How to take pictures like this? - 1

I have a Canon PowerShot S70 but I think I need something like an SLR camera to take pictures like the one above

I was also going to buy this. Do you think it's a good deal? And will it allow me to take photos like the one in the link?

http://www.gumtree.com/p/for-sale/nikon-film-slr-with-35-70mm-lens/77177625

Thanks a lot for the help in advance, I really appreciate it…

That picture was most likely taken with a more professional camera, and I looks like it was edited a bit, to change the colours, you can take a picture like that with any camera really, and edit it to make it look even more professional.

The camera you have now is pretty old, and the camera you want to buy is even older. The Nikon might be a good camera to practice on and improve your photography skills, but it is used and old, so I would not recommended it. You can't really buy a decent camera today for as cheap as that.

The Nikon will most likely allow you to take pictures like the one in the link, but it depends on the quality.

I would recommend purchasing a camera that is not used.

Take another look at the photo, what makes it good? The angle is unusual, almost over the subject's head. There's obviously a strong light source in front of the man, perhaps he's looking through a window or something. The light is nice and contrasty as the camera had picked up most of the bright light on the front of the subject making the background nice and dark.

Your camera could do this easily. I took a similar one just before writing this to try it. Get your subject close to the window, you want the exposure for the highlights. The great thing with a digital camera is that you can see your results.

Switch the flash off
Open your exposure compensation menu and select -1, this underexposes by a stop, take a couple more -1.5, -2 until you get what you want. Your camera, I think, has multiple colour modes, this picture looks like it has been used in 'sepia' mode. Failing that you can change it in most picture editing programs.

Your Canon is a nice camera, and although old, is capable of taking superb quality photos. People think they need a more expensive camera to take great photos. The photo is taken by YOU not the camera, the imagination to take a photo this striking comes from the photographer not the camera. Go back to flickr and search for photos taken with the Canon S70. Try this link

The Nikon you are looking at is excellent value for money and the quality would be superb, but it is a fully manual camera and would require some considerable expertise to get decent shots out of it.

look at flickr for more inspiration and good luck!

Lets answer the first part, how to take pictures like that. Well it's got very little to do with what camera you use, and pretty much all to do with how you use your vision. It's an interesting shot because of the angle it's been shot, the model direction, and the use of warm directed light.

You need to be able to pick the right angle to see something from, this can give you an immediate feel to the subject, here, looking down makes the subject feel small and insignificant. The lack of eye contact, and the model facing toward the light all helps to add to that dreamy senation. The light itself is very important to add the mood, it's quite warm, and looks like it's window light coming from the right of frame, again it's a little ethereal, and all adds to the mood of the image. If you don't have this intimate understanding of photography it really doesn't matter what camera you have.

The camera you've listed here is capable (in the hands of a competent operator), but learning how to use it will be a challenge. Film cameras are good to learn on in some ways, but only if you have the necessary patience and tenacity.

You can take a shot like that easily with a compact camera that has exposure compensation (EV).It's shot with window light and has been deliberately under exposed (set EV to -1 or so). Make sure the flash is off.

It looks like the white balance has also been changed to tungsten to give it that yellow look.

I wouldn't recommend a film SLR to learn photography on, due to the difficulty &expense of developing film. With digital you get instant feedback, you can see what settings you used and this can help you learn about the factors that affect exposure.