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Need suggestion for upgrading Camera
#1

Hi All,


I m not a professional photographer, but I love to click photos. I have been using my Lumix point and shoot from past 3 years. Now I want to change it and willing to upgrade it. I have been reading lot of posts on dpreview and somwhat confused about, what should be better for me.

I would have love to take DSLR, but only reason which is pushing me back is its bulkyness and weight.

From past few days, I was reading about MILC and if I am understanding correctly, those will be less weighted but still give high quality of images.


My preferences will be --

- I love to travel and really walk for long sometimes. So, DSLR may not be suitable for me to hang it in my neck and roam around whole day. I am not looking for compact, but not as heavy as DSLR's.

- My photography will not be in actions or it doesn't require very fast capturing.

- I would definitely like to have some control on fuctions and can play and experiment with them.

- Much of time, I will be clicking landscpaes, family, gathering, mountains, desearts, wilflife, so it means a bit of everything.

- Occassionally will shoot video also and expect it to be good.

- I would not like to go beyond 700$.

- Not sure, if I plan to choose a photography class sometime later, will it require to have DSLR ?

- Wifi, GPS not required.


I am new to this field and so many reviews?posts confused me. I would really appreciate if experts can suggest me what would be better according to my preferences. Hope I am clear in, what I expect.

Once I get some suggestions for few cameras, I will research more on them. Please suggest.


Thanks

Abhishek


 

#2
Given your description, the target system could indeed be mirrorless although price-wise there isn't really much of a difference.

Landscape  AND wildlife will stretch things on the budget side though - essentially this means either a double lens kit or a 'super zoom' to cover the necessary range. 700$ will be low end everywhere then I'm afraid.

 

If it has to be below 700$ - there are some Nikon D3200 double kits for that price out there.

The old Pansonic G5 is also very affordable (because the G6 is coming).

 

The best value for money deal (by far) that I spotted was a Canon EOS 60D + Canon 18-135mm for 900$. 135mm are quite short for wildlife though. The 70D is on the horizon which is why the price is so low here. This one is rather big though.

 

If you ask me what I would do - forget about the tele and start with the base kit. The Nikon 1 V2 and Panasonic G6 would be a good start then.

 

A photography class should be fine with with any system unless the teacher is a dumbass.
#3
Thanks Klaus for taking time and reply.

D3200 is excellent camera, but I was avoiding this range (DSLR) because of weight. This is 763.65gm in weight. Same is  Canon EOS 60D.

As suggested by you, Nikon 1 V2 and Panasonic G6 seems to be promising to me and would include in my choices.

 

How about these choices --

 

Samsung NX10

Samsung NX300

Sony NEX5N or NEX5R or NEX3N

Sony RX100

Panasonic LF1

Sony DSLT A58

Nikon 1 V2

Panasonic G6

RX100 (It is compact, so I know after some time, I will have less scope to expermient and play)

Any other ?

 

Please suggest me what you or any other expert think on this.

#4
It depends a bit on your shooting habits.

For the outdoors (especially in the desert scenario you mentioned) I would prefer to have a viewfinder - either electronic or optical.

 

As for Samsung - die NX10 is really old and has a noisy sensor. Thus it should be the NX20 here with its significantly improved 20mp sensor. Samsung has a really nice system but it struggles to gain traction in the marketplace. I'm not sure what to make of this.

 

If you think you can survive without viewfinder you may add the Panasonic GX1 - which is very cheap at the moment. 

 

In your list I would vote for the V2 or G6.

#5
Nikon V1 and G6 doesn't have small sensor ? Does it matters, specially in concern to low light and wide angle ?



Many of the reviews suggested that we it is good to not to choose less than APS-C. What do you say on this ?

I will read more about NX20 and GX1, as you suggested these ones.

#6
The V1/V2/G6 have a relatively small sensor, yes. But then the lenses tend to be small and lighter.

There is always a trade-off. PERSONALLY I do no hesitate to use the Panasonic GH3 (the G6 is similar) for my private photography sessions.

 

The G6 sensor is pretty good up to about ISO 800. The V2 to ISO 400. 

The 16mp Sony sensors (NEX) may scratch ISO 1250 in terms of decency. 

This depends, of course, all on your pain point. I think I'm rather critical.

 

If you want the best sensor there is up to APS-C, then we are talking about Fuji. The upcoming Fuji X-M1 is slightly beyond your pricing corridor though. The kit lens could be better here I think (not tested yet).
#7
Hi Abhishek

 

I have a NEX-5 and for me it has a good value. It is small, so you can put it in a small bag. I had a DSLS(A700) before and it was a nice camera but very bulky.

 

What I now really miss on a camera without it is the tilt screen. I shoot most of my photos form the hip because the shake is reduces very much and the perspective is more interesting too. The tilt screen is helping too for the sun reflections. One of the NEX-5 advantages is that it is not gotten that serious so people are more relaxed. ;-)

 

I'm using Rawtherapee and you can use many difference demosaic algorithms with it. Foe example lmmse and igv are producing much better high ISO images. In my opinion the discussing if Fuji is better at high ISO is more about demosaic algorithms than about sensor performance.

