I totally agree, photography can be fun and rewarding without cutting-edge gear.
A few years ago, I traveled through Norway with just a Panasonic LX10 in my pocket. It’s a truly pocketable camera with a 1-inch sensor, a surprisingly sharp lens, great contrast and color. I shot everything in RAW and edited in RawTherapee, and the results were more than satisfying. I’ve made beautiful A4 prints from those files.
The only downside? After that trip, the camera became almost unusable due to dust getting inside. Carrying it in my pants pocket, combined with the retractable zoom lens, turned out to be a dust magnet (If it meant the camera could be fully dust-sealed, I would have preferred a fixed 35mm (FF equivalent) f/1.8 lens).
Another great way to enjoy photography casually is to get an older, compact model. It shifts your mindset away from specs. Something like a (used) Panasonic GX800/GX850/GX880 (or G100 if you cant live without an EVF) with small lenses like: Panasonic Lumix 14mm f/2.5, Lumix 20mm f/1.7, Lumix 12–32mm f/3.5–5.6, Lumix 35–100mm f/4–5.6, Lumix 42.5mm f/1.7.
None of these are expensive or spec monsters, but they’re small, fun to shoot with, and very capable.
And I find that depressing. Our expectations are being shifted by the day, so that cameras like the OM-3 don’t seem expensive… yet they are. At least to me. Listening to the guys over at Petapixel talk about mid-range cameras, they seemed to agree that cameras priced at about $2300 are considered mid-range. That’s $3000 Canadian dollars, and to me that still seems like about $1000 more than what I would consider mid-range.
I can’t find any GX800/850/880 cameras on eBay Canada, only GX85 or similar. They’re going for about CAD$600-$800 body only, which I think is quite pricey considering they’re all about 10 years old now.
I agree that it’s the way to go to save money, but it’s increasingly hard to find hidden gems among the discontinued models because they’ve all become highly sought after.
It is utterly deplorable that there are no sub-$1000 cameras any more. I don’t know if I’d gotten into photography if it hadn’t been for cheap used gear.
I have more means now, but I don’t see how I’d get started today with a tight budget.
Agreed, it risks killing the hobby for younger generations. I’m still very budget focused myself from sheer habit, but I can afford a decent camera if I choose to. But I think of my kids and their peers and how it’s already so hard for them to get on the housing ladder, buy a car, get through college, etc.
It’s no wonder that the phone has become the main camera for so many, not just because they have become capable cameras. If you’re faced with the choice between a proper camera and a smartphone for budget reasons, most will just go with the phone because it’s become an essential everyday item, unlike a camera.
Of course it’s good that the used market exists, but it shouldn’t be that hard to buy new. A healthy buy-new market should cover the range of entry-level to professional, and right now the entry level is very poorly served. And that also over-inflates the used market.
Yes, this has turned into a bit of a rant. I just get very disheartened by the rising costs of everything, yet wages are fairly stagnant, and jobs are under increasing threat from AI. Where does it all lead to?
Yeah. A few days ago I went looking for used cameras to maybe get a setup for my sister. First I checked Fuji, to be able to share some lenses, and even the X-E3 and X-T3s were very expensive. Then I checked M4/3 and even that is completely bonkers. 550/600+ for a gx9? No thanks, for 150€ more you can get a Nikon Z6 or maybe other first gen full frame mirrorless.
Maybe once Dji or other another chinese brand gets into the game we’ll see some real competition and prices coming down. Until then it seems like they’ll only be going up.
If my X-T3 dies I don’t know what I’ll do. It’s true that I spent good money on the XF150-600 and so on, but in just two to three years it seems like job security for me, no tertiary education but decent at what I do, is in the trash bin. We have a giant AI bull run that can only end badly (flop or mass layoffs). I am thankful to be in a position to be able to buy a new body, but I don’t want to spend more “big” money than I really have to until these “vibes” go away.
Similar situation for me! I’m hanging on for now but I’m starting to look at a career change, which is a scary thought now that I’m past the halfway point of my working life. I’m still hoping for a bit of an AI crash or push-back, but I don’t think it will happen quickly, so the smart thing to do is try to get myself into a safer industry. And that might mean going back to school to get more qualifications… I have a degree but it’s starting to feel worthless with every passing day.
But I know what you mean about vibes. It’s a dark cloud hanging over me and making me very cautious about every purchase I make.
But this is not true. Consider the Canon R10, Fuji X-M5, Panasonic G95, Nikon Z50ii. All of these come with compomises (notably, lack of IBIS), but they are extremely capable cameras.
