I’m a beginner at photos. Budget around $700. Is it simpler to buy the pre built kit with the body, lenses , bag, etc or is that not always the best deal? I wonder if the lenses in the kits may not be the best. Is it better to buy just the body and get lenses separate?
Looking at Nikon D3400 as 1 example. I would mainly takes shots of nature and sports . Not into portraits.
I just bought the D3400 with kit lenses (18-55 mm 3.5-5.6 and 70-300 mm 4.5-6.3), a few months ago, and I’ve been having a blast with it. Nothing I shoot will be on the cover of National Geographic, but so what? It’s fun, and I’m still learning about it. I take it out several times a week, and just shoot anything and everything (especially when I take my dog to the park), because like you, I’m into landscape photography, not portraits.
Bottom line: certainly as an entry-level camera, I’d recommend it. Also, since you’re a beginner at photos, you may want to see some of these sites I’ve found useful, although they do go very heavily on post-production of your images, like Lightroom and Photoshop.
And there’s a great site for determining the best light and shadow for anyplace: The Photographer’s Ephemeris. It’s not difficult to use, but take the time to study it.
There have been a number of threads on this very subject (like this one) which a search may locate for you.
My standard rec is a Canon T4i and the 250mm zoom (NOT the 300, it’s much worse, somehow). It’s been a great entryway for me. Cheap and widely available, including refurbs.
I know very little about photography, and even less about high-end equipment.
But I’m reminded of the story told about a professional photographer:
He showed his pictures to a family he was visiting, and they said “Wow–great photos. You must have some really good cameras”.
Then they sat down to eat dinner together, and he said to the host “Wow–that was a great meal. You must have some really good pots”.
Enjoy your hobby, and post us some pics !
Somebody showed me this app when we were out shooting but I forgot the name before I got a chance to download it. Took a look at the website; this is perfect to show me the exact spot I want to setup in the curve this weekend…then I remembered there’s no connectivity up there. :smack:
I guess I’ll have to go the old fashioned way & print it out before we go.
I know it’s a joke, but there’s some pics you can’t get w/o the right equipment, including full manual control & a tripod & shutter release which are necessary for long exposure shots.
What do you mean when you say “nature and sports?”
If you want to take bird photos, for example, you’ll need a large lens (either zoom or prime). Birding is a demanding hobby and requires some specialized equipment to do right. If you’re taking more general nature scenery shots then your needs are very different.
Sports can mean a whole lot of different subjects, but it also can be extremely demanding. Distant shots of fast moving action is very demanding as well. If you’re shooting indoors it just makes it that much more difficult. Fast lenses and good sensors are key to eliminating blur. Even shots of the kids playing soccer outdoors can be a tough task depending on where you are sitting and where the action is.
So perhaps a few more specifics about what you want to shoot.
I have a DSLR myself, and I’m a Nikon guy (D90), but I have to say that my next camera might be mirrorless instead of a DSLR. You should definitely check out the reviews at dpreview.com.
Here’s their best camera for beginners guide: 2019 Buying Guide: Best cameras for beginners: Digital Photography Review
Here’s their best camera for under $1,000 guide: Best cameras around $1000 in 2022: Digital Photography Review
(Ironically, both of those top picks are for DSLRs)
Sony makes great mirrorless cameras that compete very well with DSLRs, inside a smaller package. They got the tech from Minolta, and Minolta made very photographer-friendly cameras. I think they are out of your price range, though.
I just recommended this setup to my nephew: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1398407-REG/panasonic_dmc_gx85wk_lumix_dmc_gx85_mirrorless_micro.html
However, he’s also very interested in video. One of the lenses that comes with that setup is 150mm, which is 300mm equivalent on that kind of camera, so should be good for sports.
You should probably get a camera with a kit lens, since that combination will be cheaper than buying separately and you don’t really know what you want yet if you’re really a beginner. However, depending on the sport, you made need a longer kit lens.
for sports it would be outdoors and local events. Some might be at night like our local car race track. Also events such as bike races, dirt bike races and baseball for football.
By nature I mean things like beaches, mountains, etc. maybe that is called landscapes?
I have checked out the dpreview site.
My experience has been that this is actually pretty demanding. Cars and bikes move really fast, which means to really capture them with a sharp focus you need very fast shutter speeds. This is where full frame cameras still shine, and big fast lenses.
This is significantly less demanding and you have a lot more flexibility. You don’t need huge telephoto for this, and with a tripod you can deal with low light. Also, in general, your subject isn’t moving.
I like the idea of a camera with a decent kit lens to start. If you find others around you who shoot the same camera line you can borrow bigger lenses to see if they meet your needs, or even rent one for a day or weekend and shoot one the events listed above. That’ll give you some insight into what is acceptable for you and will produce the results you want.
full frame are nice but they are outside my budget. Also I looked at a few full frame models and they are big and heavy compared to entry level models. Weight is important to me.
You don’t need a full frame for beginning. Any of the entry level Canons or Nikons will do fine. Stick with the kit lens and then get yourself the standard 55-250mm zoom for sports.
Anything beyond that for now is overkill.
Actually, no. IME, using high shutter speeds to shoot IndyCars, I got a bunch of pictures that looked like cars sitting stationary on the track. The key to exciting shots of motorsports, IMHO, is learning how to use motion blur successfully: using a relatively slow shutter speed (around 1/60 - 1/120) and panning to keep your subject in sharp focus while blurring the background. In addition to learning to pan at exactly the right speed to keep your subject sharp, it takes a lot of time and experimentation to master the relationships between shutter speed, vehicle speed, distance, focal length, shooting angles, etc.
What is the connection between fast shutter speeds and full-frame cameras?
Full-frame cameras have high-senstitvity sensors, meaning that you can use fast shutter speeds and small f-stops without having to crank up the ISO.
I recently got a 300mm zoom kit lens that is mostly garbage. At high zoom ranges, about from 200-300, it has pretty bad focal aberrations that prevent sharp focusing. It works great at lower zooms though. I’m a bit pissed because I bought it for a big vacation and didn’t discover the problems until wondering why all of my puffins-on-cliffs photos were out of focus. At least it was cheap.
is the 70-300 zoom better than the 55-250? or is the 200-300 range a problem as noted in the above post?
RIght. Thanks.
I’m not so sure of how big a factor this is these days.
Surely, if you are talking about insanely high ISO then FF will be better, but I’m quite happy with the quality of decently high ISO on all of my Fuji gear–I like the fact that I can set shutter speed to, say, 1/250 at an indoor event and not worry about a thing, the lens will likely be wide open and the ISO will float in the 3200 or so range, but the shots will be sharp and high quality.
On any decent modern DSLR I would expect it to be trivial to set SS to >1/1000s at an outdoor sporting event with even a modest aperture.
Modern sensors are amazing.
There are multiple versions of most of these lenses, with some different characteristics so read the reviews carefully. The naming conventions don’t always make it clear which version of the lenses are sharper but it maps pretty well to price. 
In general, at the long end of any relatively inexpensive lens you’ll see less sharpness and more aberration. The wider the zoom range, the more of an issue this will be. It becomes less of an issue if your zoom range is narrower or if you spring for expensive glass (like the Cannon L series lenses). I’m more familiar with the Cannon line but the same principles hold for Nikon. This is why people spend so much money on lenses, and why this can be an expensive hobby.
I have had very good experiences buying used from KEH. Thirty day return window. https://www.keh.com/