Beginner Camera and a lens for a budget.

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Milk

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Mike
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Hi I’m new to this forum but have been lurking for a while. I’ve always wanted to try out photography but I’ve never really done anything except taking photos on my iPhone.

I have completely no idea what I’m looking for and all the information I read about specs at the moment goes straight over my head.

I don’t want to invest too much right now as I might not even enjoy it so under £200 if possible .

What camera and lens is decent enough for a beginner to learn on. For the time being il mostly be getting to grips with what I’m doing and probably taking photos of my cats as practice.

I’ve been looking on the likes of mpb as buying from a reputable company with a warranty seems a safer bet.
 
For a beginner, pretty much any camera from the last 15 years will be just fine. I prefer how a Canon feels and operates to how a Nikon does (other makes are available).

I'd suggest something with a kit lens - 18-55mm and possibly a 55-250 or 70-300 and with some canny buying you should be able to get something close to budget.

MPB / Wex etc., all offer warranties.

Canon EOS 500D body: £ 89.00

Used Canon EOS 500D Digital SLR Camera - mpb.com

Find used Canon EOS 500D digital SLR cameras for sale at mpb.com, or sell or trade your own.
www.mpb.com www.mpb.com

18-55 Lens: £ 41.00

Used Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens - mpb.com

Find used Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lenses for sale at mpb.com, or sell or trade your own
www.mpb.com www.mpb.com

70-300 Lens: £ 78.00

Used Tamron 70-300mm f/4-5.6 LD Macro, Canon EF Fit - mpb.com

Find used Tamron 70-300mm f/4-5.6 LD Macro, Canon EF Fit lenses for sale at mpb.com, or sell or trade your own
www.mpb.com www.mpb.com

Total £ 208. Ask nicely and they may round down to £ 200.

That would give you a kit that can take an acceptable photograph of most things provided the light is reasonable, ranging from the cat indoors sitting on a chair near a window, to the cat at the bottom of the garden.

All you'd need is a memory card and a storage bag.

All the modern cameras have fully automatic mode, a range of semi-automatic modes where you control one aspect and it sorts out the rest, or fully manual modes.
 
Yeah any canon rebel will fit the bill, the the eos rebel t3 is £100 on MPB as youve been looking and Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM kitlens. Get a couple of sd cards and you're away.
Capture One Express is a basic free but powerful picture editor.
This camera has all you need to learn manual, exposure, aperture and shutter speed

Have fun and good luck! You will be upgrading in no time
 
My advice is to buy the cheapest, second hand camera with a zoom lens that you can find...
  • Do look in charity shops, places like Cex or even camera shops if you can find one.
  • Don't listen to people who tell you that you need something expensive.
  • Do get a camera with a zoom lens that will take pictures from wide angle to telephoto.
  • Don't pay more than £50. The less you pay the more likely you will be to experiment and the less worried you'll be about breaking things.
  • Do take hundreds or even thousands of pictures - they'll cost you nothing and you can delete any you don't like.
  • Do look at the pictures and decide which you like and which you don't.
  • Above all, it isn't the camera that takes the pictures - it's the person holding it!

I once bought a camera for £5 in a charity shop. It took pictures like these...

Bus driver in mirrir SL300 DSCF3604 copy.JPG
Bus driver smiling at colleague SL300 DSCF3452.jpg
Teenagers at waters edge Sidmouth sea front SL300 DSCF3529.jpg
Swan on Exe SL300 DSCF3712.JPG
 
Thank you for all the advice. I for some reason have a collection of sd cards from years ago.

I think I’d want to avoid places like charity shops and cex and going to trusted dealers like mpb as I have no idea on what to look for on cameras to ensure they are in good condition and no issues whilst mpb explains things very simple for me.


The idea is to spend as little as possible to begin with for reason stated above and also in case I don’t enjoy it as much as I hope to.

As I’d not want to rely on auto modes ans actually learn what everything does I think it will be a matter of a camera with manual control, lots of experimenting what things do and asking plenty of questions.

Basic question but the 2 lenses recommended. What difference in the photos will they allow?
 
Thank you, that’s what my common sense told me but wanted to make sure
 
Milk said:
Any reason why Nikon over canon? @ShinySideUp
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Absolutely none whatsoever :), I started on Nikon, others started on Canon and therein lies the dawn of a thousand arguments.

In days gone by the top quality camera systems were either Nikon or Canon, everything else was a consumer-led market -- Practika, Kodak, Pentax, Rollei, Olympus, Yashica, Voightlander, and so on and so on. So many camera manufacturers, but out in front was always Canon and Nikon and in the heydays of SLRs these two manufacturers were the names to aim for (if you really couldn't afford Leica or Hasselblad).

