Beginner Budding photographer looking for first camera. HELP!

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SJack1992

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Sam Jack
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Hi all,

I'm currently drowning in camera reviews trying to decide on my first interchangeable lens camera.

If anyone can help clear up the mess my head is currently in that would be appreciated :)

Budget: around £800 total (body & lenses)

I'm new to this, so hopefully something I can learn on and grow with.

I don't mind either Mirrorless or DSLR as long as it isn't a massive professional camera. Something I can keep in a small bag and take with me.

I enjoy trekking around national trust houses and their gardens with my family, so something with good portrait/landscape ability seems right.

With that in mind, something with a screen that can flip round so we can take shots together is preferable.

I don't really want to go any smaller than an APS-C sensor. Not sure what benefits I might get from going MFT.

Minimum 1080p 60fps video but preferably at least 4k 30fps (or 24fps)

I've heard varying things about different makes of camera. Fuji have good film simulations but their auto focus sucks and their lens range is pretty much first party, Canon have good colour science and good lens catalogue, Sony have the best autofocus and a good lens catalogue but their colour isn't great.

I need something with accurate colours from the camera because I happen to be colourblind. This doesn't affect me a huge amount but it would be nice to know that the colours I'm getting from the camera are accurate.

Thanks for your help in advance. If you have other questions let me know :)
 
Welcome to talk photography. It sounds like you have heard a lot of fairly biased opinion. Any reasonably modern camera from the major brands is going to be pretty good, the minor nit-picking that some people prefer the colours from one brand or another is hardly going to be noticeable. Same with auto focus, unless you are shooting birds in flight they will all have pretty good AF.

MTF gets you much smaller bodies and lighter lenses and the cameras give good results, the Olympus EM5 has a fully articulating screen.

I would recommend getting your hands on some and seeing how they feel, the Photography show at the NEC is in a few weeks and that is a great place to handle the cameras and see what you like.
 
Buy used , cameras get replaced way more regularly than they need to be so the used market is buoyant , up until recently all my gear has been bought used, none of it from dealers, quite a lot from here, some ebay, the odd lens on facebook

£800 is a healthy budget on the used market but new, an average body and a kit lens , if you must have a warranty there's a thread somewhere with all the different used retailers, I'm more of the wing it kind , the ebay money back guarantee means you're unlikely to buy a duff item and if you do they'll refund you.

If you're prepared to go back a generation or two you'll get much more for your money
 
SJack1992 said:
I enjoy trekking around national trust houses and their gardens with my family, so something with good portrait/landscape ability seems right.

With that in mind, something with a screen that can flip round so we can take shots together is preferable.
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So you probably want a body, kit lens and possibly a moderate telephoto prime for portraits.

£800 is ok, but not a vast sum. Following Sirch's suggestion of an E-M5 you'll find the kit to be small and cost effective, I've got both full frame and M43 cameras here, and at normal screen viewing sizes it can be difficult to spot the difference. Colour science isn't a big deal if you edit raw images.

What do you plan to do with the pictures and will this kit be 'it' or do you plan to use it as a starting point to grow an outfit.

If you think you'll want to print big above 90cm on the long side or plan to shoot in low light a lot then a larger format camera might be useful. The original Sony A7 and kit lens would be in your budget and is still a good camera. You could also look for a Nikon D610 and 28-105 or 24-120 f4 (not the older one, which is cheap garbage) although used only for the body. The Sony system has a future, the Nikon does not, but lenses are cheaper (and inferior).
 
I like compact kit and with that in mind a camera with the viewfinder in the top left rather than in the centre might be worth thinking about as you don't have the central viewfinder hump.

I have two Panasonic Micro Four Thirds cameras like this, GX9 and GX80, but they only have tilting screens whereas some of the mini SLR design cameras have fully articulating screens. The GX80 sometimes comes up at bargain prices and good lenses are often available at reasonable prices on the used market, but you may not wish to buy into MFT.

The Sony A7c has the evf in the corner and a fully articulated screen but will blow the budget.

Just a note on Sony colours.

A well known internet commentator or two have looked into this and concluded that when people don't know what camera took what picture Sony colours actually come out quite well.

On colour blindness, maybe doing custom white balance will be something to think about.
 
sirch said:
Welcome to talk photography. It sounds like you have heard a lot of fairly biased opinion. Any reasonably modern camera from the major brands is going to be pretty good, the minor nit-picking that some people prefer the colours from one brand or another is hardly going to be noticeable. Same with auto focus, unless you are shooting birds in flight they will all have pretty good AF.

MTF gets you much smaller bodies and lighter lenses and the cameras give good results, the Olympus EM5 has a fully articulating screen.

