Entry-Level DSLR's these days are pretty incredible bits of kit, and for someone exactly AT the entry level, bang on the money!
DSLR, stands for Digital-Single-Lens-Reflex; the SLR bit has been around an awful long time, and it's a carryover from Film-SLR, cameras where the SLR refers essentially to a periscope widget that lets you look through a view finder that looks through the same lens as takes the picture on film, or on a silicon sensor.
The advantages of an SLR are rather debatable. Main one, and why they became popular for interchangeable lens 'system' cameras was that what you see is what you get; so with different lenses, you see what they see; other types of camera, if you could change lenses, you had to change both the taking lens and the view finder lens, or you had to change framing screens in the view finder, or 'something'. The SLR made it easier and simpler to use, and only needing one lens, could make it cheaper to use multiple lenses. Though they do have disadvantages too...
When 'direct to digital' first came along, the cameras were expensive, and didn't deliver particularly great image quality for it. They were convenient though. But, with an LCD preview screen on the back to show you what the lens was putting on the digital sensor, in 'real time', as well as or instead of a view finder, I for one, certainly had to ask what 'actually' was the real point of a D-SLR, when 'compact' digital cameras often offered an integrated zoom lens, that covered certainly my most used range of focal length, and gave the same WYSIWYG viewfinder composition via the LCD screen without the convoluted mechanics and bulk of the mirror and pentaprism periscope, just making them even more expensive...
So I for one didn't bother with them until about 5 years ago. I continued using film, and scanned to digital, if I wanted quality, and I used a succession of digital compacts for carry-about convenience. It wasn't until about 5 years ago, when last of the line of digi-compacts finally died, I gave DSLR a chance. AND, significantly because the camera phone, and cheaper entry level DSLR's had between them, squashed the 'compact' market into a tiny little market segment and price range; to the point they almost don't exist any more. And what we have left in that arena is bridge cameras, that are often neither compact, nor a 'real' DSLR, and whose main virtue is being a 'bit' cheaper than a DSLR and a 'bit' better than a camera phone, but often frustratingly neither-nor.
The CSC or 'Mirrorless' cameras, are 'sort of' the obvious answer to my question of two decades ago... in digital, WHY do you actually need a periscope view-finder, when you have a screen looking through the lens? And five years ago, they were top of my look at list. Real interchangeable lenses, as opposed to a built in 'zoom', offers the sort of versatility of an SLR and lack of periscope keeps them compact.. if not so cheap...
In the days of only film, cameras like the Leica range finders, lived in an esoteric world along side high end SLR's, for more discerning enthusiasts,who would appreciate the more compact camera body and better optics allowed by a design less compromised for that through the lens view finder, and that IS sort of where Mirrorless or CSC cameras are hanging now. They aren't particularly 'cheap', and whilst they may have the versatility of interchangeable lenses, being by far the less common, those lenses are also not so cheap, whilst the range of available lenses damps the versatility some-what compared to what may be available to fit a DSLR.
To my mind, they may be fantastic cameras, and I can see every point for buying one... but, they are a camera for a more discerning enthusiast who already knows how to get the most from one, they are not a camera for a newby learning the craft, really.
Which brings us back to the entry level DSLR's... which, are, as said, bang on the money, THE thing for any-one at that entry level! and probably a lot more, well beyond it if truth be told! And for remarkeably little, if any, extra money, lift you out of the compromises imposed on Bridge cameras to be neither-nor, and access all the versatility DSLR's offer.
As said, I bought mine, in my case a Nikon D3200, about five years ago. It was a tad over £300 at the time, which was where I got to moving ever up the market away from consumer compacts, and into Bridge cameras, and back down to, from looking at CSC/Mirrorless....
I am far from at the entry level... I STILL HAVE IT, and have absolutely NO impulse to 'upgrade' the thing to something newer, or 'better' or higher up the ranges!... Oh-Kay, you got me.... I do.. the tugg of Gadget Acquisition Syndrome, is strong, and after buying another lens each year to get the same sort or range of focal lengths I have for film cameras, the 'What Next?' question has had me looking at better bodies, or going full-frame, or or or... opportunities to waste money are enormous!!!!!! BE WARNED.