These days the leading makes are Nikon, Canon, Fujifilm, Olympus and Sony, to name a few. Your problem, going from the phone camera into the 'real' camera world, is inevitably finding a camera system you like as it will probably the one you spend the rest of your life on as changing from one make to another is an expensive and heart-rending process, not so much with the camera itself but with the glass you buy to go with it. On top of the manufacturer you have to decide on bridge camera, SLR camera, mirrorless camera and none of the lenses are truly interchangeable between types (yes, there are adapters but they add weight and complexity).

I'm not sure anyone can really give you advice because if one system was clearly better than any other then there would only be one camera manufacturer.

Try before you buy is the best bet and here eBay is your friend. Buy older, cheaper models with kit lenses, find out what feels good to you. If you don't like something, put it back on eBay and try another. For, say, £300 you could try two or three different makes to see what you like as the layout of buttons and the ways the cameras handle doesn't really vary too much as a make of camera becomes more modern.

Bear in mind that the camera is just a light box that feels right to you, the big difference comes in the glass that you put in front of it so take into account the cost of lenses that you might want to buy in the future. A brand new 50mm F2 Nikon costs about £230, second-hand a lot less. A Canon RF 800mm f5.6 L IS USM costs nearly £20,000 and there is a world of lenses in between.

Good luck in your journey into this wonderful, but highly varied, world of photography. Welcome to the jungle.
 
Welcome to the world of photography @Milk
You’ve got some good advice about a starter kit.

I’ll just add, don’t assume that ‘understanding the process’ is the same as taking full manual control of the camera. It’s a mistake a lot of newbies make and can lead to frustration instead of photos.

The computer inside a modern camera is there to help you make pictures, and offers everything from ‘let me take care of everything, you just press the shutter’ to ‘ok you’re on your own, here’s how much light there is in your scene’.

Crucially most photographers are using modes somewhere between those, taking control of the bits that are important in the picture they want to make whilst leaving the camera to fill in the gaps.

I usually suggest you keep control of the Aperture leaving the SS and ISO to the camera if it can, and take control of what you want the camera to focus on.

That’s plenty of decisions for me, whilst not leaving me with a card full of duds or worse, a load of missed opportunities cos I couldn’t react quick enough.
 
thank you @Phil V for the advice I think the way I decide to figure out what im doing will be best when I have the camera in front of me as at the moment im working on just theory haha.


so far my option is a Canon EOS 500D as recommended by the first person. which as my budget is tiny is probably the best bet
 
In the same position as yourself I wandered into my local branch of CEX and came out with a Nikon D3200 + Nikon AF-s 18-55 Kit Lens. Quick visit to a well known high street newsagents and invested another £18 on a D3200 for dummies and I have never looked back. It was a great tool and easy to learn, with lots of youtube videos to help. I have since upgraded but will never forget the fun I had with that D3200.
PS I choose Nikon as I had Canon in my teens and fancied the 'other' brand
PSPS I sold my D3200 on for much the same as I paid after 12 months
 
OK, a few thoughts:

I'd take Nikon over Canon because I think the sensors in lower-level Nikons are a bit better, probably something like a D3XXX series.
I'd suggest a kit lens (18-55 zoom) and also the Nikon DX35mm f1.8, because it's a great little lens and is capable of offering more creative options and work better in low light than a zoom.
I'd leave the longer lenses *for now* until you start finding that you wishes for more reach.
 
@ancient_mariner thankyou for the ideas. Which D3XXX series one would you recommend in particular.


Also good shout on not needing a longer reach lens yet as it would overkill for my current needs but low light things could maybe be benificial
 
Milk said:
Which D3XXX series one would you recommend in particular.
Click to expand...

It will sound like a cop-out, but the one that's available which fits your budget best. The D3200 seems good and can be had sensibly priced, but AFAIK there isn't a *huge* difference between the different versions.
 
And a final question for people way more experienced than me, my choices are out of a Nikon D3200, Canon 500d and also maybe a Canon 50D, which one is the best quality and also ease of learning.
 
Someone will hopefully come up with the answer, but isn't there a/some lower end Nikon camera bodies that don't play well with some of the Nikon lenses due to autofocus issues with motors/drive or something?
 