I would recommend getting your hands on some and seeing how they feel, the Photography show at the NEC is in a few weeks and that is a great place to handle the cameras and see what you like.
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Thanks Sirch,
Unfortunately the show is a little far away as I was hoping to get a camera in the next couple of weeks for our holiday to the Yorkshire dales at the end of September. I don't suppose there are any other places where I can get my hands on some of these bodies?

From what you're saying it seems that the colour from these are much of a muchness and doesn't necessarily need to be a factor in my decision.

Just for a bit of context, I was originally looking at cameras such as the Fuji XT200, Canon 250d, or M50 mk2 but I hadn't really considered dropping from APS-C to MFT just because in my head, smaller sensor likely meant poorer image quality overall. Would I be losing a lot by going with a smaller sensor?
 
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ancient_mariner said:
So you probably want a body, kit lens and possibly a moderate telephoto prime for portraits.

£800 is ok, but not a vast sum. Following Sirch's suggestion of an E-M5 you'll find the kit to be small and cost effective, I've got both full frame and M43 cameras here, and at normal screen viewing sizes it can be difficult to spot the difference. Colour science isn't a big deal if you edit raw images.

What do you plan to do with the pictures and will this kit be 'it' or do you plan to use it as a starting point to grow an outfit.

If you think you'll want to print big above 90cm on the long side or plan to shoot in low light a lot then a larger format camera might be useful. The original Sony A7 and kit lens would be in your budget and is still a good camera. You could also look for a Nikon D610 and 28-105 or 24-120 f4 (not the older one, which is cheap garbage) although used only for the body. The Sony system has a future, the Nikon does not, but lenses are cheaper (and inferior).
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Regarding whether it will just be this camera, it would be nice to know that I could probably upgrade to a newer body at a later point (few years) or add lenses for different things over the years, which was why companies like Canon or Nikon with their large catalogue of lenses seemed appealing. Is that something going with an MFT Olympus system would be able to provide? I'm not by any means looking to be a professional outfit, just a hobbyist that would enjoy taking his camera 'out and about'.
I probably won't be printing large format photos either, unless I get something really special.
 
In general a larger sensor gives less noise, so if you are shooting in low light at high ISO there will generally be an advantage of having a larger sensor. But then older APS-C sensors are probably comparable to newer MFT sensors.

There are still some camera shops around and how the camera feels in your hand is important, TBH I find my EM5 a bit small and fiddly but I got it and use it because I wanted the smallest, lightest kit for some outings. I have bigger, fatter cameras for other uses :)

I'm not a Fuji user but a lot of people swear by them so I guess you can't go far wrong. May be ask in the Fuji thread on here - https://www.talkphotography.co.uk/threads/the-fabulous-fuji-x-owners-thread.527428/page-1641
 
It's worth saying that all *current* interchangeable lens cameras are capable of taking excellent pictures.

Mirrorless Vs DSLR - the DSLR is dead technology, and while there will be used lenses available for several decades, there's no development at the consumer end now. Cameras that took good pictures will keep taking good pictures, but there is a shift away.

Mirrorless tend to have smaller bodies (no mirror to move or prism for the viewfinder) but lenses are often bigger because of design choices for higher image quality and wider aperture.

DSLR lenses can be adapted to mirrorless, but with added bulk, often a loss of performance compared to native mount, and lenses that are often inferior optically.

To ME APS-C is an odd format, lacking the low noise, shallow depth of field and fine detail given by full frame and larger formats, but without the size advantage of smaller lenses that comes from M43. It's very much a compromise format, and might hit the sweet spot you want. I still own a couple of cameras in this size, but will always choose full frame with a Sony A7III. My wife has an Olympus E-M10 with pancake 14-42 that is compact camera size and goes in her handbag on holiday. If buying used M43 then read up about shutter shock that can affect some older models with certain lenses.

Chris mentioned Fuji. There are issues around the sensor type being different that cause some to be unhappy, while others don't see a problem. Many also like them for their retro design and sharp optics. I had a Fuji in 2013 and didn't like the sensor, but that was a long time ago and things change.
 
Just a quick suggestion that if looking at MFT remember it's not all Olympus, don't forget Panasonic, they're at least worth a look.
 
Do you really want to learn photography ? Or do you want a camera that does it all for you ?

My recomendation ( for what it's worth ) is allways the same

Buy yourself a basic film camera then you are responsible for everything , Choice of film ( Speed ) Apperture , shutter speed , Also get a hand help light meter so you understand metering ,

This way you will learn photography , Then when you have a full understanding of the very basics move to a digital camera , Or a better film camera
 
F1.2 said:
Do you really want to learn photography ? Or do you want a camera that does it all for you ?

