[SOLVED] Decent Mirrorless Digital Camera for <$650 budget w/ focus on still photography

[Jsurfer90]

Hello,

I am currently in the market for a new camera. I am mainly interested in still photography (especially interested in landscape photography), however I am also interested in portraits and low light shots (eventually astro photography). For now my budget is <$650 and will only allow me to work with whatever lens comes with said camera (for now). Video is not a big concern of mine. Furthermore I do not currently own any lenses.

As of right now I am looking at several sellers of Fujifilm's X-T20 w/ XF 18-55mm F2.8 -4.0 R LM OIS lens.
Price range of the ones I am eyeing are $(300-500) varying degrees of kit accessories but have at least a battery, charger, and lens.

Also I am looking at a Panasonic Lumix GH4 w/ 45-150 mm f/4-5.6 lens. Price is currently listed at $650

That all being said, I would like to hear any suggestions/opinions on the matter. Thank you in advance.

 

[maxamillionfeettall]

The x-t20 is a fine camera with excellent handling and image quality, do note that the lens support is a closed ecosystem so only lenses that will work are fuji lenses if you ever decide to invest in more af lenses. Of course, manual lenses will work regardless.

The gh-4 is a camera tailored to video, stills are decent but inferior to most aps-c competitors especially in low light. I use the olympus e-m5 and e-pl5 for astrophotgraphy and landscapes, sensor size is very important and the small sensor doesn't cut, at least not with the kit lenses.

The only other competitors to the x-t20 would be the eos m50, or the a6000.

The m50 is a decent camera and has 3rd party lens support, but it's pretty sparse. it has more wireless features and a fully articulating screen(flips sideways) allowing for much better use. I'd give it a miss despite its better functionality.

The a6000 is absolutely ancient, one can find it new with a kit lens for $650, or refurbished models with kit lenses for well under $500. The handling is quite poor and menu system is hot garbage. Image quality is negligibly worse then the x-t20 and the kit lens is pretty fragile and quite subpar to the x-t20's xf18-55. The a6000 uses e mount which is an old mount at this point and is well supported by third parties. The a6000 and the full frame a7 line use the same mount, so one can use the same lenses on each camera when one desires superior dynamic range and low noise performance found in the full frame a7 lineup.

Normally I suggest looking for a used body and picking up a couple vintage lenses adapted, to learn with rather then letting the camera do the work.

 

[Bullet_Science]

If you are interested in portraits and low light shots , take the Fuji. It has Fujifilm's X-T20 w/ XF 18-55mm F2.8 -4.0 R LM OIS lens, and it's suitable for portrait (50mm) and since F2.8 - you can really get beautiful blurry background, and take photos in low light.

 

[maestro0428]

Just picked up a Sony a6100 with short lens for around 700 US. Takes awesome photos and great 4k video which is a plus. I know this is a tad above your budget, but its a worthy contender if it ever goes on sale...

 

[jonbuder]

I shot with a Fuji X-E2 and the 18-55 2.8-4 lens for a few years, it is capable of excellent quality and the menus are easy to use. I found the autofocus lacking, and I didn't like that you have to remove the tripod adapter to get the SD card and battery out. Movie mode required an unrealistic amount of light and seemed unwilling to use high ISO even though the sensor was good at handling noise.

My wife has a Sony A6400 which I've used a bit, mainly for video clips. It's much better than the Fuji was for video, although they may have made strides in the years since the X-E2 came out. The Sony kit lens is inferior and if you are interested in shooting JPEG for ease of sharing the Sony doesn't really output very punchy or good looking JPEGs to my eyes, compared to the Fuji. The autofocus is outstanding, I was able to get most frames in focus when shooting in burst mode of my kids swinging at the playground. If you aim it at something and have the face/eye detection on, it will almost always nail the focus. That's why we got it, we have a lot of kids and I didn't want my wife to have to work super hard just to get in-focus shots of them so I spent the money even though there are cheaper options that technically can bring the same image quality if you aren't shooting fast-moving small subjects.

I wouldn't go with micro 4/3s for still-oriented photography. I haven't used anything from that ecosystem for more than a few minutes so I can't comment from personal experience but for video the Panasonics are supposed to be excellent.

A quick search on KEH.com revealed that you can get a Canon 5d mk II for under $600. If you are fine going with used equipment and can make do with a 50mm f/1.8 lens or a pretty basic full-frame-compatible lens like the old 28-105 for a while in order to stay roughly within your budget, that's a LOT of camera for the money. I had the original 5D for a while but never really got along with it, conversely I had a 40D for a while and really enjoyed that. Now I just use Go-Pros mostly.

 

[LordVile]

Hello,

I am currently in the market for a new camera. I am mainly interested in still photography (especially interested in landscape photography), however I am also interested in portraits and low light shots (eventually astro photography). For now my budget is <$650 and will only allow me to work with whatever lens comes with said camera (for now). Video is not a big concern of mine. Furthermore I do not currently own any lenses.

As of right now I am looking at several sellers of Fujifilm's X-T20 w/ XF 18-55mm F2.8 -4.0 R LM OIS lens.
Price range of the ones I am eyeing are $(300-500) varying degrees of kit accessories but have at least a battery, charger, and lens.

Also I am looking at a Panasonic Lumix GH4 w/ 45-150 mm f/4-5.6 lens. Price is currently listed at $650

That all being said, I would like to hear any suggestions/opinions on the matter. Thank you in advance.

I've just gotten into cameras as of like 2 months ago, got a XA20 which is below your price bracket and very beginnery but enjoying it so far. Menus are easy to navigate even when you don't really know what you're doing. As mentioned above though you pretty much have to buy Fujinon lenses. Think the one that came with my camera sells for not much less than I paid for the camera and lens.