Don’t forget there are some third-party lens manufacturers that you can look at, I personally have Tamron & Tokina lenses but Sigma is someone else to look at, too. All of them are less expensive than manufacturer’s glass for the vast majority of the quality. As for the used market, look at KEH.com or MPB.com, too. They have professionals grading the equipment they get in; their ratings can be trusted, unlike a generic used site, like ebay
Sony are the big boys in professional photography now. Most of the shooters I know have moved on to Sony systems. I’m a Nikon guy, so have moved forward with Nikon mirrorless, and some of my Canon friends have continued on with the R series, but there’s no question in my mind that Sony rules the roost these days for professionals shooting 35mm format. And even moreso for videography. I run into a lot of videographers, and they pretty much all shoot Sony Alphas.
ETA: OK, it looks like the actual numbers are more like Canon a half, Fuji a quarter, and Nikon a seventh of the professional shooters. So a little different than my experience. But whereas it used to be Canon vs Nikon, now it’s Canon vs Sony. I just remember watching the 2022 Olympics and seeing Sonys all over the place.
I like my Nikon Z6ii (and all my dSLRs), but if I were advising a new shooter, I’d probably recommend the Sony ecosystem.
Yes, I was about to tell you that you were talking nonsense when you did so yourself! You are way out of date. Sony was the pioneer and leader in the early days of mirrorless, but Canon is well ahead of them now. The top end Sony and Canon bodies are probably neck and neck, but Canon RF glass is well ahead of Sony.
I must say, I was surprised when I looked it up, because it’s quite different than my personal experience. I know a number of Canon shooters that jumped ship in the last year or two. (Photojournalists and wedding shooters.) And seeing the shots of the photographers in the 2022 Olympics showed seas of Sony to me. So much for anecdata. At any rate, it’s pretty damned incredible how much of a footnote my Nikons have become now, being overtaken by Sony.
Yes, unfortunately Nikon seem to have fallen well behind. Canon just seem to have thrown everything at R&D for mirrorless over the last 2-3 years.
Nikon has announced it will no longer make dSLRs, too, IIRC, concentrating on mirrorless, as well.
It’s a much smaller company than Canon and Sony, so the fact they’ve been overtaken doesn’t really come as much of a shock to me. The last time they really had some momentum behind them, as far as I remember, was the introduction of the D3. Quite a change to see the Beijing Olympics and the black Nikon lenses and yellow-on-black camera straps.
Canon have had problems with overheating when shooting video, that’s probably why photojournalists & wedding photographers are not on board. But for wildlife stills, they are the leader. Incredible eye-tracking autofocus, and 4 or 5 of the best lenses ever made.
Yeah, that’s a subfield I know next to nothing about. In terms of weddings and video, Sony is literally pretty much the only thing I see. I have never seen anyone use Nikon for video, and I know one guy who uses a Canon C100 – with two or three Sony A7Rs. (Why he still uses that C100 is beyond me.) And before mirrorless, sure, the Canon 5D series, who pioneered it all.
ETA: Sorry, we’re off on a geeky tangent here. For $1000, I don’t think you could go wrong with a D750, as outdated as it is. It’s still one of my primary cameras. I would say D850, but I don’t think you can find one at that price point.
…almost any DSLR or Mirrorless camera you buy that was made in the 5 years or so will do you well. I’m still shooting on a Canon 5DIII as my main camera, which was released in 2012, and It’s still going strong.
And the Nikon D3500 would be just fine. It ticks all your boxes. Comes with plenty of accessories. You will get great photos. You are right: the kit lens won’t be that fast, and if you had faster lenses you would get blurrier backgrounds…but you will still get blurry backgrounds with that set up. Especially if you shoot at 300mm and shoot your subject with plenty of separation. It’s all about technique.
It does pay to shop around and have a play with a few options if you can. Mirrorless is the way of the future, and if you can budget for it then have a good think about it: but you get less bang-for-your-buck at the moment. There isn’t a correct answer.
And think about the future: what lenses you might want, what system you want to “buy into.” Canon, Sony, Nikon, Fuji, they are all great. But once you buy into a system, it gets harder to swap down the line. So perhaps this is the most important thing to be thinking about.
I think it’s somewhat relevant to hash this out for OP who is specifically interested in wildlife.
I would absolutely agree. I would not feel uncomfortable shooting an assignment or event with anything made in the last ten years, even. That 5DIII would be perfectly fine.
Most of what the OP wants is going to boil down to lens choice. You want cool blurred background portraits? You can do that with a bunch of f/2.8 or faster lenses, but bang-for-buck, get an 85mm f/1.8. You want wildlife? You’re probably going to want a system with good AF, but most systems these days work pretty damned well if you know how to use them. They all have their quirks. You probably want a REALLY long and fast lens if you want the cool NatGeo photographs people think of, but those are not going to fit in-budget by a longshot.
