Lately I’ve been getting questions from a few family members and colleagues about which cameras (or kinds of cameras) they should consider getting. Generally, I get this question from folks with relatively recent smartphones (e.g. iPhone 6S+) who believe that they may be able to take better photographs with a better, standalone camera. (I mostly get this question from parents of young kids, but I’ve also gotten it once or twice from people interested in vacation photos or lifestyle photography.) I’ll reference some useful guides by http://dpreview.com (disclaimer, they are owned by my employer) and add notes where I think they’re useful. I hope that these links prove useful to those who are looking for this guidance. ...

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In addition to my aforementioned impulsive purchase of the Fujifilm Instax SP-2 smartphone printer (for printing mementos from social occasions), I also impulsively purchased the Fujifilm TCL-X100 II teleconversion lens for my Fujifilm X100T camera. This was something I was thinking about for a while about a week, and although I hesitated quite a bit in the store, I ended up pulling the trigger on it. The Fuji TCL-X100 II conveter lens is an engineering marvel, and when attached to the camera, looks quite convincingly part of the original body. It’s quite attractive. ...

• photography

A little over a week ago, I went out and picked up the Fujifilm Instax SP-2 (smartphone) printer from B&H to bring to a friend’s wedding. Though this was a bit of an impulse purchase, I had my eye on this printer for a couple of weeks, and thought I would get good use out of it going into Thanksgiving Weekend. It’s kind of like a Polaroid for the 21st century, except you know (more or less) what your pics will turn out like before printing. (This is essentially a more expensive, stand-alone version of Fujifilm’s Instax line of cameras, which use the same types of film for a true Polaroid experience.) ...

• photography

As I recently discussed, I’ve recently acquired a camera for improving my family photography (and maybe also indulging in some hobbyist photography as well). My original motivation for purchasing that camera was not just to have better quality digital photos, but especially to have beautiful photos which I can frame or put into family albums. Now that I’ve been shooting for a little while, I decided to order some prints online. Although my father (and significant photography influencer) uses AdoramaPix, I heard good things about Mpix and decided to give them a go. ...

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On July 4th, I jetted over to B&H to pick up a new(ly used) camera. I walked out with a Fujifilm X100T mirrorless point-and-shoot camera. This is the story of how I chose that camera, and how I feel about it a few weeks later. It all begins… with me staying up until 4 o’clock in the morning one Saturday night. What had begun as an innocent review of my family photos perversely devolved into a compulsive episode of researching cameras with which to upgrade said family photos. Those family photos were recorded almost exclusively with the iPhone 5s and iPhone 6; yet, once printed, the quality left quite a bit to be desired. ...

• photography