NBR: camera recs??

CajunSnowWhite89

Hi, I was wondering if y'all could give me some camera recommendations. I would be fine with a regular point and shoot, I only really wanted it because I don't want to only use my iPhone all the time, but DH wants a DSLR. Do any of you ladies use one for just regular everyday stuff. What kind do you recommend?

Also, Are they super hard to use? I'm so intimidated by them.

PeggyOlsonFTW

I have a Nikon D3100. It's a DSLR. DH likes that he can mess with the aperture and whatnot, but I like the auto settings. It takes great pictures!

m6agua

I love cannon. I have the rebel although I want to upgrade because it doesn't do enough for me (I do photography on the side). It's fine for the everyday user though.

CajunSnowWhite89

Thanks! I'll look into those!

LittleMissTimeLord

This was my birthday present to myself this year. It's absolutely perfect. It has all of the manual controls you might want but it also has a great auto features (and shoots video!). And the auto setting, point and shoot pictures look like high-quality DSLR photos (as they should), not like lower quality point and shoot photos.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/panasonic-lumix-12-8-megapixel-bridge-camera-silver/1312894851.p?id=mp1312894851&skuId=1312894851

FWIW though, H does videography and I'm an amateur (super amateur) photographer so I was willing to put the investment in since I knew for certain we would use the manual features as much as the auto features.

mattanderin15

I'm a Nikon girl myself. I use my DSLR for everyday photos. You never know when you'll snap a photo you want to frame. Browse for tutorials if you're intimidated, but you can use the presets easily.

Happy shopping!

furbabymom2007

Nikon all the way!

FiancB

My first DSLR was a Canon Rebel T3i and I think that's a perfect starter camera (now I think they're on the T5i, whatever). I upgraded a year ago to a Canon 70D which I love, but some of my best pictures are still ones that I took with that starter. If I'd started with the fancier camera (and by no means is it the fanciest) it would've been too intimidating and complicated to learn. 

If I were to start all over again and depending on the type of photography you're interested in, I might have gone mirrorless (Fuji and Sony have some good ones). They are a quite a bit less bulky and have some cool features. They are still behind the DSLR in a lot of respects but they're perfect for a lot of people and I wouldn't be surprised if they overtake them. 

Canon and Nikon are pretty even. For every thing you can find that Nikon does better, you can find another that Canon does better, and vice versa. In general, Nikon has better bodies and Canon has better lenses. It comes down to personal preference. 

ImprovePhotography.com is a really good source. I just read the book Stunning Digital Photography by the Northrups and that was very good; filled in some holes that needed filled after years of jumping around and doing my own research in a random fashion. Brian Peterson's Understanding Exposure is also really helpful. 

If you have trouble narrowing down what gear you want, you can always rent it from Borrow Lenses or something.

CajunSnowWhite89

Thanks everyone, This is so helpful! I tried to research by myself at first but I had no idea where to start. It was overwhelming.

For some reason I thought I'd always have to take the time to focus the lense and stuff so I was concerned that quick shots of my dog or hopefully future kid would be blurry or too late. I don't know why I didn't think there would be preset and auto settings lol.

furbabymom2007

Seriously though... Canons zoom the wrong way. I can't handle it. It's probably why I will never switch from Nikon lol.

It's like when you are buttoning men's clothing and the buttons and holes are on the opposite side. My fingers don't work like that.

Edited for words

mrskratt

Nikon D3300 is a great beginner DSLR and it's fairly affordable! I use my Nikon every day and taught myself how to shoot in manual. There are so many tutorials out there! It's fun and addicting.

Winnie81_Old

OP what is your budget? If you are new to photography and just want a step up from iPhones - a point and shoot should be sufficient. Most now have some manual options as well. I grew up with Canon so I favor them over Nikon, but everyone has their own preference.

CajunSnowWhite89

We'd be comfortable going up to about $500. I just don't want to spend extra money on upgrades that I'll never use. I like to print out all our pictures and put them in photo albums and The iPhone pictures aren't good quality for printing (at least mine isn't). So really just something that's easy to use that takes the best quality pictures. DH will play with the extra features more than I will.

hunnybunny17

I have a Canon Rebel T3i. I love it. The pre-programmed options are great if you're not into doing custom shooting (or wish to learn over time). I don't find it hard to use.  -amateur photographer here

sarah0985

I have a canon 550d. I love it. I consider myself amateur on the lower end. I enjoy playing with the features. It's big for every day but takes glorious photos suitable for framing.

The lower the number on a canon d line, the higher the quality (and price) the camera usually is. So a canon 70d has more features and options than a base 550d.
If you are only interested in the auto feature, my opinion is that the 500 or up would be more suitable.
There are also intro classes that can teach you the basics of your camera.
A dslr (to me) is only useful when not on auto. With the upgrades and advancements in technology, a point and shoot is more than capable of giving you what you want.

kmalls

mrskratt said:

Nikon D3300 is a great beginner DSLR and it's fairly affordable! I use my Nikon every day and taught myself how to shoot in manual. There are so many tutorials out there! It's fun and addicting.

This. After tons of research I just got a 3300 last week and I love love love it. So easy to use, there are lots of little settings for different types of pictures (you can make everything come out miniature!) and I can't wait until I have more time to watch tutorials online. I'm a beginner photographer but this camera makes me want to take pictures alllllll day. Ha.

iceandsnowflakes29

If you're going to sink your dollars somewhere invest in some nice lenses.

iceandsnowflakes29

kmalls said:

mrskratt said:

Nikon D3300 is a great beginner DSLR and it's fairly affordable! I use my Nikon every day and taught myself how to shoot in manual. There are so many tutorials out there! It's fun and addicting.