For the budget given, the system the OP proposes is a reasonable one. I would steer them towards seeing if there’s similar bundles in the mirrorless space, as that’s where photography is going. But there’s nothing wrong with what the OP is proposing at the enthusiast level. For most people, these differences just don’t matter. The state of technology is just that good.
Background blur is proportional to both aperture and focal length (as well as the distance between the subject and the background and absolute distance of the camera to the subject), so you can still get a decently blurry background shooting at relatively small apertures. It’s best if you’re using a long focal length and there’s significant distance between your subject and the background. An ASP-C lens can provide pretty smooth background at F/8 if you’re shooting at 300mm, especially if the subject is significantly closer than the background. The OP would do fine with an APS-C and 70-300 type lens in that regard.
One thing you can do to see if you can get the look you want is to look for a group on flickr dedicated to that lens. For example, here’s a nikon 70-300 group. That gives you some real world examples of the sort of results you can get with that equipment.
I want to thank everyone for their replies which I have read closely and am considering. I’m still interested in more opinions if others are willing to offer them I’m getting the impression the mirrorless cameras are the way to go these days and that Sony is a brand strongly worth considering. SLRs might be a better lower cost but the savings seem not to be worth the tradeoffs. I need to do more research and consider this further. I was hoping to pick something out really soon but I might wait until after our vacation.
I agree for shooting relatively static subjects, but tracking autofocus has gotten much better since the D3500, and tracking autofocus is nice when shooting wildlife. Also, newer cameras can find animal eyes and focus on those.
The other nice thing about mirrorless cameras is that they’re a lot smaller than DSLRs. So, if you’re also interesting in a walking-around camera, mirrorless might help there as well.
D3500 class cameras will produce fine enough images and would definitely be adequate for stationary nature targets (like birds in a tree) but would definitely struggle with reliably tracking animals in motion. But you’ll still get some good ones there, with good preparation and a little luck and shooting a bunch of pictures. You’ll also miss the amount of manual controls on a beginner’s camera like that if you need to quickly adapt to a fluid situation. But the actual quality of the results when everything comes together will be pretty good - even low end DSLRs like that can produce great images. Someone coming from a point and shoot should be pretty happy.
The main issue is budget. D3500 + 2 lenses is a lot of camera for $1000, you’re not going to come close to that with a more advanced mirrorless system. If that’s your budget and you’re willing to work within the limitations, that’s probably the best you’ll be able to do, and most people will probably be happy with that. D3500+ 18-55/70-300 is a fine choice.
You’ll need to ask yourself, though - are you going to grow in the future? Do you think she’ll get into photography and want to become more advanced with her equipment? If that’s the case, starting in DSLRs is going to put limits on that growth, since they’re on the way out, and lens design between DSLRs and mirrorless is different - you will need to get new lenses (or adapters, which miss out on some of the advantages of mirrorless lenses) if you end up switching to a mirrorless camera in the future.
I don’t know what I’d recommend for a cheap mirrorless camera, though, I didn’t do any research in that market segment. I know the A7 III and IV are basically perfect all-rounders, but getting something like an A7 III and Tamron 28-200, while a fantastic value for their cost, is going to be almost 3x that budget.
There are places that rent cameras/lens, though they tend to be higher level equipment than what you’re considering. Some will even give you credit back towards a purchase. It may be worth a couple of minutes to find one & possibly take what you’re considering purchasing with your to play with while on vacation. If you do, it would be wise to download the manual so that you can figure out how to change certain settings when you’re out & about with an unfamiliar-to-you camera.
…I mean: it would be nice. But it’s hardly essential. The OP was considering buying a system before going away on a trip next week that could do both portraits and wildlife. And without knowing any more about exactly what sort of portrait and what sort of wildlife the OP is shooting, that set-up would be fine.
Spend more money and you get more features, but you get less bang-for-your buck. What individual features are important though is a highly personal thing. I shoot moving people for a living, but eye-focus, as great as it is, simply isn’t a priority for me.
So yeah, for a budget of $1000, nearly anything made in the last five years is going to be great. It all comes down to what features you need and want.
@Riemann, what lenses would those be?
For wildlife, the RF100-500mm f/4.5-7.1 has got a lot of attention. It’s practical to hand hold all day, great for birds in flight. Optically it’s only a modest advance over the EF 100-400mm, but everyone wants it to use with the R5 body with its remarkable tracking autofocus. f/7.1 needs a reasonable amount of light of course, but the next step up from here is the 600mm f/4 at $13,000 and more than double the size.
I think the RF 70-200mm f/2.8 deserves just as much attention. The EF version was already a superb lens, but this was a big technological advance - they managed to cut 25% off the weight and still improve the optics and autofocus. This is light enough to hold with ONE hand. I’ve used it mostly for shooting closer wildlife from the car, but it’s easily light enough to walk around with all day. Great lens for picking out a face among interacting people / animals at intermediate distance.
For portraits - the RF 50mm f/1.2 and the RF 85mm f/1.2. These are biggish lenses, but worth the weight for the optics. (I have the 50mm)