My recomendation ( for what it's worth ) is allways the same

Buy yourself a basic film camera then you are responsible for everything , Choice of film ( Speed ) Apperture , shutter speed , Also get a hand help light meter so you understand metering ,

This way you will learn photography , Then when you have a full understanding of the very basics move to a digital camera , Or a better film camera
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You have to be joking.

If the OP wants to "learn photography" that can be done much easier and quicker with a modern digital camera as the changes altering the settings lead to in pictures are instantly visible without the need to write everything down in a note book and try to relate it to prints you get back from Boots a week later.

Recommending a basic film camera to someone like the OP will possibly only be relevant in what percentage of cases? O.001%? Fewer? You'd probably like everyone to ditch digital and go film but the world has very mostly moved on and even dedicated cameras are arguably in decline these days. This may not be a state of affairs you like but, it is what it is and for the vast majority of people picture taking is going to be digital either with a smart phone or a camera.

Having said that if the OP is tempted to go for a basic film camera I'm sure they'll thank you for your suggestion.
 
No I am not joking , It's learn the very basics first then move on , You have your opinion and I have mine , ;)
 
You can't go wrong with a decent used Panasonic GX80 and a few fast lenses, even go dirt cheap with a 12-32, then something like the 25 1.7/ 60 f2.8... there's a lot of choice, you might well manage three lenses or four within budget. It'll do everything and more and is dirt cheap. And yes you can set it to manual and learn the fast way :)

I mainly shoot Fujifilm but that might eat into the budget. Though not impossible to get a used camera and the 18-55 within budget.

Don't worry about the whole full frame argument. Huge TV productions like Top Gear and Grand Tour use Pansonic Micro Four thirds gear for all their in car and b roll work. They turned down Sony full frame when offered and stuck with the smaller sensor which the internet loves to write off as useless.

Also online there's a lot of panic/ hate about every single brand, and usually it's something found in barely 1% of cases.

Of course you can do a cracking job with any modern sensor and camera, and it may come down to what feels best for you within your budget.
 
F1.2 said:
No I am not joking , It's learn the very basics first then move on , You have your opinion and I have mine , ;)
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I appreciate the input F1.2 but unfortunately film cameras (although in vogue atm) are a bit pointless in my eyes unless you have the expendable income to go with it. Film isn't cheap and the equipment to develop your own images or finding someone else to do it isn't really a viable option for me anyway.
Funnily enough though, I'm currently in possession of my dad's old Pentax MG 35mm from the 80s. That's all still in good working condition :)
 

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Damian Brown said:
You can't go wrong with a decent used Panasonic GX80 and a few fast lenses, even go dirt cheap with a 12-32, then something like the 25 1.7/ 60 f2.8... there's a lot of choice, you might well manage three lenses or four within budget. It'll do everything and more and is dirt cheap. And yes you can set it to manual and learn the fast way :)

I mainly shoot Fujifilm but that might eat into the budget. Though not impossible to get a used camera and the 18-55 within budget.

Don't worry about the whole full frame argument. Huge TV productions like Top Gear and Grand Tour use Pansonic Micro Four thirds gear for all their in car and b roll work. They turned down Sony full frame when offered and stuck with the smaller sensor which the internet loves to write off as useless.

Also online there's a lot of panic/ hate about every single brand, and usually it's something found in barely 1% of cases.

Of course you can do a cracking job with any modern sensor and camera, and it may come down to what feels best for you within your budget.
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Thanks for this Damian.

I was also having a look at an X-T20 as a possibility when considering APS-C but now I'm looking at MFT would something like a previous gen EM1 Olympus be a good shout? Mark 2? I'll have a look into the GX80 as well and the lenses
 
SJack1992 said:
Thanks for this Damian.

I was also having a look at an X-T20 as a possibility when considering APS-C but now I'm looking at MFT would something like a previous gen EM1 Olympus be a good shout? Mark 2? I'll have a look into the GX80 as well and the lenses
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I absolutely loved the T20 when I had it and prefer it over both those m43 options but those two do represent extremely good value for money once you factor in the lenses you can get.

Last week I found two more functions on my gx80 that my Fujifilm gear doesn't have, that I completely ignored or didn't notice until now, and it's super cool how you can get it so cheap.

But, to complicate matters, If you find a T20 with a few lenses within budget... :)
 
SJack1992 said:
Thanks for this Damian.

