“Which camera should I buy?”

We get asked this same simple question often but unfortunately the answer can be rather complex or riddle with many questions back to the person asking. There are plenty of great options out there but the recommendations that I am going to give is what I would buy. I like to shoot with a very low depth of field (blur/bokeh from foreground to background – Bokeh has been defined as “the way the lens renders out-of-focus points of light”) and I often shoot photos and video at night. Whenever possible my recommendation would be to purchase a lens with f/2.8 or lower but many times those lenses we be a fixed focal length.. meaning that they do have zoom at all but I typically say that you can ‘zoom with your legs’ 🙂

Best DSLR + Lens Setup under $1500

Canon EOS 77D Body

(you may want to get the 18-55mm lens option… it’s not as high quality but has a zoom, whereas the lenses below will not have a zoom but are higher quality) This DSLR has one of Canon’s better APS-C sensors and has a really amazing Dual Pixel autofocus system.

+ Canon 50mm F/1.8 Lens

+ Canon EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM Lens w/ Tiffen Polarizer Filter

Best Mirrorless (light weight) Setup under $1500

Sony Alpha a6300 Mirrorless Digital Camera with 16-50mm Lens

This Sony is a very fast focusing camera that shoots in 4K and is much lighter and smaller than DSLR’s. The ISO range goes all the way up to 51200, 24.2mp and 11 frames per second. The specs are very impressive and so is the price.

Or save about $300 and pick up the slightly older: Sony Alpha a6000 Mirrorless Digital Camera with 16-50mm Power Zoom Lens

+ Sony SEL35F18 35mm f/1.8 Prime Fixed Lens

Other great options:

Best Point & Shoot Cameras under $500:

All the camera’s below I recommend and they all are a bit different from each other so it more depends on what you want to use your camera for. The top two are probably the best overall especially if you want to take pictures in low light without a flash but they do not have a flip up screen for ‘selfie’ photo and video.

$448 great in low light, compact, Carl Zeiss lens, great zoom

Sony DSC-RX100/B 20.2 MP Exmor CMOS Sensor Digital Camera with 3.6x Zoom

$399 great in low light, great zoom, image stabilization (helps with shaky video)

Canon PowerShot G9 X Digital Camera with 3x Optical Zoom, Built-in Wi-Fi and 3 inch LCD (Black)

$447 with Leica Lens (does 4K video & very sharp but not as good in low light as the Sony)

Panasonic LUMIX DMC-ZS60 Camera, 18 Megapixels, 1/2.3-inch Sensor, 4K Video, WiFi, Leica DC Lens 30X F3.3-6.4 Zoom (Silver)

$367 Screen flips up for selfie mode – huge zoom but just OK in low light

Nikon COOLPIX A900 Digital Camera (Black)

$380 shoots 20 Pictures Per Second & you can replace the lens later, bigger & just OK in low light

Nikon 1 J5 Digital Camera w/ NIKKOR 10-30mm f/3.5-5.6 PD Zoom Lens – Silver (Certified Refurbished)

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#77d #a6000 #a6300 #K-70 #Product Recommendations