Wifey wants a new camera..

Nikon seems to be a favorite of a lot of the pros up here. Canon are good if you want to get some good video. I use a Panasonic GH1 that has been hacked with a different firmware to shoot video, and my phone for stills. The Nikon d3100 is a really good camera, and it should be under your budget.

 

Agree with this 100%. Here's my spheel, I've been into photography as a hobby for about 3 years now. I also have a 2 1/2 year old daughter and I've taken over 15,000 pictures of her. (those are the ones I've kept) so I've had a lot of practice. I currently have a Canon T3i and Sony Nex 5N (mirrorless). Unless your wife really wants to learn a DSLR and shoot in the creative modes and wants to buy a couple better lenses, the mirrorless cameras are really hard to beat. They have the same size cropped sensor as DSLR's (which really impacts picture quality) and are much more compact and light. With stock lenses (18-55) I really can't tell any difference in my T3i and Sony Nex.

If I want truly better image quality and decent low light performance I use my T3i with a 1.4 50mm lens. Most of these entry level DSLR with the stock lens produce average image quality, you really must step up the lens. You'll be shooting a fast moving object (your kid) indoors quite a bit and I promise you 90% of your images will suck unless you buy a good external flash and use a fast lens. Don't be fooled into thinking you can spend $600 on a DSLR and get magazine quality images indoors of your kid running around. It's tricky, I promise. Outdoors in good light is a different story, almost any camera will take decent pics.

My advice is like many on here, you will be rushing to take pics of that fleeting moment and most of those will be taken with your phone. Unless your wife is REALLY into photography and wants to learn ISO, aperture and shutter speed at a minimum, I'd get her a mirrorless camera and break it out on special occasions. I can't tell you how many soccer moms I see at the park with DSLR's shooting with stock lenses and in fully auto mode. Anyways, that's my long winded 1/2 cent worth.

ps: Having a good (fast) computer and decent photo editing software goes a long way also to producing memorable photos. It's really an investment.

ps again: I forgot to mention one huge benefit of the mirror less over my DSLR. With kids you will want to shoot down low, the perspective is far better than standing above them. The mirror less cameras have a tilt screen and you shoot via live view (LCD screen). Focusing is quick and fairly accurate. With my DSLR, I have a tilt screen also but live view is terrible. It takes forever to focus and often times I would miss a moment waiting for it to focus. As a result I always look through the view finder and have to get down on my hands, knees, stomach to shoot down low. Shooting with the mirror less camera is much more discreet.

 

I would 2nd this. I didn't mention that the year before upgrading to the D7100, I opted for a new MacBook Pro for her. Even with her old camera, it was all still housed/edited, so it really needs to be a package deal. It was a 2-year plan for me.

 

Mirrorless are great. I had an Olympus epl1 pen and it was awesome. The newer versions are even nicer. Most mirrorless are smaller then a traditional dslr as well. The pen was only slightly larger then a point and shoot. If you are going mirrorless I would get one with micro 4/3 lens mount. The Panasonic gh1 that I use has this mount. Because of the sensor to lens distance it is very easy and cheap to get adaptors and use old lense from any manufacturer. My go to lens is a canon fd 25mm 1.2f. I think that lens cost me $30 at a pawn shop.

 

I bought a Canon T3i about a year and a half ago and it is a fine camera. The wife wanted a SLR but over the last year and a half guess what she uses almost all the time?? Yep, her phone. I'll play with the SLR a bit but she almost never touches it. If I were to do it over again I would go mirrorless.

 

this is absolutely incorrect..

My DSLR has my lens on it and flash and is always ready to roll. For indoor shots, there is absolutely no comparison to a DSLR. not even a little. I've been through at least 7 of the so called similar to DSLR cameras point and shoot cameras in the last 3 years, and none of them hold a light to an actual DSLR. The best of the lot, my Sony RX100 is great for outdoors, but the T3i that I bought a few years ago absolutely crushes everything else.

I started with the kit 18-135 lens and then got a prime 50mm f/1.4 lens that is on the camera about 95% of the time. I also have an external flash, a 430exii. Once you get the hang of it, you know what settings you need at a location. If mainly using it around the house, you'll definitely know what works after a few times.

I've taken over 14K photos of the twins since March 2011, and having a DSLR has been priceless.