BOTTOM LINE:- The entry level DSLR I have does everything I need, and being brutally honest, MOST of that with the 18-55 'kit' lens! compared to my old film cameras it is just amazing, how much is packed into that little bit of plastic. I mean, the kit 18-55 lens isn't particularly amazing, BUT, it's the equivilent of a 27-82mm lens on a film SLR, which is a greater zoom range, than any of the 'short' zooms I had/have for film, and covers the range of three 'prime' lenses for my old M42 film cameras; 28mm, 50mm & 80mm. Next up, the 'film'... it doesn't need any! It takes a little SD chip, and unlike film, that had a fixed ASA 'sensitivity' or 'ISO' for the 36 pictures it could take, the camera, has a variable ISO setting from ISO100 to something daft like ISO25,600!! Probably doesn't mean much to you, but way back when, if you walked in to Boots, and asked for a film, you had a choice of 100ASA, 200ASA or 400ASA... then they might ask whether you wanted Black & White or Slide, instead of colour print.... there were higher ISO films, I think that the highest I ever bought was Fuji 6400, but that was the sort of stuff you had to go into a specialist camera shop for and ask for, and they probably had to order in for you! Thing even has a built in 'flash'. Way back when that was an optional ectra; you had to carry it about with you and clamp it on the top when needed. Now, like the film, it's there at the press of a button!! OK you can still buy accessory flash-guns, and there are some good reasons you might want one.
BUT, the point is, that the modern entry Level DSLR is an amazing bit of kit, and even with the comparatively 'limited range' of just an 18-55mm zoom lens, what you get in that starter kit, IS pretty much every toy in the shop, we could have wanted, and some more to boot, 'all in' and for, comparatively very VERY little money. Just to give you an idea, I have a Olympus OM10, which in the early 1980's was vaunted as an almost 'point and shoot' easy to use SLR at the entry level. It cost, new in the shops, with a fixed 50mm prime lens, and no flash or anything else, about £90, which by Mars-Bar reckoning of inflation, would be something in the order of £600 in todays money..... as said, my Nikon cost about £300, half what the OM would have new, AND packs a flash, every 'film' that was in the shop, a zoom lens covering the range of three primes; AND it genuinely IS point and shoot friendly, where the old OM, still needed a 'bit' of know-how to get pictures... you had to focus the lens for starters!
Just as an idea of just how point and press easy to use modern DSLR's 'may' be; when my daughter started doing her GCSE photography course at school, and threatening to drown my camera, trying to take photo's of water-filled balloons bursting!!!!! I bought her her own!!!! A second hand D3100 in fact, which is pretty much identical to my own, bar a slightly lower pixel count.... I discovered her in the back garden with it, pricking water-filled balloons, and my O/H's four year old grand-daughter... taking the photo's....YES the FOUR YEAR OLD was taking pictures with the DSLR! they ARE that simple to use, you can give one to a pre-school child to operate, AND they can get some pretty interesting pictures with one!!!!
I mean it is ridiculous. OK I'm an old duffer, but I REALLY cant use my daughter's i-phone! And when she has handed it to me and asked me take a picture of her, I have been TOTALLY lost, trying to fathom out what to do.. err.. where's the button!?!?!?!?! to her it's simple and she flicks her finger accross the screen, through a couple of 'aps', whatever they are! Selects something from a menu, then says "Point and just press the 'OK' box"... sorry but does NOT seem so simple to me, used to flicking ONE switch to turn it 'on' and press one button to take a picture! WHICH is exactly how 'easy' an entry level DSLR is to operate in 'green-box' point-and-shoot mode... thing focuses itself, makes its ISO, aperture and shutter settings itself, ALL you have to do is point it at something photo-worthy and press the button. so simple a four year old can do it.
BUT.... read the manual, and on the entry level Nikons, they have a helpful 'in camera' 'guide' you can read on their pre-view screen!!!.. but read the manual, and learn where and when other 'settings' might be more useful, and even then, the auto-modes are pretty self explanatory! An icon of a head and shoulders for close up portraits; an icon of a running man for sports, one of a mountain for landscapes, that sort of thing! You can very quickly and easily start extending the cameras capability and your chances to get more better pictures, very very easily; Delve deeper as you learn, and if you want to start getting a bit ambitious, you can start using the manual modes and making your own ISO/Shutter/Aperture settings, you can even turn off the autofocus and do that manually, You may, with one of these cameras, go pretty much as far as you want into the realms of what 'high end' and 'pro level' cameras can do, as you learn where and when and why you would want to.
