5 year old photographer

girlperson1 wrote:

AnthonyL wrote:

RRAz wrote:

My children were all intrigued by photography at early ages. However, I found that as a point of entry their experimentation was better confined to the elementary arts of framing and composition. Mostly what they wanted was for me to get out of the way and let them shoot. To that end, whatever point-and-shoot I could give them sustained their curiosity the longest. They chased the cat, explored the garden, and invaded all privacies when mostly limited to zoom and auto-everything else. Now teenagers, they use various widgets on their cell-cameras to 'edit' their images and currently have almost no interest in DSLR photography.

That would seem to be an argument in favour of bringing up your kids properly and giving them a DSLR at the age of 5! Now they are for ever doomed to social media pics. <insert appropriate smiley here>

My own personal story is that my father, who was also a very good photographer, began to integrate me into photography at the age of 3. I learned on a Zeiss Ikon camera. Naturally, he would adjust the settings and I would learn to frame the shot and release the shutter. I haven't put down a camera since and I'm now 62...LOL!! I have a cellphone but never use it for creating images. I currently carry my 6D with me wherever I go albeit, there's not much to photograph in New Jersey....LOL!! Through my teen years I carried a Honey Pentax SP500 and probably took my best images with that camera having grown up in Greenwich Village which was one of the most interesting places to take pictures. I believe in giving children the opportunity to learn how to use a CAMERA versus a cellphone.

Times change and there are many more options available today than when you (and I) were young.
The fact is that most people these days do not seem to want to use a conventional viewfinder and prefer a LCD screen to compose their pictures on.
Therefore, buying an SLR as a first camera seems a bit of a waste, since, for me, one of the best features of an SLR is the optical viewfinder, and that is likely to be ignored, at least initially. I regularly see people with SLR's holding them at arms length like a cellphone and I cringe about them "not using it right."
There is also, as has been mentioned, the weight factor with an SLR. Most 5-year olds will get tired of lugging the weight of an SLR around, become bored with it, and then leave it at home. It's always said the best camera is the one you have with you.
There are a number of good quality compacts available which have both LCD screen and viewfinder which, with considerably lower weight, I would have thought to be more suitable for a childs use.