Best DSLR Camera to buy under planned budget 50K ?

Like every budding photographer I went on a quest to find out the best DSLR Camera that I can afford. Being a 22 year old software engineer, who wants to fund his own expenses, the maximum I can afford is 50K Rupees.

How did I come to that number – 50K?

Life always has unlimited number of ifs and buts. And given my financial circumstances all I can manage is 50K. Also photography, being just a hobby and not a profession, I cannot afford the luxury of buying new models as and when they are released. So this will be just a one-time investment. Well, the starting price of a decent SLR Camera is about 30K but it’s definitely one of those old models. But don’t you think that it is not too much of a compromise at least when I am planning to use this camera for the next 5 years? And thus, out of sheer enthusiasm and greed, I decided to go for the latest camera with the most exciting features so that it won’t seem very old after a few years.

Now how do I decide what is the best I can get for this money?

It is very obvious that you select the best D-SLR to buy based on how best it fills your requirements and how much you are willing to pay for it.

The popular brands which manufacture D-SLR are:

• Canon
• Nikon
• Sony
• Fujifilm
• Olympus

I have gone only through the first three brands and hence I have no idea about the cameras of other brands. From my experience I made the following observations…

Cameras can be divided into three categories

• Beginner
• Advanced
• Professional

For the amount we are spending we will mostly get a very worthy beginner camera or an advanced camera of minimum worth.

For beginner and advanced cameras Nikon has inbuilt auto focus motor in the lens instead of the camera body. So in Nikon cameras the cost of the lens is more than the cost of the body. And therefore you must specifically look for the word “AFS” which stands for “Auto Focus” in camera lens when you are purchasing Nikkor lens.

Given the price tag, I observed that a Canon Camera with same features is priced more when compared to the cameras of other brands. That might be because the Auto focus motor is inbuilt in its body and at the same time you can buy Canon lens without motor at a cheaper price than a Nikon lens with motor which costs more.

Sony introduced the SLT Cameras in its family of Alpha products. I was confused by looking at some specifications of  SLT Camera because of the big difference in some features like continuous shots per second when compared to a D-SLR of relative price. Although SLT’s are not game changers they are considered as evolution for the world in D-SLR photography. You can read more about an SLT Camera by following this link on Differences of SLT Camera and a DSLR Camera .

Since every brand uses its own proprietary mount for lens we can use only the lens manufactured by the brand. The numbers of available lens are more for Canon and Nikon than Sony but it is not an affecting factor to go for a Sony camera as a beginner.

There are number of features to compare when you are buying a camera and obviously you will have your own doubts and clarifications, use snapsort.com to compare two SLR’s. It will show you detailed analysis of the differences in specifications between two cameras. So, based on the advantages and disadvantages of the cameras you can decide what is important for you.

My personal opinion is that it would be always good to buy a camera which got released recently because technology is improving day by day and camera released recently will have technology of present date. As an example you can look at the Expeed3 and DigiC 5 processors of Nikon and Canon which will improve the image processing significantly when compared with old Expeed2 and DigiC 4 processors.

Since we have decided on our budget it will no longer be a difficult task in choosing a D-SLR that can meet your requirements.

Nikon DSLR Choices :

Nikon has following products in its line up for the above mentioned categories

If you ask my personal suggestion, I would suggest the best order of choices in Nikon for a budget less than 50 K would be

D5200 (45K)  > D5100 (31K) > D3200 (34K)  > D3100 (28K)

Canon DSLR Choices

Canon has many products in line up based on the model as filter I have ignored many cameras and here is the final list of choices.

If you ask my personal advice, I would give following order of choices as advice if you are going to buy a Canon Camera.

EOS 650D – T4I (55K) > EOS 600D – T3I (38K) > EOS 550D – T2I (33K) > EOS 1100D – T3 (26K)

But as I mentioned earlier, The camera with same features as that of Nikon in Canon would cost little more. EOS 650D is first in cameras to have tilt view with touch screen and also featuring its latest processor Digic 5.

Though this info might not be complete it is just a try from my side to answer some of the questions I had in my mind when I wished to buy a DSLR. If you have anything more on your mind, Please do post your query below so that we can help each other and for few others it might be helpful.