Photography

If you want to mess with different lenses, then yes. a DLSR or mirrorless camera will be the way to go. If you stick with it you will ultimately wind up spending more on lenses than the camera body itself. Don't sweat this too much; it's inevitable, and if you're careful you can keep your lens collection when you move to your next camera. An interchangeable lens camera of some sort will also allow you to engage in that most quintessential of hipster activities, fucking around with pinholes and tilt-shift bendy jigs and mount adapters and vintage glass, and all the other things that are emphatically not current model OEM lenses explicitly designed to work with your camera.

The only other option is to go with an point-and-shoot camera with an integrated lens. Since last time I looked (my last point-and-shoot was a Canon SX130 IS which I still have, and is so old it runs off of two AA cells), these have mutated significantly now that people's smartphone cameras have unequivocally dominated the market niches that used to be occupied by entry level happy snap cams, wind-up disposables, and so forth. Basically all of the point-and-shoots left standing are either novelty instant photo printer cameras or prosumer models offering significant zoom ranges if any of that is your jam, both of these being things that cell phone cameras still can't do.

But this also means they're not exactly cheap.

If you're dedicated to humping a big camera around anyway, a smallish mirrorless body is probably the way to go. Don't feel bad about whipping out your phone camera anyway, for certain subjects. I still do it all the time, even when I have my big camera dangling around my neck — usually because I have some manner of goddamned photohowitzer attached to it and I need to take a picture of something that's not half a mile away or I need a wide angle field of view for something. As Call of Duty taught us all, switching to your sidearm is faster than ~~reloading.~~ Er, swapping lenses.

For a step up, a compact camera without interchangeable lenses is rhe first place to look. You get real benefit from an electronic viewfinder EVF. As you get a clear view even in bright sunlight. But it costs more. There are 1" sensors that produce photos of reasonable quality. These keep the price and size down. It's not necessary to go to the next sensor size up, micro43 or APSC. But that would be the next step. Along with interchangeable lenses. A DSLR doesn't have any benefit over mirrorless and just adds bulk to make you leave it at home more.

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.

For wallpapers you don’t need high res, 4K is 8MP and 8K is 32MP (your phone should have 50 Megapixel). I don’t think you would see any improvement with cheap cameras, which will always be more burdensome to bring with you than your phone. If you want to open yourself to big step up in quality, go full frame with good used lenses. Crispness is given by the lens, not the sensor. There are new ~1000€ full frame cameras that are really good: Nikon Z5 II (stills focused) and Canon R8 (faster sensor, better for video but other downsides) are the best value. With used lenses you could keep the kit price pretty low.

I bought my first camera a few years ago, so I can give you the advice others have told me. The lens is more important than the camera, and it’s good to get into a decent lens ecosystem. I personally use a ZVE-10 (even though I mainly do photo, as it was significantly cheaper than the A6400 in my region. Lack of EVF sucks though, so I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone that only wants to do photo)

If you want to go for the Sony ecosystem, the a6400 is a good pick. Lots of people also like the a6300 (older version of a6400), a6100 (older entry-level camera), and the a6000 (another older camera).

For E-mount lenses, good general-pirpose zooms would be the Sigma 18-50mm f2.8 and the Tamron 17-70mm f2.8. The Sigma primes are very sharp, but lots of people also like the more affordable TTArtisans and Viltrox lenses that are almost, if not equally, as sharp.

If you prefer the Canon ecosystem, you could either go with a DLSR (bigger and heavier, but usually cheaper) or mirrorless (lighter, but a bit more expensive). I don’t know much about it though, so I can’t tell you anything more than that.

There’s also Nikon, Fujifilm, and the L-mount alliance, but I don’t know much about any of them all too much.

I remember someone told me that Sony has great AF, Canon and Nikon both have good colours, Fujifilm has film simulations + more retro control dials/design, and L-mount is a shared mount between Panasonic, Olympus/OM System, and Leica (so you can mix and match lenses and cameras between those three) and also give you M43 (sensor is smaller than APS-C, but more compact lenses). If you go with any of those ecosystems you’ll be fine, they all make good cameras.

Depending when back in the day ways for you, be prepared for higher prices. On the other hand, the gear these days is great. If you're not going to be shooting fast scenes, most bodies will do nicely. Pick up a sharp prime and you'll be off running. From a purist shooting experience, primes are pretty freeing. A prime will also get the added bonus of primes having good optics and most of them have low night performance.

At your budget, I would suggest used gear. There's nothing wrong with DSLRs if you won't be shooting dynamic scenes, but mirrorless have very nice focusing algorithms these days. Coming from Nikon, I would recommend a D7x00 series body and a prime or three. If you want to go mirrorless, Sony has a very deep back catalog of glass. The A7III is still a great camera and can be had at a pretty good price on the used market, which will leave you with space for a nice lens or two.

I posted this a month ago, but it seems to apply here.

First, the best camera in the world is the one you have on you. Have an urge? Take the photo with what ya got, even if that is your phone. On the other hand, try to be more intentional about bringing your camera with you when you venture into the world. This will probably take finding the right lens and overall package size, but I bring my camera and a compact lens with me on most family activities as a result.

Second, for well lit subjects that aren't moving much and aren't that far away modern cellphones are generally fine. Yeah, a dedicated camera with a fast lens can create a nicer looking background if you're simply sharing photos on the web it's not going to matter a ton. Don't get discouraged if this is the kind of photography you prefer.

A dedicated camera will blow a cellphone out of the water in a couple key areas. Those include:

• focus speed and control. Even with my old Nikon D40 and D5300 I feel way more confident in my ability to get focus where I want it than either my work iPhone 15 or my personal OnePlus 12. Modern mirrorless are in a league of their own, especially when you pair them with a lens that can keep up with their focusing algorithms
• the ability to capture sharp photos of things in motion thanks to more light gathering, which lets you use faster shutter speeds
• low light. I'm shooting full frame these days and with a fast lens I have no problem hand holding and taking photos of human subjects in really low light conditions
• interchangeable lenses. A long telephoto will give you way better results than a cellphone digitally zooming
• burst rates. Not all dedicated cameras have nuts frame rates, but a portion do. This makes it really easy to capture the precise moment. Yes, cellphones can do this too but since they're sacrificing light their image quality might not be great

Four examples where I adore my gear:

1. I am the unofficial team photographer for my kids' youth sports teams. They're both currently doing baseball. I can sit at the end of the backstop fence, about 100 or so feet from home plate, and fill the frame with the kids batting. Thanks to high burst rates I can basically guarantee a photo of the ball hitting and just leaving the bat
2. We hang out at a lot of museums and go to night events like zoo lights. My gear lets me get great sharp photos, without blur from my family moving around, thanks to a mix of modern camera sensors being fairly low noise, fast glass, and shooting full frame
3. My older kid did a figure skating show this spring. I rented a 70-200 f/2.8 and was really impressed by the photos it was able to capture. Excellent focusing, kids filling the frame, basically no noise, tack sharp photos
4. Absolute control over exposure and a very easy shooting experience makes it a lot easier to get cool shots, like panning photos at a racetrack or even a panning shot of my kid on their bike

Happy shooting! If you have questions, make another post!