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Which camera should I buy for a first timer

SalahYousef
Apprentice

Hello everyone. This is my first post here. I am a 22 year old student at a college majoring in electronics and communications. Soon as am done with college am moving to a film school to learn about filmmaking. However, right now am educating myself with filmography and video shots by reading books. The only thing left for me is buying a camera. Which camera do you guys recommend me buy for a first timer ? Same thing with accessories. My budget is 1000 USD

 

 

Many people in other forums recommened the Canon T3i

 

Do you guys think I shoud start with a camcorder or a DSLR for a starter who wants to learn filmography?

3 REPLIES 3

Mykolas
Authority

Hi SalahYousef!

 

Thank you for posting!

 

If you will only be shooting video, a camcorder may be the better route.  However, if you intend to shoot still images at any point as well, a DSLR is a good way to go.

 

The EOS Rebel series models are great for your budget.  The EOS Rebel T5i is our most recent model.  The standard kit averages around $899.  The EOS Rebel T3i is not a bad recommendation at all if you want to go that route.  The kit averages about $599, so this would give you some room in the budget to spare for additional accessories, such as more lenses.

 

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TCampbell
Elite
Elite

This is a slightly complicated question.

 

A camcorder is specifically designed for video.  But a DSLR camera is designed for still image and can also shoot video.

 

But there is one reason why video users are extremely interested in DSLRs... and that has to do with the lenses.

 

There's a massive number of lenses available for DSLR cameras on the market.  For many camcorders, you lens isn't removeable -- the lens it comes with is all you get.  For those with removeable lenses, the selection is limited and they tend to be expensive (economies of scale).  If you want to draw a viewer's attention to a subject by using selective focus, then you'd want a narrow depth of field and draw to the focus to your object of interest within the frame... there are many lenses for DSLR cameras that can do that.  But with a camcorder, your ability to create strong out-of-focus areas is more limited due to the lenses.

 

So... apart from the lenses (but that's a _really_ big deal), just about everything else about a camcorder is better for shooting video.

 

When displaying video digitally, a 1080p image is 1920x1080 -- or about 2 megapixels.  All the recent Rebel bodies can record 18 megapixel images (for still photos).  This means the camera has to resample the image for video purposes.  The sensor wasn't really designed for that non-stop extended recording use and it can get hot.  Hot can mean noise in the image.  Camcorders are designed for extended recording and tend to not get hot.  

 

Watch any high-end film and count the number of seconds before you see the camera angle change.  You'll likely notice that the angle is changing faster than every 10-15 seconds.  It changes all the time.  A 30 second clip would be _really_ long.  They tend to take lots of short clips and weave them together to make a story.  The need to shoot a birthday party whilst walking around with a camera for 20 or 30 minutes in one really really long clip just isn't done in a pro video world.

 

If you do decide to go with a DSLR, I'd nudge you toward the T5i because of it's hybrid AF system and ability to exploit full-time auto-focus (although in pro video you may find yourself doing manual focus more often then you might guess) with the silent focus motors of the new STM lenses that are so quiet the in-camera microphone cannot detect any noise from them.

 

The 70D also promises to be a very good camera for video but has not yet started shipping (pre-orders are available) -- but it's also out of your price range.

 

Tim Campbell
5D III, 5D IV, 60Da

jenny
Apprentice

Hi,

 

I was also thinking which camera to buy and which suits best for me. Then one of my friend adviced me not to ask anybody, first you decide.I decided and bought entry level Nikon DSLR.

 

Read the article in the blog:

http://www.naturephotographysimplified.com/tips-and-tutorials/which-camera-to-buy-dslr-point-and-sho...

 

It helped me a lot. Hopelfully you also like and buy the camer au like 🙂

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