're ready to create 'real' photos, there are many delicious options. Camera technology has greatly improved lenses and internal processing. Remember, a camera is a computer with a lens attached. There are three categories of cameras: Compact & point & shoot cameras, bridge cameras and dSLRs - mirrored and mirrorless. Let's discuss compacts. Longer zooms, faster operation, better low-light capabilities, and better ergonomics, there are lots of good reasons to buy a state of the art compact digital camera, wrote shotkit.com. Note: the S20 costs $1295.00! That amount of $$ buys a great real camera!

Compact cameras utilize a 'fixed' built-in lens and on several models, the lens retracts into the camera. These cameras offer two substantial advantages: they're small and pocketable and you get real optical zoom for a lot less money. And cameras in this category produce very good quality photos in many situations!

Here are a few of smartphone-beating compact cameras: Fujifilm X100V, Panasonic Lumix ZS200/TZ200, Canon PowerShot G7 X Mark III, Panasonic Lumix LX100 II, Sony Cyber-shot RX100 VI, Canon PowerShot G1 X Mark III, Sony Cyber-shot RX100 IV and Panasonic ZS100/TZ100. I'll add Canon PowerShot G5 X Mark II, & Ricoh GRIII. Check shotkit.com for reviews and camera info. https://shotkit.com/best-compact-cameras/.

First, prioritize your photographic/camera needs: size, zoom range, exposure controls. Then consider buying a brand camera: Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus, Fujifilm or Panasonic that's within your budget. If the budget is constrained, consider buying a pre-owned camera. I have purchased a used camera and two used lenses and happy with all three. Three reliable sources are https://www.adorama.com/Used, https://tinyurl.com/qr6vkb5 and https://www.keh.com/.

Being housebound, it's back to the rose garden for a photo shoot. The photo of the week is one of the beautiful flowers. See it in glorious color at: fillmoregazette.com. For entertainment: Sandpipers at Faria beach video #3: https://youtu.be/-6d3n3Li5Gs.

Send comments, suggestions or questions to: focusonphotography@earthlink.net