 

Got my wife the t3 whatever when our nugget was born. She at first was aliitle over welmed of all the setting and how to set it up. But after some you tube videos know she can grab flip swithes like its nothing. She loves it. Has taken over 12,000 pics in 3 years. Its to the point where the 3 yr old say no more pic mommy

 

DSLR CAN give you better image quality, not necessarily a better picture. You have to weigh the increased complexity against the missed moment. Photography is fun and a good camera is critical (still have my old Nikon FG). IMHO, don't invest too much effort in saving the moment and spend that time enjoying them. I speak from years of watching my daughters events through the lens of a video camera.

 

Wow lots of good info! We both have good phones (Iphone 5 for her, 5s for me) so we have that covered. A photography friend of hers recommended the samsung NX300. Price is not too bad, but we had never heard of mirrorless before last night haha! Sounds like that might be a good compromise between the DSLR's and a phone/cheap point and shoot?

 

A lot depends on what you want to do with the image. Camera snobs are no different than beer snobs or cigar snobs or.... If all you want is to capture the moment, you do NOT have to spend several hundred $$$. Almost all cameras have decent resolution for snapshots. Things you will probably want to look for is low light capability for birthday candles, school plays and the like. You will also want to be able to do action shots. I am not dissing DSLR's of any kind. Just pointing out that a lot of people that have them don't really use what they paid for.

 

I'd also recommend some of the new mirrorless cameras. Get a fast (preferably 1.8 aperture or lower) prime lens and a decent zoom and you should be set for the vast majority of situations.

I've been shooting with Nikon equipment for years now, and currently still use my D300S (I also have a D90 that sometimes goes in tandem when I need two different setups to interchange quickly) with a bunch of different lenses depending on the scenario.

It started as a hobby, as I've always been a fan of photography, and I never liked capturing important family moments/events and my kids sports activities with my phone.........the quality was never there.

Recently, I've been getting more and more requests from friends/family to take photos for them, so I actually recently started doing it professionally. Everything from family portraits to sports. Nothing full time, but it's fun to occasionally get paid for something that I enjoy doing so immensely.

 

I totally agree with that. My dad has one and he never takes it off auto mode but my mom does have one and she plays with all the features but I don't think she full grasps what its capable of. My wife wants to start learning some of the more technical stuff but she realizes that being able to carry it with you easily and not being too complicated to use is important.

 

FWIW, this is advice from an older dad.

Guess how many of those 4 bazzilion pictures that you took of your kid when they were young are you going to look at when they (and you) are older?

About 5.




Carry on




(Oh, and we like Canon's in our family)

 

This is true. particularly printed photos. Digital has given us thousands of images and hours of video. I spend more time making sure it is properly sorted and backed up than looking at the images.

 

to your point, with a hardcopy of photos I can see that.

But I don't know about the current times...with everything being digital and so easily accessible, i look at older (3 yo) pics quite frequently. Especially when comparing them year over year. Flickr and the sorts makes this very easy.

 

Canon G16.....Cant believe nobody recommended it yet! The g series is great in my opinion - easy for me to point and shoot but has the ability to adjust some of the other things smart people adjust. Also has the ability to change lenses but we never did. We have the G11 (five years old - they add a new number each year) and it is just now acting a bit weird with lighting (bad light meter maybe?) Was 500 bucks new. We took it around the world and on many scuba diving trips (with a underwater housing of course). Super impressed and will get the new G-series if it cannot be fixed.

 

i absolutely HATE carrying around a dslr (unless I'm getting paid, or can make money)

80% of my day to day life pics on taken from the iPhone, 10% on a canon SD780is thats tiny and fits in a pocket well.. 10% on an slr

 

Digital images do get viewed much more often than print (I have scanned a lot of old negatives and slides onto the computer). But we still spend less time looking than we did taking. With digital, the sheer number of images is staggering. Before digital, I might take 4 or 5 thirty two shot rolls of slide film to a race. Purchase price and developing was probably $10 to $15 per roll, IIRC. 20 to 30 percent of the shots were not worth keeping.

With digital, I am much less selective of shots and far less likely to delete marginal images.

 

Well, depends on the person and how important they are to you. I find myself going through pictures from time to time of my daughter when she was first born and that was only a couple years ago. I agree you don't go through them that often but many would argue there are few things more important than memories. The pictures and video my dad took of us as kids in the 80's are priceless, I hope to pass them down to our daughter someday.

And again I find myself agree with R. Acree. I'm guilty of spending too much time behind the camera and not simply enjoying the moment.

 

Careful, that can't be healthy.