The camera market started competing on features that are pricey to incorporate (IBIS, ML-based AF), so cameras become more expensive. All of the models above are great for a lot of things, yet they get the “meh” reviews so beginners think that they need to get something much better.
Get a used Fuji body in good condition? You have and will have plenty of options to choose from.
Yes, it was a figure of speech/hyperbole. This is an enjoyable hobby and I thankfully have the financial safety and means to buy a used body, even if expensive (I bet the X-H2S gas would hit hard), but it’s something I really don’t want to do in the current climate. But hey, in the grand scheme of things what is a 1k-2k camera body when house prices keep increasing 10-20% YoY
the camera market is shrinking rapidly, that means higher prices, for used gear I think there will always be stuff that is old enough to be available cheap, the sensor in the x-t3 is still used in some current fuji models which might be keeping the price higher, I think this is the first generation that offers compressed raw files, so maybe not worth considering anything older.
I got my X-T30 when they stopped making them, one of the final ones available at one dealer here, I got a good deal, cameras are almost always available at a discount, fuji have a refurb store where they sell returns, returns are also available from camera stores at a great discount sometimes, I got an almost new X-T5 like this for several hundred pounds off the new price, mostly I try to buy gear at a discount, in the UK the best ones are on black friday and sometimes january sales, but there are also good offers all year round
I am not sure about this. I think that the middle of the lineup cameras are comparable in price (adjusted for inflation) and capability to the flagships of 10 years ago. In some respect they are even better.
It’s just that the entry level market has shrunk or disappeared, and flagships of a decade ago should be compared to today’s mid-tier cameras. Recall, for example, that the Olympus E-M1 had an initial price of $1400 in 2013, and compare it to the OM-5ii, with a similar price today (without inflation adjustment). You get more camera for the same amount of money, but it is no longer the flagship, so does not get the same amount of hype.
You’re right, they’re below €1000. Right now, the Canon R10 is €820, the X-M5 is €900, the Z50II is €820, each body only. That’s still a far cry from the €500 you payed for a Nikon D3X00 last decade, including the kit lens.
Sure, but the D3X was introduced in 2008 for a whopping $8000.
It makes more sense to compare new camera prices of the same or better specs. A 2008 $8000 is now approximately $12000 (which hurts to even write down), and it currently buys you a lot of camera, pretty much any of the flagships with a great lens kit.
Yeah, a Z9 is “only” $5500, so in a way flagships have gotten cheaper while the bottom of the barrel cameras have gotten more expensive, albeit for a lot more capability.
yes, it’s a simplification, the development costs are split between a smaller number of units sold, but improvements in microcontrollers etc mean new capabilities are available at lower hardware costs.
I think panasonic approach cameras like any other piece of consumer electronics they make, in that they make some very deep discounts sometimes early in the products life, they are well placed to sell things cheaper because they also manufacture their own electronic parts, especially capacitors, resistors etc
And yet, with that a lot more capability, 90% of the reviewers treat them with the same enthusiasm as a piece of dog poop found on the sidewalk.
Manufacturers make the entry level models at their peril. Look at the reactions to the Panasonic G100D (which you can get for a bit more than 600 eur these days brand new). If you now look at the YT reviews, you see the second wave (“Panasonic G100D: is it really that bad?”), but the first wave was basically pure vitriol because someone dared to make a cheaper camera by leaving out some features.
The Fuji X-M5 caught a lot of similar reactions (no viewfinder, no IBIS, etc).
I was looking for DJI’s financials online to see why they would want to enter the profit diluting mainstream camera business when they currently dominate a drone market that still has growth potential, but their Hong Kong listing got canned so not much public info. I guess they could just be like other Chinese businesses with access to free capital and burn a load of cash for no reason but they seemed a bit more focused than that as a business. It’s not like there isn’t already a mature market with probably too many manufacturers making too many similar cameras and already taking advantage of Chinese supply chains.
Unless they have some technical, market transformative plan, I guess.
The weird thing about the ILC market is that most of the talk is about the camera bodies, but what matters most for image quality is lenses, which get maybe 1% of the attention. Sometimes I see video reviews of cameras where the person making it does not even mention which lens was used for taking the photos.
I’ve read there are genuine advances in lenses with all companies going mirrorless and better use of computer modelling but they aren’t very gadgety. The gains aren’t visible enough to most of us to get much attention, I suppose. Test charts make quite dull content compared with video reviewers doing cartwheels to prove AF stickiness.
You have and will have plenty of options to choose from.