I was also having a look at an X-T20 as a possibility when considering APS-C but now I'm looking at MFT would something like a previous gen EM1 Olympus be a good shout? Mark 2? I'll have a look into the GX80 as well and the lenses
Click to expand...
We often see this on here, people have largely made up their mind and come here wanting a bit of reassurance that their decision is OK, which yours regarding an X-T20 is, and then get recommended everyone else's favourite and then it devolves into a bunch of justifications of other people's choices. As I said, I really, really recommend getting your hands on some of these cameras, ideally side-by-side, many, many people get great results from APS-C bodies. I know I mentioned MFT above and it is the choice if your over riding factor is weight but TBH with larger hands they can be fiddly and it does depend on what mental image you have of a "proper" camera :)
 
sirch said:
We often see this on here, people have largely made up their mind and come here wanting a bit of reassurance that their decision is OK, which yours regarding an X-T20 is, and then get recommended everyone else's favourite and then it devolves into a bunch of justifications of other people's choices. As I said, I really, really recommend getting your hands on some of these cameras, ideally side-by-side, many, many people get great results from APS-C bodies. I know I mentioned MFT above and it is the choice if your over riding factor is weight but TBH with larger hands they can be fiddly and it does depend on what mental image you have of a "proper" camera :)
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I haven’t got large Hands and find the m43 fiddly myself though did like the output
 
sirch said:
We often see this on here, people have largely made up their mind and come here wanting a bit of reassurance that their decision is OK, which yours regarding an X-T20 is, and then get recommended everyone else's favourite and then it devolves into a bunch of justifications of other people's choices. As I said, I really, really recommend getting your hands on some of these cameras, ideally side-by-side, many, many people get great results from APS-C bodies. I know I mentioned MFT above and it is the choice if your over riding factor is weight but TBH with larger hands they can be fiddly and it does depend on what mental image you have of a "proper" camera :)
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Getting your hands on it is a great tip.
 
F1.2 said:
No I am not joking , It's learn the very basics first then move on , You have your opinion and I have mine , ;)
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What can you do with a film camera that you can't do with a digital camera, apart from film costing £10 to see the pictures and taking a week or more to get them
 
wack61 said:
What can you do with a film camera that you can't do with a digital camera, apart from film costing £10 to see the pictures and taking a week or more to get them
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Go back to basics , Manual everything , Make the most of your 24 or 36 photos , Meter manually
Don't go into spray and pray mode as you can with digital ( Take 100 images then bin 90 of them , followed by 2 nights in photo shop or light room If you can afford to buy them ) Then you need a printer or send the images and pay to have them printed , Oh and you need a memory card big enough, I could go on , It is my opinion and a stand by it , You WILL have a different opinion and good for you ;)
 
Fuji xT series might fit the bill,not good for sports tracking etc but for portraitist and landscape type stuff it has a nice sensor (Sony) and a flippy touch screen
 
Damian Brown said:
You can't go wrong with a decent used Panasonic GX80 and a few fast lenses, even go dirt cheap with a 12-32, then something like the 25 1.7/ 60 f2.8... there's a lot of choice, you might well manage three lenses or four within budget. It'll do everything and more and is dirt cheap. And yes you can set it to manual and learn the fast way :)

I mainly shoot Fujifilm but that might eat into the budget. Though not impossible to get a used camera and the 18-55 within budget.

Don't worry about the whole full frame argument. Huge TV productions like Top Gear and Grand Tour use Pansonic Micro Four thirds gear for all their in car and b roll work. They turned down Sony full frame when offered and stuck with the smaller sensor which the internet loves to write off as useless.

Also online there's a lot of panic/ hate about every single brand, and usually it's something found in barely 1% of cases.

Of course you can do a cracking job with any modern sensor and camera, and it may come down to what feels best for you within your budget.
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... interesting Damian. :)

Have you noticed a difference in cropability? APS-C 26MP vs M43 16MP? or is it not a thing you do?

I love my little GX80 with tilt up screen, cheap little but good lenses. But Fuji X is temping.
 
d00d said:
... interesting Damian. :)

Have you noticed a difference in cropability? APS-C 26MP vs M43 16MP? or is it not a thing you do?

I love my little GX80 with tilt up screen, cheap little but good lenses. But Fuji X is temping.
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I'm also interested in this, I've heard a lot of good things about the XT20, and seeing as I don't normally do a lot of fast moving shots it seems that it might be a viable APS-C option with maybe the GX80 being a good MFT option.
 
wack61 said:
For your budget I'd buy this


and the Fuji 18-55 f/2.8-4, it's sold as the kit lens on the XT-3 but it's nothing like any kit lens I've ever owned , they can usually be found around £200
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Just saw this. I'd love to be able to afford the X-T30 but for £600+ for the body and £200+ for the 18-55mm lens it's a bit too far for me to stretch to, especially with only the one lens. I'm assuming pairing the same lens with the X-T20 would be a good alternative?
 
