Hi everyone!
Today I went on a walk in a park and had a lot of fun trying to find interesting angles and subjects to snap a pic with my phone. I really loved walking around "with the eye of a photographer" and wanted to hear your recommendations on what would be a good first buy geared towards my interests. While the pictures were satisfactory from my OnePlus 12, I am aware that they would never rival the quality of bigger sensors/lenses.
I owned one DSLR back in the days but never got the interest of playing in the manual and semi-manual modes.
My ideal camera would be one relatively simple to operate but offering good specs that would make computer touch-ups (cropping, colours, balance, etc) as I think that my interest will be on detecting good capture opportunities more than finding optimal camera settings.
My guess is an entry level DSLR/mirrorless would be interesting to explore different lenses?
The products will probably be computer wallpapers (4k HDR screens) and I would love to prioritize the crispiness/resolution.
As I don't plan to do more than play with it from time to time, I am looking in the sub 1.5k $ area (new or used)
TL;DR: Looking for a worthwhile step-up from a cellphone to capture crisp wallpapers of nature/sceneries. +-1500$ new/used.
If you'd like a bigger sensor in a compact, maybe the Ricoh GRiii. It has a fixed lens, but for street photography it is absolutely brilliant at what it does while still being truly pocketable.
For landscapes and nature you'd likely want swappable lenses, water resistance, and things that let you take nice vistas, which means it'll be unlikely to be as convenient as your phone.