 

But in the end I would recommend the RX100. It is so small, has RAW and the image quality is good enough for many use cases. Maybe there are limits at the wide angle and the tele but you will get the camera much more often with you. So it is a tradeoff.

 

Actually I don't believe that you will do anything wrong with a m43 or APS-C mirror less.

#8
Quote:Hi All,


I m not a professional photographer, but I love to click photos. I have been using my Lumix point and shoot from past 3 years. Now I want to change it and willing to upgrade it. I have been reading lot of posts on dpreview and somwhat confused about, what should be better for me.

I would have love to take DSLR, but only reason which is pushing me back is its bulkyness and weight.

From past few days, I was reading about MILC and if I am understanding correctly, those will be less weighted but still give high quality of images.


My preferences will be --

- I love to travel and really walk for long sometimes. So, DSLR may not be suitable for me to hang it in my neck and roam around whole day. I am not looking for compact, but not as heavy as DSLR's.

- My photography will not be in actions or it doesn't require very fast capturing.

- I would definitely like to have some control on fuctions and can play and experiment with them.

- Much of time, I will be clicking landscpaes, family, gathering, mountains, desearts, wilflife, so it means a bit of everything.

- Occassionally will shoot video also and expect it to be good.

- I would not like to go beyond 700$.

- Not sure, if I plan to choose a photography class sometime later, will it require to have DSLR ?

- Wifi, GPS not required.


I am new to this field and so many reviews?posts confused me. I would really appreciate if experts can suggest me what would be better according to my preferences. Hope I am clear in, what I expect.

Once I get some suggestions for few cameras, I will research more on them. Please suggest.


Thanks

Abhishek
 

Going into a totally different direction, what about a bridge camera?

 

The Panasonic LUMIX FZ72 bridge camera with 60x zoom was just announced: http://www.panasonic.co.uk/html/en_GB/12...index.html

 

What is interesting there is the 20mm (FF equivalent) starting focal length, which is getting into the ultrawide-angle area, so it

would give a good starting range for landscape, while at the tele end it is 1200mm (ff equivalent), which gives you the range

for wild-live that you are looking for. In addition it can to RAW file format. You will never find such a focal range on a larger sensor interchangeable body, and any system with multiple lenses, even mirrorless will start to add up. Of course, you will loose the advantage of the larger sensors, i.e. better control over DOF, and better sensitivity/less noise at higher ISO.

 

With respect to size/weight, ultimately it boils down to sensor size. Any mirror-less that has an APS-C sized sensor (like Samsung) gains it weight/size savings from eliminating the mirror box, and a reduced flange distance, which allows construction of lenses that are smaller and more compact in the wide-angle range.

 

A nice comparison you could do is compare the 

Canon 100D (arguably the smallest/lightest dSLR), with a Canon 10-22 UWA lens, and the 18-55 IS STM kit

with the

EOS-M, and the new EOS-M 11-22 IS STM lens and the EOS-M 18-55 IS STM kit.

This is the savings you can gain from getting rid of the mirror box.  At the long end, for wildlife, a Canon 100-400 L lens will be pretty much the same on both bodies.

 

So, the only way to reduce weight/size at the tele range is to go with a smaller sensor, it's basically digital cropping.

So, the m43 with its 2x crop factor, a smaller lenses will (apparently) give you the same reach as a bigger lens on a bigger sensor, i.e. a 200mm will give you the same field of view as a 400mm on FF (and obviously the 200mm is much smaller).

But this only holds true, as long as both sensor have similar MPs, e.g. 20Mp.  If the full frame camera had the same pixel size as the m43, you simply could crop the FF to get the same effect (e.g. if the FF camera would be 80 Mp, while the m43 would be 20Mp).    The smaller the sensor, the more noise issues. Further, you can't continue to cramp more pixels on a smaller sensor, there are physical limitations.

 

So, all it boils down to is finding a good compromise. maybe m43 is the best compromise for you at present, but maybe something like the bridge camera I mentioned above might suit you too.
#9
Yesterday evening to best buy and tried different cameras. When I went into DSLR section, it was really trying to change my mind to adopt one of them. Pictures were sharp and they had some kind of (visible) depth in their picture. That was looking more natural in comparison to other compact cameras. Even high end compact camera like NEX series was not giving that natural depth of picture. I don't know, technically what this term is called. DSLR was giving a very natuiral picture, but clear, whereas other compact camera were giving picture as it is sharp fine, but more painted. Is this difference only visible on LCD of camera, or on real picture also this kind of difference will be there ? Or am I just feeling it because I am impressed with term "DSLR" :-) ?

 

I checked few other cameras there. I checked about Panasonic LUMIX FZ72 but they didn't knew its price. RX100 is out of my list. They didn't had Canon EOS-M, but I think it is not closer to Canon 100D. Am I thinking correctly ? Prices are far different.

#10
Actually the NEX and the DSLR from Sony(and other manufactures like Nikon) have the some sensors. So maybe there was a different lens on the DSLR. But the kit lenses are very similar. I think you should relax and wait some days. There is no camera which is perfect, there are always trade offs.

  


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