SJack1992 said:
Just for a bit of context, I was originally looking at cameras such as the Fuji XT200, Canon 250d, or M50 mk2 but I hadn't really considered dropping from APS-C to MFT just because in my head, smaller sensor likely meant poorer image quality overall. Would I be losing a lot by going with a smaller sensor?
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I was in a similar position, looking to move back into interchangeable lens cameras from using fixed lens compacts.

The cameras I looked at/into were all the major brands and sizes.
I settled on the Canon M50 MkII as it felt so compact for its capabilities. I also have 2 lenses from my Canon EOS film camera days which helped the choice slightly.
The M50 MkII appears to tick most, if not all your boxes?

As many have said, all current brands are great, after all, if you can take great photos with a compact fixed-lens camera, you'll do great with an interchangeable lens camera.
 
Archaeologist said:
As many have said, all current brands are great, after all, if you can take great photos with a compact fixed-lens camera, you'll do great with an interchangeable lens camera
Click to expand...

That's right - there isn't a bad camera out there in the current lineup.
 
SJack1992 said:
I'm also interested in this, I've heard a lot of good things about the XT20, and seeing as I don't normally do a lot of fast moving shots it seems that it might be a viable APS-C option with maybe the GX80 being a good MFT option.
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I quite like my GX80 but the GX9 is a better cameras as it adds a few things the GX80 lacks including, a tilting EVF, more dedicated physical controls and (this matters to me) auto ISO with exposure compensation. It is also 20mp v the GX80's 16mp and although personally I don't see any appreciable difference in image quality at the very least the extra resolution comes at no cost to image quality that I can see. The drawback is that the GX9 is a more expensive camera and I do get a sort of inverse snobbish pleasure out of using the more basic and cheaper GX80.

Good luck choosing.
 
woof woof said:
I quite like my GX80 but the GX9 is a better cameras as it adds a few things the GX80 lacks including, a tilting EVF, more dedicated physical controls and (this matters to me) auto ISO with exposure compensation. It is also 20mp v the GX80's 16mp and although personally I don't see any appreciable difference in image quality at the very least the extra resolution comes at no cost to image quality that I can see. The drawback is that the GX9 is a more expensive camera and I do get a sort of inverse snobbish pleasure out of using the more basic and cheaper GX80.

Good luck choosing.
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When I moved to M43 about 3 years ago, it was a toss up between Panasonic GX9 and GX80. I chose the latter after TP folk telling me less pixels are better than more, less pixels mean bigger pixels, bigger pixels are better, less noisy. And 3 years on, I don't know if that's true or not. Buying a camera: it's a minefield. And then even when you are totally happy with what you've got, you want a sexier model.
 
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Internet commentators seem to consistently say that the 20mp chip is the best but I've looked and I don't see anything that smacks me in the face... but I do understand that if that is true (but others do see an IQ advantage for the 20mp cameras) those extra 4mp pixels do at least come without any hit to IQ.

Personally I think that the biggest hit to IQ can sometimes come from poor artificial lighting which can sometimes make an ISO 1,600 picture look awful.

Anyway. If the OP does consider MFT our views are there to be read and these cameras are maybe worth at least a quick look.
 
woof woof said:
Internet commentators seem to consistently say that the 20mp chip is the best but I've looked and I don't see anything that smacks me in the face... but I do understand that if that is true (but others do see an IQ advantage for the 20mp cameras) those extra 4mp pixels do at least come without any hit to IQ.

Personally I think that the biggest hit to IQ can sometimes come from poor artificial lighting which can sometimes make an ISO 1,600 picture look awful.

Anyway. If the OP does consider MFT our views are there to be read and these cameras are maybe worth at least a quick look.
Click to expand...
Also it’s just a newer sensor, which could account for any differences :(.
 
SJack1992 said:
Just saw this. I'd love to be able to afford the X-T30 but for £600+ for the body and £200+ for the 18-55mm lens it's a bit too far for me to stretch to, especially with only the one lens. I'm assuming pairing the same lens with the X-T20 would be a good alternative?
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It would but how much of a saving is it , I don't know how long it is before you have access to the classifieds but there's a very nice looking XT-30 for £525
 
wack61 said:
It would but how much of a saving is it , I don't know how long it is before you have access to the classifieds but there's a very nice looking XT-30 for £525
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Yeah, I don't know what needs to happen before I can access the classifieds but that sounds like a really good deal
 
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