re: DSLR camera and lense buying advice

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Cannon T3i

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Same here. I've always been good at photoshop and lightroom just made my life a lot easier. It's amazing what you can do in those programs.


OP - I would recommend whatever you get. YouTube how-to and tip videos. It's caught me up to speed fast and I've been using my camera for almost 4 months.

"But it can do so much moar!!11!11111!!"

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Compare this..... Nikon D5100

To this..... Sony A6000

Check out the images online, especially low light images. Look at the continuous shooting rate for action shots for both cameras.

No real contest between the two.

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I would hope there is no contest, that Nikon has not been manufactured in years and is now two generations old. The Sony is the brand new model. WTF

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Seriously considered it, but I like being able to use my viewfinder in low light.

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I've been a die hard Nikon SLR guy since fim and the the early days of the first consumer D50/70/80. I've now sold off all my Nikon stuff after moving to Mirrorless, specifically Micro4/3. I did have a NEX6 for a while to try out Sony cameras.

Now on to the viewfinder... the EVF gives you so much more information than an OVF I'm not sure how anyone who has seriously used both for extended periods of time can say the EVF is a nagative. You will still be able to see well enough to frame the image with the EVF in low light. Only time not being able to see the image is an issue if when you are doing long exposure work in nearly total darkness. Like if you are trying to do astrophotography. Instant highlight/lowlight exposure feedback. Focus peaking. Image magnification. etc. Just tons and tons of things an EVF can do that makes it far superior to an OVF IMHO. Unless you get a large viewfinder on a pro style body the small OVF in the consumer bodies totally suck anyways.

Anyways I say for the OP's budget I would suggest the Sony A6000.

Go somewhere and handle the cameras. The best camera is the one you will use, which means it needs to be comfortable.

1k in Nikon or Canon buys you essentially the same quality, so it ultimately boils down to buying the camera you are most comfortable using.

Thanks to everyone for all the advice. I just scanned over it and will take a closer look this evening.

Get a Nikon dslr. I have a canon eos 40d, a Pentax k200d, a nikon d40 and a d300.
You just can't beat a Nikon dslr unless you venture into medium format digital (which increases in price almost exponentially).

Today's camera phones like the ip5 through ip6 and Samsungs take excellent pictures but they're no match for a dslr.

Another +1 for the DSLR here. Started with a t4i but really got back into it (used to do B&W film stuff a long time ago) and upgraded to 5D Mark 3 recently, so just know that once you start and keep going in it, you're always going to want to spend more

I can't comment much on Canon vs Nikon (seems like with the entry level models, Nikon may have a little better high ISO performance [basically makes it easier to take pictures in lower light with less noise]) because I've always had variations of a Canon.

And don't look at it as something you're only gonna use a few times. Once you start doing it, you're gonna find yourself (or your wife) doing it a good bit. It's a great skill to learn, especially with kids as you never know what moments you may want to capture. Before getting back into it, when we went on trips, etc we maybe had a camera phone shot or two or had that point and shoot picture of a landscape that just never came close to capturing what we actually saw.

And I'd recommend getting Lightroom too for organizing and editing (especially starting out, you can save a lot of pictures that were too dark or too bright when originally you took them).