This. After tons of research I just got a 3300 last week and I love love love it. So easy to use, there are lots of little settings for different types of pictures (you can make everything come out miniature!) and I can't wait until I have more time to watch tutorials online. I'm a beginner photographer but this camera makes me want to take pictures alllllll day. Ha.

I took a black and white film photography class in college (think darkroom and all) and we HAD to shoot in manual. I almost never take automatic pics now unless lighting is bad and the shutter speed is too slow.

anj27

I know you're looking for DSLR recommendations but I'm going to throw this one out there anyway because I think a good point & shoot suits certain lifestyles better. We have the Sony RX100, which takes great pictures and it is so easy to carry around while hiking, backpacking, traveling, whenever. I think the best camera is one you will actually have on hand and use. My husband is knowledgeable about cameras and he is very happy with the RX100. We may at some point get a DSLR too but if I could have just one camera I would have to pick our Sony. 

beary67

kmalls said:

Nikon D3300 is a great beginner DSLR and it's fairly affordable! I use my Nikon every day and taught myself how to shoot in manual. There are so many tutorials out there! It's fun and addicting.

This. After tons of research I just got a 3300 last week and I love love love it. So easy to use, there are lots of little settings for different types of pictures (you can make everything come out miniature!) and I can't wait until I have more time to watch tutorials online. I'm a beginner photographer but this camera makes me want to take pictures alllllll day. Ha.

I totally agree!  I got a Nikon D3300 for Christmas and it is perfect.  Very easy to use and I watched a lot of tutorials on YouTube which were super helpful.  I use it all the time!  

Winnie81_Old

Unless you plan to learn manual, a dslr is a waste (just going by what you're looking for in a camera). Point and shoot will be sleek, powerful, and lightweight enough to have it everywhere. Whereas a dslr is harder to bring and is built to program subjectively. I'm a photographer as well and I'm just personally speaking from my own experience, and it's slightly annoying to me to see everyone with a dslr shooting in auto, lol.

korycir

We have the canon EOS Rebel SL1 (DSLR) and we love it. It's smaller than the T5 and T5i. Good price point. Doesn't have a movable display, but it takes beautiful pictures.

FiancB

CajunSnowWhite89 said:

Thanks everyone, This is so helpful! I tried to research by myself at first but I had no idea where to start. It was overwhelming. For some reason I thought I'd always have to take the time to focus the lense and stuff so I was concerned that quick shots of my dog or hopefully future kid would be blurry or too late. I don't know why I didn't think there would be preset and auto settings lol.

----------------------------------------

In most situations, most people still use autofocus even when everything else is manual. It's generally more accurate than looking at a tiny screen or viewfinder and guessing. You're right that manual focus on moving objects would be nigh on impossible. There are also different focusing modes that are useful for still objects vs moving ones. 

There's several steps between full auto and full manual. Even on manual mode, you can choose to use auto ISO and auto white balance to save yourself a step and it's handy for changing conditions. Or you can use aperture priority mode where you set the aperture and the camera does the rest, which is useful for portraits or landscapes. Or there's shutter priority mode, which is handy for situations like you mentioned where you need a fast shutter speed but want the camera to take care of the rest. I usually just do full manual because I usually find myself fighting with the camera otherwise, but I'm trying to get used to the other modes as well, especially since my camera at least won't let me use exposure compensation in full manual mode, which is needed lately in snow.

Full auto on a DSLR is not going to take much better pictures than with a point and shoot. The whole advantage of a DSLR is having total control over the settings. But it's okay to start there. I just wouldn't recommend getting one if you are thinking that you can just leave it on auto and it will magically take much better pictures than what you have. A lot of newbies get caught up on things like more megapixels but at this point, all cameras have a reasonable number of megapixels and you'll never know the difference unless you make some big prints. 

I know it's super overwhelming at first but it will all come together with practice, I promise! You can read all you want but the exposure triangle really doesn't make a lick of sense until you have a camera in your hands and you're messing with the different settings. 

Also, depending on how serious you are, you might want to get just the camera body and get a different lens instead of the kit lens(es) that they come with. Those are pretty crappy, though I'll admit I was pretty happy with my kit 18-55 mm for a long time. It's just that it doesn't have much of a wide aperture (its minimum is 5.6 I think, while really good lenses go down to 1.8 or so) so it doesn't do great in low light and isn't as fast, and it's plastic instead of glass so it's a bit less sharp than nice glass ones. But good lenses are very expensive and can be tricky to use, so the kit may be just the place to start. A good starter option is a prime 50mm 1.8- it's under $100 and still plastic but much nicer than the kit lenses. Only problem is no zoom, so at this point you'll have to decide what's more important to you. 50mm or so is a good portrait length, you'll really only want to go down to 18mm for landscapes most of the time. 

MrsDho11

PeggyOlsonFTW said:

I have a Nikon D3100. It's a DSLR. DH likes that he can mess with the aperture and whatnot, but I like the auto settings. It takes great pictures!

This.  Right on down to the model, actually, I believe.

iceandsnowflakes29

OP photography is very cathartic for me and I actually suggest you get a DSLR and play around with the manual setting.

gardeniagirlknits

Another vote for a DSLR!!! You won't regret spending the extra money. I shoot a canon 5d mark iii but it was pricey .. But we also make extra spending money shooting so we felt justified, plus my husband grew up around nice DSLR s so he is really picky . My mother in law shoots a canon rebel ... And its perfect for her occasional recreational use. A lot cheaper plus, the lenses are cheaper which is nice BC you can eventually have a large variety of lenses if you happen to get enthusiastic about it. I will say though, that while my mil was visiting I tried using her rebel and I was frustrated with the lack of creative options ... So if your wanting to really get artisitic, splurge.