Quote:
Originally Posted by btimbit
Figured we probably have some photography buffs here that can point me in the right direction. I have a big Europe trip planned and am thinking I'm going to want to take a ton of pictures, but looking to see if there are any recommendations for a decent camera. I don't need anything crazy but curious if there's anything out there in between a good camera phone and a
$1000+ DSLR. Does such a middle market even exist anymore or have phones closed that gap? Would used perhaps be a smart way to go?
Total camera noob, haven't even owned one since some crappy point and shoot 15 years ago. Budget is flexible, wouldn't even know what a good price would be here. Few hundred maybe?
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I'm a fan of the Micro Four-Thirds platform, the sensors are much larger than what you would find on a phone, and the lenses are much smaller than what you would find on a full frame mirrorless or dlsr. They also have plenty of good adaptors to fit larger format lenses you might have, either from vintage buys or APS-C or Full Frame.
M43 are mirrorless which makes them more compact than a DLSR too. On the cons side, they're probably inferior to a full frame camera for something like astrophotography, and they don't have all the built-in processing of a modern smart-phone so to do something like image-stacking for denoise you have to manually shoot multiple shots and then process them in post.
As for exactly which model on that platform, it might depend on requirements like size and features, but Olympus and Panasonic are the two main brands that make them. I personally have
- an Olympus EPL-7 camera body. It's not quite equipped for great video but it's solid for stills
- a VF-2 Electronic Viewfinder
- A Panasonic 25mm f/1.7 (the 20mm f/1.7 is a better AND more compact lens, but a little pricier and the focal length (M43 focal lengths are equivalent to half of a full frame focal length) might be a little bit wide for portraits )
- An SLR Magic 8mm f/4 (this is a pure manual focus ultrawide lens, for landscapes)
- A Panasonic Leica 15mm f/1.7 (this is my best and most versatile lens, but it's also very expensive)
- An Olympus 42mm-150mm zoom lens (this is 84 to 300mm equilivent so it doesn't have a ton of regular use cases, but it was cheap haha)
Perhaps the best all-purpose zoom lens option is the Panasonic 12-32mm... I just have a bunch of primes that already satisfy that range.
If you're a little bit more flexible on your budget, you probably want to get a Panasonic GH5-S or Black Magic 4K - these are video-oriented cameras on the M43 platform that are still great for photography.
Alternatively, if M43 doesn't seem like a good option, you could go a little bit bigger and look into the APS-C platform. Sony has some good offerings, I just can't tell you a ton about them)