What camera do I buy? / general gear talk

My daughter is interested in photography, so as a gift for finishing primary school I want to buy her a camera.

She already has an old point and shoot, but much prefers using my Canon DSLR. So, I am thinking of getting her her own. It will be second hand and I've been looking at LCE, but it's been so long since I've bought any camera gear that I don't know what I should be looking at.

Ideally it'll be another Canon, so she can use my lenses in the future and budget is £250-£300 including a basic lens.

Any suggestions?

You can probably get cheaper than that if you want. I brought a Nikon D60 with 18-55mm kit lens for £160 from Cex. Sure it's eight years old and 10Mp but it still takes great pictures.

I doubt you'll get a bad Canon in your price range. I guess make sure it has a fully auto mode so she can use that to start ?

Yeah, you can definitely get something decent for less than that.

Just scanning eBay and there seems to be the occasional 650D which goes for that kind of money. Great camera and has a tilty-flippy touch screen that makes live view a doddle.

That said, any of the xxxD line would be perfect, imo. All very robust and more than capable.
Also consider a 550D, which is a couple of revisions older but same sensor minus the articulating touch screen.

I still keep a 450D from 2008 as a backup/knock-about and the thing just won't break.

Good to know, thanks. I'll get searching.

Any of the options above would be good. However, you can also pick up a Canon 5D mk I for that top end of your price. They are still good cameras.

Still dithering over a digital camera purchase. Wanted compact, 40 or 50mm (35mm equiv) lens and a viewfinder for around £200.

No viewfinder, but I can pick up a second hand Nikon 1 mirrorless/system compact body and a new 18.5mm lens (50mm equiv) for not much over £200.

Anyone tried mirrorless/system compacts ?

Put off from the Nikon 1 due to the small sensor size. Ended up buying a new Canon EOS M10, which at £280 seemed very good value compared to others in that price range.
After testing it out on my cats, pretty happy so far

after a bit of research, think i might pull the trigger on an rx100 mark 1 or 2. @MattG87 how are you finding it ?

I picked up a second hand RX100 a few months ago, liking it so far.

One annoying thing is the weird pulsing on continuous autofocus. Even though it's focused it seems to move in and out of focus on the monitor, makes it difficult to get shots of anything that's moving.

Is that using the ring around the lens to manually focus or is that just on later models ?

You can, I'm not a fan of it myself but it works OK. Other autofocus modes work fine, it's just the continuous that does that. It seems the issue is that it's constantly focusing which causes the screen to reflect that even though it has focused.

okay, think i'll go for it still, not seen many of the mark II so will go for a mark I

I don't regret buying it. Don't think the difference between I and ii is worth the extra price

I picked up an RX100 Mk3 in the Amazon Prime sale (thanks for the heads-up @ObiWomKenobi). Unfortunately, I haven't really used the camera much yet, but my first impressions are positive! The image quality of the RAW files is good, and as a pocketable camera its perfect for touring.

Yeah the ability to be able to fit it in my pocket wherever I go is a massive positive.

Does RX100 (Up to mark 3) stand well against top-end modern smartphone cameras? iPhone 7, OnePlus5 etc.

Have read this article , however, I have a 5s with a less superior camera compared to 7 etc.

I don't think raw image quality for photos shot in ideal conditions has changed that much in the past few years for how most people display their photos. I half suspect that any camera that's >10Mp will do for showing on a monitor/ the internets.

I bought an ageing Lumix LX5 a few days ago (released seven years ago), and I don't have any issues with image quality compared to a two year old iPhone 6S+

What you want to buy a dedicated camera for is manual control over the camera (over and above what VSCO etc can do for smartphones), differing focal lengths and better low light performance.

differing focal lengths

RX100 wins

and better low light performance

But does it?

If done purely on sensor size, then the RX100 should be better than a smartphone. The RX100 is 1" ? The iPhone 7 1/3" ?

The RX100 also has f1.8 at the widest compared to the iPhone's f2.2

Fair enough, only asking because I was massively impressed by image quality of oneplus 5 camera on the recent trip. Only thing I missed a bit was variable focal length.

Although it can shoot RAW the JPGs do come across a bit 'overworked' within the camera software.

Before the trip I was contemplating a compact camera to carry in jersey pocket (RX100) hence the question.

Would like a mark II for wifi options but think I'm going to just buy one of these for those instagrams on the go ;)

If you just want a point and shoot in your jersey pocket a smartphone is fine I think.
Dedicated camera if you want to shoot film and/or want more manual control over the camera's functions, differing focal lengths etc.

Yeah it worked out perfectly while cycling (and watching the tour) .. took my X-Pro 1 which only came out of the bag once or twice during a 10 day trip.

I find something like an RX100 is also much more consistent than pictures on a phone. Phone camera seems to have a greater chance of out of focus, under/over exposure, over-processed, etc whereas what comes out of the camera is more often what you expect.