LeeRatters said:
Someone will hopefully come up with the answer, but isn't there a/some lower end Nikon camera bodies that don't play well with some of the Nikon lenses due to autofocus issues with motors/drive or something?
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In my limited experience older lenses use a mechanical focus system that only works on compatible lenses. I found all my AF-S lenses worked perfectly.
This chart explains all
https://www.nikonusa.com/images/lea...you/media/nikkor-lens-compatibility-chart.pdf
 
My first camera was a Fuji HS20 bridge camera I got for 60 quid out of CEX. I soon upgraded but it got me to grips with all the basics. Seeing as it was a bridge it had a 24-720mm zoom lens so it had all the focal lengths covered without having to buy lenses etc. Note that you can't change lenses on a bridge camera.

Now photography has become a money pit but it's been lots of fun
 
LeeRatters said:
Someone will hopefully come up with the answer, but isn't there a/some lower end Nikon camera bodies that don't play well with some of the Nikon lenses due to autofocus issues with motors/drive or something?
Click to expand...

Nikon lenses have excellent *mount* compatibility, in that you can mount very old lenses on recent DSLR cameras. They often have poor compatibility with mechanical and electronic coupling, particularly with lower-end cameras. The OP will be completely fine if he uses DX lenses on a DX camera like this - they were designed for each other.

Worth mentioning before money is spent that the DSLR camera design has no future, everything migrating to mirrorless. Cameras and lenses capable of good pictures previously will continue to work just as well, but if thinking about a future *system* this is not the place to start. However for £200 it is still a good entry point, provided one doesn't invest heavily in additional kit that is only compatible with the DSLR.
 
Compuwight said:
I have no experience of the Canon but I do use this site for info
versus.com

Canon EOS 500D vs Nikon D3200: What is the difference?

What is the difference between Nikon D3200 and Canon EOS 500D? Find out which is better and their overall performance in the camera ranking.
versus.com versus.com
versus.com

Canon EOS 50D vs Nikon D3200: What is the difference?

What is the difference between Nikon D3200 and Canon EOS 50D? Find out which is better and their overall performance in the camera ranking.
versus.com versus.com
Click to expand...

Useful. In both cases the critical image-making bit - the sensor - is a better unit than that in the canon.
 
I too came back to photography via very inexpensive and (by most standards) fairly old cameras. Don't get hung up on the pixel count of a camera. Even my old Oly DSLR still makes great images at only 10M.
As a recommendation for a cheap but good camera, I tried the Olympus and Panasonic micro four thirds system and had a good start. The series is still present, so what you might buy can be used with more modern versions. Maybe an important thing will be to determine if you need a viewfinder.
 
@ancient_mariner i read a few things that everything is turning to the side of mirror less. With me spending so little just to get to grips of of. If or when I upgrade it will probably be mirrorless and I won’t have too much money into the existing things, although I’d still use things if they work.


@Compuwight they were very helpful comparisons thank you. Out of the 500d and the d3200 it looks like the clear winner is the d3200 but it gets a little more confusing when it’s the 50d but I’m basing this purely on numbers facts and figures as I have zero experience what anything actually means
 
Milk said:
@ancient_mariner i read a few things that everything is turning to the side of mirror less. With me spending so little just to get to grips of of. If or when I upgrade it will probably be mirrorless and I won’t have too much money into the existing things, although I’d still use things if they work.


@Compuwight they were very helpful comparisons thank you. Out of the 500d and the d3200 it looks like the clear winner is the d3200 but it gets a little more confusing when it’s the 50d but I’m basing this purely on numbers facts and figures as I have zero experience what anything actually means
Click to expand...

Mirrorless may well be the future but older DSLR kit is a cheaper way into this. The cheapest mirrorless camera and lens combination I could live with would probably come to around £300 comprising of about £200 for a Panasonic GX80 and somewhere between £50-100 for a lens.

Good luck with whatever you go for and don't forget to come back, let everyone know how you're getting on and post some pictures :D
 

Why is Nikon D3200 better than Canon EOS 50D?​

  • 2 more focus points 11vs9
  • 1.6x more megapixels
  • Has AF tracking for video
  • lower noise at high ISO
  • Better color depth - 24.1bitsvs21.8bits
  • 275g lighter - 455gvs730g

More focus points means the camera *may* focus on the thing you're trying to photograph more readily, or they may be in a more convenient place. Many just use the centre focus point and nothing more.

Megapixels at this level don't really matter - no advantage or disadvantage.

AF tracking means that if you shoot video, the camera should be able to lock focus on a moving target & keep it in focus.

Lower noise at high ISO - means that when taking pictures in dim lighting, all else being equal, those from the Nikon will look better than those from the Canon.

