School camera, budget up to £3000

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Dan
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So one of the school's I work at want to upgrade their camera so that their image quality doesn't fall so short of the ones I take.

I think they have a fairly entry DSLR crop camera with kit lens.

It's for indoors, outdoors and action. They have a budget of up to £3000, so I'm thinking an A7III and 24-105mm F4.

How does this sound? any alternative suggestions?
 
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So one of the school's I work at want to upgrade their camera so that their image quality doesn't fall so short of the ones I take.

I think they have a fairly entry DSLR crop camera with kit lens.

It's for indoors, outdoors and action. They have a budget of up to £3000, so I'm thinking an A7III and 24-105mm F4.

How does this sound? any alternative suggestions?
What is the knowledge level of the person who'll be taking the photos and what sort of photos are they wanting to take, portraits, plays, sports etc? I take it a school wouldn't buy grey but would they be wiling to buy used?
 
What is the knowledge level of the person who'll be taking the photos and what sort of photos are they wanting to take, portraits, plays, sports etc? I take it a school wouldn't buy grey but would they be wiling to buy used?

I think low level, the person who's been taking photos up to now is leaving.

Outdoor sport, animal petting, indoor music/dance -just the daily things that happen at a private school - I will still be shooting their big play performances, concerts and sports days etc..

They currently have a
Nikon D5100 and 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6
 
To be fair before i spend their £3000,

I think they could make up the shortfall with skill.. I'm not sure a new camera will help with many of the shots they take.
 
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To be fair before i spend their £3000,

I think they could make up the shortfall with skill.. I'm not sure a new camera will help with many of the shots they take.
Probably not, although I do feel that some will prefer mirrorless in that you can switch from VF to LCD much easier and maintain good usability. Also, IF they could use eye AF they wouldn't have to worry about missed shots due to poor focussing techniques. Whether this is worth spending money on only the school/you can decide.

So IF you decide to go ahead and spend their budget the A7III would be the obvious choice as it's probably the best all rounder mirrorless on the market currently. They have cash back at the moment so the A7III and 24-105mm is circa £2600 from UK retail stores, so you could even throw a 50mm f1.8 into the mix too (y)
 
Buy cheaper and sell them some 1-2-1 training on how to use it. Or just sell them some training on their existing kit.

BTW school might not have to pay VAT as an educational establishment.

This, it doesn't really matter what the camera is if the person cant work out what settings they need for certain events, how to compose and how to process. They could keep what they have or spend £3k and the results would be largely similar.
 
Our school camera was a Lubitel 166B, which must have cost well under £30.
 
D700.

They'll notice the difference in quality unless they print wall size.

I will need to speak to them about expectations and current issues. They mentioned time again how the colours of my images are so much better (potential white balance), I also think they want to throw backgrounds out of focus more.
 
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I will need to speak to them about expectations and current issues. They mentioned time again how the colours of my images are so much better (potential white balance), I also think they want to throw backgrounds out of focus more.
They like the Sony colours, are they mad ;) :p

Joking aside are they aware of the processing that you do, and do they do similar or do they just use SOOC jpeg? It could be a better option for the school to subscribe to adobe cc if they don’t already as they might be astonished what their images are like with a bit of ‘polishing’.

The ‘fear’ is that do they just assume that they can buy this gear and expect the photos to turn out like yours? If so we all know that they will be deeply disappointed. It takes a lot of skill, time and understanding of light to produce photos like yours.
 
They like the Sony colours, are they mad ;) :p

Joking aside are they aware of the processing that you do, and do they do similar or do they just use SOOC jpeg? It could be a better option for the school to subscribe to adobe cc if they don’t already as they might be astonished what their images are like with a bit of ‘polishing’.

The ‘fear’ is that do they just assume that they can buy this gear and expect the photos to turn out like yours? If so we all know that they will be deeply disappointed. It takes a lot of skill, time and understanding of light to produce photos like yours.

I have a colour preset just for Sony files, richer colours without adding a style :) I really should back it up...

I will see them tomorrow and explain it to them. Talk about processing etc.. because yes I think they will end up disappointed to just buy a camera with raised expectations.
 
It also they have seen the out of camera jpgs from the a9 for reviewing images. They still look great.
 
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