Hi all. I'm traveling to the East Coast this summer for an internship, and while I'm there I am getting a lot of chances to go and sight see around Washington D.C., the mountains, and basically Maryland in general. I want to buy a camera for my trip, (and future ones) to take photos of things to bring back home to relatives and whatnot. However, I have no clue what camera to buy.
My budget is around $500, and I really don't know where to get started. Any advice would be awesome!!
Thanks!
just got a camera that wasnt attached to my phone for the first time. I was around the same price as you. Lost in how do i get the most out of my money and get something that I wont regret later on if I do find out that I love it ( which so far I have) Honestly, after much debate I started just looking on Offerup, Craig's list, or whatever form of local for sales that you prefer for what was being sold. From there I found ones I liked around my price to narrow down the research I would put into it. While I wanted and was told that I should get a full frame DSLR like a 5d mark ii from a guy i know that makes money doing it. That was 1000 bucks without the glass. Then he told me get cannon so that all their glass would work with what ever i get if i do upgrade later.
However, after looking into mirrorless vs DSLR. I really liked the smaller size of the mirrorless. I also liked the way that they were adding in many full frame features for a smaller price. Finally, and most important I believe, I found a photography store (not best buy, Walmart, etc) that had many used options I could hold, play with, and ask questions to the guys right there. I went with a Sony NEX-7. Doesn't have WiFi, shoots video at 1080 30fps, no selfie screen. But it did have focus peeking (which i didn't know existed), also easy to find adapters for other lenses (focus peeking really helps here) and shoots 11 fps. So when my dog is doing back flips and catching stuff I can get a good shot of it.
So I got the sony, a 50mm prime pentax lens, and a fisheye wide angle zoom lens for right at 500 bucks. Also, I got a local shop that I can take things to ( I later bought 12 old lens off offer up for 45 bucks) and they help me look over them and know if any will be worth shooting with.
There are other people on here that have some great gear, good advice, and amazing photos that will be able to help you more. But my one thing is buy used! I saw so many people that seemed to buy some nice 1000 dollar set up from the big box stores and never really used it trying to unload it. Most wanted damn near full price. But a little haggling you can get them down. Also find somewhere local that can let you play around with some stuff first. Just dont let them talk you into going over your budget.
I agree with @Derk, try to find a camera store so you can look at and feel the cameras. I have a mirrorless camera because it's smaller than my dslr and I can use an adapter and use my dslr lenses with it. Don't be afraid to buy a used camera off of ebay or from an online camera store. http://www.bhphotovideo.com is a decent place to start.
Just remember that if your looking to upgrade cameras later, that camera bodies come and go its the lens that stay around. Buy into a decent quality lens system. Nikon has really good lenses, Cannon has some really good lens and both are cheap if your buying used from ebay. I suggest used because you can get a really good manual lens made by either Cannon or Nikon and use it on the mirrorless, since the auto-focus probably won't work with your mirrorless camera, unless you buy an adapter that supports it.
I personally use a Sony A5000 with Nikon lenses. It's small and compact, and used was less than 200.00 so you will have money to buy a good quality used lenses like a zoom, (recommend Tameron 70-200 F3.5 - 5 for less than 80.00 dollars) as well as a good quality prime (Nikon 50mm F1.8 for around 80.00).
I'm basically going to second what @Derk said...
I've had the Sony A5100 for over a year now. It's the newer version of the a6000 series... which is the newer versions of the NEX-7 series.
I get more use out of this camera than the prof photographers I know because they don't want to carry around their huge/heavy camera with their suitcase of lenses. Nobody likes stringing a full-body camera around their neck to have it banging against their hib when they walk. I love mine, it's so small and light that I hardly feel it even when I take it hiking for miles.
Wow so many for mirrorless. Yeah I want to say again that the focus peeking helps alot. As stated by @rgreer1 when you put a adapter on more then likely your auto focus wont work anymore. You can buy adapters that work with the lens and your body, just way more expensive. The guy at the store I went to said these days there are no down sides to mirrorless over DSLR. I have read though that some will disagree.
The cheep box of lenses I got are not high quality but they did let me get real world experience with telephoto lenses. And for 45 bucks it wasnt to much to put into a training tool. But they do not compare to the quality of my prime lens that has no haze.
@eidolonFIRE nailed some good bullet points. If you do get one retail (I'm assuming he ment retail to get the lens kit) they normally come with the lenses that you will need right off the bat to cover all your needs. Also video work would be way way easier with auto focus. I need to pick up a decent E mount lens for this reason. Trying to focus as your recording is much harder.
Also, they do make full frame sensor mirrorless cameras. Finding one at your price point might be impossible but worth a look. However, the APSC ( i think thats right) size sensor is still very large compared to point-and-shoot, and cell phones. I dont know the math of how it relates but it will still take awesome pictures even if the size is off. However, (there have been lots of howevers) you can use full size lenses with APS-C sensors, but you can not use APS-C lenses with full size with out curves at the corner. I will upload a picture I saw to show.
Anyway, hope you find it helpful. Lots of it is up to you. I dont think there is alot of snake oil products in photography. Everything really will help in someway but just not that much in others. Quality glass, a nice cleaning kit, and a bag you dont mind to carry around is my recommendations. Bodies will get upgraded as you go and even after still my have a use to you somewhere. So still never really money wasted if you enjoy what you shoot.