Greater colour depth means that the camera will cope better under difficult conditions, with extremes of colour (for example a sunset).

The lower weight is good and bad. The good is that the Nikon will be easier to carry around all day. The bad is that it's a physically small camera, and if you have large hands and thick fingers then you may find it fiddly to operate compared to a bigger camera.
 
Myself if i was starting again with £200 odd then i would get a used Sony RX100 MK 3 pocket camera.

If you don`t get on with photography then they are easy to sell on.

And if you do like it then again easy to sell on and get something else bigger and better.
 
ancient_mariner said:
Nikon lenses have excellent *mount* compatibility, in that you can mount very old lenses on recent DSLR cameras. They often have poor compatibility with mechanical and electronic coupling, particularly with lower-end cameras. The OP will be completely fine if he uses DX lenses on a DX camera like this - they were designed for each other.
Click to expand...
There are still some things to watch out for. Older cameras like the D3200 aren't compatible with recent AF-P lenses (DX or FX), or electronic aperture 'E-type' lenses. Most manual focus lenses won't meter with entry-level cameras, and the very old 'pre-AI' manual focus lenses can damage modern cameras if mounted.

The best compatibility across the dSLR range is with AF-S G lenses (DX or FX), which I think work with all of them. These have names like 'AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6G VR', where 'AF-S' is the focusing system (the lens has its own motor) and 'G' (which comes straight after the aperture number) indicates the aperture control system (G = controlled by the camera, using a mechanical linkage). Luckily there are a lot of these to choose from, including many current lenses, and they also work with most late film SLRs (F65, F75, F80, F100, F5, F6). If in doubt, consult Nikon's spreadsheet: https://nikonsupport.eu/europe/images/5532/LCC_En.xlsx
 
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@woof woofinwill be back with advice about what I’m doing wrong.

So my choices are between the 50d and the d3200 .

@Retune the world of lenses seems very complex but I should get the hand eventually
 
Milk said:
@woof woofinwill be back with advice about what I’m doing wrong.

So my choices are between the 50d and the d3200 .

@Retune the world of lenses seems very complex but I should get the hand eventually
Click to expand...
Just ask MPB to confirm the lenses & body are fully compatible when you buy them.
 
@sphexx that is very good advice il do. Last thing I want is to get everything and it’s wrong haha.

I think for starters messing around the house il stick with a 18-55mm and add more variety as and when I feel like I need more
 
Milk said:
@woof woofinwill be back with advice about what I’m doing wrong.

So my choices are between the 50d and the d3200 .

@Retune the world of lenses seems very complex but I should get the hand eventually
Click to expand...
The complexity is mostly a Nikon thing, because they made several small changes over time. If you stick to their AF-S G lenses you shouldn't have any problems with any Nikon dSLR. Better still, as Richard suggests get your dealer to confirm compatibility. The entry level cameras are often sold as kits with a compatible version of the 18-55 or similar, which might be the best way to go. Some versions of this lens have 'VR' ('vibration reduction', which is what Nikon calls image stabilisation). That's nice to have, but is probably most useful in a longer lens like the 70-300 you might want to add later.

With Canon it's simpler - I think all the autofocus EOS SLR lenses will work on the 50D, including the full-frame lenses (EF) and those designed specifically for the smaller sensor this camera has (EF-S).
 
Another question but unrelated but it’s in my head, why does a dslr take better photos than a phone camera with similar megapixels? If I was to guess it’s that the lens makes a huge difference and maybe the camera processing the image to make the file is done better than phones
 
Milk said:
Another question but unrelated but it’s in my head, why does a dslr take better photos than a phone camera with similar megapixels? If I was to guess it’s that the lens makes a huge difference and maybe the camera processing the image to make the file is done better than phones
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The sensor that collects the light has much bigger area on a DSLR than a phone.

Though “better” depends on the definition of “better” ;).
 
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Better as in the way like light and shadows seem to have better definition if that makes sense
 
Milk said:
Better as in the way like light and shadows seem to have better definition if that makes sense
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The lens plays a part in this, but as simply as I can (it's not a simple question), photography is literally the act of capturing the photons that reflect off an object (you're actually gathering light), so the sensor in a DSLR is huge compared to a camera phone, more light collected = more information with which to redraw the image.

Camera phones cheat this a bit by using software to examine the scene and draw in what it thinks the image is. which is amazing technologically, but strictly speaking it's no longer a photograph. This isn't snobbery, like most people, I use my camera daily to take photo's, and rarely get out a proper camera.
 
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