What camera do I buy? / general gear talk

Fuck DSLRs. Get a cat instead!

Do you have any photografic experience?
If not, your pictures probably won't be any better on a DSLR - however, if it encourages you to take more pictures and practice then by all means go for it.
You really can't go wrong with anything from Canon or Nikon.

What do you want to do with it ? What do you find limiting about your current (phone ?) camera ?

If you want full frame, the Canon 5D could be a good entry point. It's cheap, has great colours and noise, less good in low light though.

If you want something small to carry around, the Ricoh GR series has good reputation. Get the best one you can afford.

So it’s sort of backwards I know, but I’ve got an Olympus OM-10 that I’ve been using for a year or so and my phone for anything digital, and I’d like something that takes nice photos but doesn’t involve the faff of getting film developed all the time.

You could get a grey market D3300 body new on eBay pretty cheap and use the 35mm 1.8.

A word of warning though ... I swear my iPhone actually takes better pictures in low light (maybe because of the shorter focal length lens and therefore less shake?).

Do you check the iPhone photos on a big screen? Most low light photos looks good on a phone, less so when you look at them @ 100%

Not bigger than 15” really.

What do mean by "nice photos"?
I'd argue that a DSLR will not let you take nicer photos.
You'd getter more shallow depth of field, depending on the lens you use and high iso-performance might improve, but it will not make your photos any better, that's up to you.
I'd invest the money in a nice prime for your Olympus instead. Something like the 17mm or 25mm f1.8.

But if you're hell bent on a DSLR a Nikon D3XXX with a 35mm f1.8 is great bit of kit.

I think the standard answer seems to be a Nikon D3200 (or whatever the newer model is if it's cheap) and the 35mm f1.8 prime.

Pretty cheap package with a nice fast lens and scope for playing around with manual settings, etc.

Cheers, I’ll take a look around

As an alternative option I'd have a look at the Olympus OM-D E-M5/10 series. You should be able to get an original M5 or M10 second hand with a lens for about £300.
I've got the original M5 and love it.

Generally though, anything from Nikon, Canon, Olympus, Panasonic, Sony or Fuji should be more than enough for your needs.

I'd have a look at the Olympus OM-D E-M5/10 series.

@maxmurmann considering the level of info you decide to come out with regarding what you actually want to do with the thing and what your budget is this is actually a great suggestion.
If you like using your analog Olympus camera you can get one of those digital ones - and use the lenses you already have using an adapter.

One of the entry-level Canon or Nikon DSLRs would be something different - they 're affordable, and usually come bundled with a stock (zoom) lens that's actually quite good.
I think you have to wrap your head around that the fact that there's 1000 cameras these days that can give you "good pictures". It's mostly about a different a kind of shooting between iPhone, mirrorless, compact, DSLR etc.
The way you pose the question suggests that you don't have any demanding / special sort of use in mind, so, frankly, quite "everything" will do as long as it's a somewhat modern and versatile piece of equipment.

Using 35mm lenses on M4/3 is only good if you want a front-heavy, long focal length option. Using old lenses on APS-C or FF makes sense, as the crop factor is tolerable. On M4/3 it’s only good if you want a long lens for portrait/spying.

Good point. Any modern camera that you enjoy using will give you good pictures. I've had loads of cameras and as long as they're good enough technically the ones thats given me the best shots are the cameras I most enjoyed using, even if some tech specs are lesser than on other cameras.

The Fuji XE1 is the exemption though. It ticked all the boxes for me, liked the looks, the ergonomics and the images it could produce when everything worked, but I never got along with the auto focus so sold it on after a while. I missed too many good shots with it

AF and shutter lag is a real issue with CSC’s (and compact digitals in general) for me. I find that for all their benefits there is so much going on, that the focus and shutter lag is noticeably longer than even a basic DSLR.

I guess it depends on usage. I've never really had a problem with autofocus on any of the cameras I've owned, bar two. A Canon M10* which was generally terrible and forever hunted; and a Pentax ZX5 from the earlier days of film af whose af motor drowned out passing cars.

*I normally get on with most cameras, but the Canon M10 is the worst I've used. Ergonomics of a bar of soap with very flimsy build quality, on top of the AF problems.

OMD EM1 pisses on most DSLRs for focus speed, DOF and low light ability due to in camera stabilisation. I'm talking 1 second exposures on 28mm equivalent.

The only DSLR I have tried that was close was the A99 but it is like 2k and still slow to focus, unless you have modern in lens focusing glass (I didn't)

https://www.newsshooter.com/2018/09/28/zeiss-zx1-full-frame-compact-with-built-in-adobe-lightroom/

now that is good

this is better, and equally surprising https://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2018/09/25/fujifilm-surprises-with-gfx-100mp-development-announcement

Fucking hell that is one ugly camera!

Seems a bit pointless. Screen size and resolution is lower than the vast majority of mobiles which you're almost certainly going to have with you.

Hooking the camera up to the phone through USB C would be an interesting idea, could potentially be fast enough to use the phone to edit images whilst they remain on the camera.

Seems a bit pointless

Seems like you could learn a thing or two about sensor sizes, and check out what a full frame sensor can deliver compared to the vast majority of mobiles which you're almost certainly going to have with you.

I am assuming @aggi is saying, that to buy a whole new system, instead of using your current camera, along with an iPhone for editing is pointless, rather than saying the camera itself is not as good as an iPhone ?