Like I said, I'm far from a newby, and I REALLY have little compunction to trade up for ANY feature a higher end camera may have, this one lacks... Which is likely things like a tilt preview screen, or a couple of extra programmable function buttons, to save menu hopping! The 'added' features on an awful lot of higher end cameras ARE really of very questionable merit in an awful lot of cases, and if you are a newby, who doesn't even know why you might want them, let alone why you really need them, even less, whether they'd be all that 'useful'.. it IS unnecessary.
MEGA-PIXELS!!!! This is the number of 'dots' that a cameras sensor can make to make a picture. My D3200 can put 24 million of them into one picture, which was impressive five years ago. And more recent cameras are offering what? 3o-odd Mpix? There has been something of a numbers race on this score. BUT... To all practical extents and purposes, I have had to 'shrink' every digital photo I have ever taken, since my first 1.3Mpix compact almost twenty years ago, for pretty much ANY display purpose! The screens we look at these pictures on just DONT have that many pixels themselves to show them! Latest generation of display monitors, I think are heading up to around 4Mpix or so, but most, and certainly consumer display devices like smart-phones, tablets, lap-tops, etc, rarely have much over 1Mpix, and most 'host sites' for web display will limit image size to under 1Mpix.... Big numbers in the stats look great.... and marketing men bumping the numbers up year on year to make you believe your 'old' camera is now 'sooooo' obsolete are just milking the market to a large degree.... there's a lot of things far more important than mere pixel count, like the colour depth, the low light sensitivity, and 'stuff' that make as much or more difference to the quality of the image you look at, which isn't the picture you take, but a reproduction on another device..... so anything 'better' than the screen you look at can show, is probably going to be rather wasted!
Which is where we get into the subtleties of the craft; BUT, as a learner, it really is not something you need worry about, and almost any entry level DSLR, of the last decade, is probably more than good enough. As mentioned, what, three and a bit years ago? I bought the daughter a then, probably three year old, 2nd hand D3100, which boasted a 'mere' 16Mpix compared to the 24 of my own D3200... she has just come to the end of her A-Level photography course with THAT 'old' camera; where she has been having to do far more than take a few snap-shots and upload them to a blog; and had to make large scale display prints from her images; make student video's for large screen review etc etc etc.
That old, entry level DSLR, which was a bit dated and behind the times, when I got if for her three years ago, and is now three more years 'out of date' DID NOT in any way hold her up, or handi-cap her in the challenging student excersises and exibitions she has had to do for O or a level standard work. She's been deliberating her university options, and even THERE, where she may elect to take a photography or mixed media module in part of or as the main subject of her course; that 'old' entry level DSLR will STILL, be good enough to get her an awful long way into the course, if not through it entirely... biggest worry with that camera is not whether its up to the job, at that level, but whether she'll drop it, loose it, have it nicked! Not how many features and functions it does or doesn't have....
So, if an old, and outdated and under featured 'entry' level SLR is good enough for her, a photography/media under-grad, tackling the challenges of academic exercises and exhibition, and far more than I need as a mere 'amateur' playing at it in my spare time.... REALLY, you do NOT need to start out, with the idea that you MUST upgrade; that whatever you buy now, you must grow out of, or will be made obsolete by future technology, and in a mere year or two.... I have had my entry level camera half a decade! and short of the thing getting fried, dropped, smashed or stolen, it's likely that the thing will carry on doing the job its intended for for the rest of the decade, and beyond!
What is important for you, here and now, is buying a camera that will let you do the job you have for it.... and pretty much any of the entry level DSLR's almost certainly will, so dont sweat the small stuff. Nikon & Cannon have, by far and away the largest portion of the market sewn up between them, and consequently the support for those systems is enormouse, and most competatively priced. Whether you want to find a you-tube tutorial on how to use a different metering more, or buy an accessory flash gun, or a different length lens; either make will give you the best chance to find what you want, and it will likely be most reasonably priced. Outside that, things can start to get a little more patchy, and alternative systems like Micro-four-Thirds, whilsy still popular really aren't as well supported, and can, if you start delving make life harder for you. Given that entry level Nikon & Cannon are NOT exhorbitantly priced, the small, if any, premium you'd pay for one over anything from the incumbents has to be balenced against that commonality.
So if you like the cannon, and are comfy using it.... you probably dont need to look much further or fret much harder... cough up the cash and get going... THAT is where the major differences to your results will be... in how clued up you get how diligent you are, and how ambitiouse.... NOT in the electrickery inside the box you happen to be holding..... spend more time looking THROUGH the camera, rather than AT it!
