Many people like to shoot photos and while most of them use smartphone cameras or point-and-shoot devices, others think they need a kind of upgrade since they are not satisfied with limitations of simple cameras or plan to get some profit from this hobby. And here comes the thought of what to buy, what camera to start from.
The recommendation I hear pretty often: buy a used X-year old DSLR body and a number of lens. The body could cost around $250, thus saving money for additional lens. They say: that’s enough to get into photography and understand what is aperture, shutter speed and exposure and how they work. Frankly speaking, the only positive side of such purchase is that you can really save money. But the thing is that you don’t need a DSLR to study photography. You can save even more if you consider to buy a point-and-shoot camera for around $200 and you’ll get a decent device from a famous brand with full manual mode as well as aperture and shutter priority modes, optical stabilization and 35x zoom. That’s pretty much enough to start studying photography seriously.
Another drawback of buying a used camera – you don’t know how long it’s gonna work. Of course, there is some warranty period, but not that long as for a new device. You can expect that the new device, besides warranty support, receives firmware updates both for camera and lens. Also, with new camera you get new hardware capable to do something that might be interesting to you: to shoot 10 frames per second or record 4K video, or something else, depending on its price and manufacturer.
Actually, the main thing to think about before buying your first camera is what you really want that camera to be able to do. If you want to try everything or at least the most of photography techniques – then it definitely should be a DSLR/mirrorless camera and it should be new. Functional limitations of point-and-shoot cameras and hardware limitations of old used DSLR/mirrorless won’t let you take lots of interesting shots, and be ready to feel those constraints often.