Hey all, this might be an incentive to give a good answer: I don't play d2 anymore, i hated d3, so I am left with fg I don't need.

So i'm a student in Montreal (Canada) and i'm going to study abroad in Singapore during the next semester. I am going to explore Asia for about 5-6 months, so I want to have a lot of beautiful pictures and videos of that experience.

I have never owned a good camera, so this would be my first. I would like to be able to film 1080 videos, take really beautiful pictures. During the night as well as during the day (for both photos and videos). Since i'm going to travel a lot, portability is an important factor, but not the most important one. I have a budget of around 700-800$ CAD, but i'm probably going to buy a used camera so you can point me to models that cost more than that, as long as it's not excessively over my budget.

Thank you.

this is a tough one

best for photo & video image quality would be a DSLR (different options available), would stick with the kit lens and a 50mm f/1.8 (for now), the 50mm is great for low light and video
prob here is the size etc, might not be ideal for you on your travels - how small/portable do you wanna go?
too many options to list just yet, if this is the route you want to go I will narrow some down for you - although for price , and quality atm I would prob recommend sony

alternatively you could look at a mirrorless camera, bit smaller, lighter and great for travel, image quality is still excellent
some options here;
•Sony NEX 6 or 7
•Fuji X-Pro1
•Panasonic LUMIX GF5
•Olympus OMD

would not suggest looking at compact / point and shoot cameras, but again if you want could name a few

This post was edited by jayandnix on Apr 2 2013 11:39pm

some options

canon 7d 60d

if you can cough up a few extra hundred i would invest in a mark II
buy a 50mm 1.8 lens cheap as fugg can get used for around 50$ good for street shots etc, but kind of limited.
in my experience i use a standard lens the most. any range from like ##mm-1##mm, very diverse
wide angle is also good.

a nice dslr in his budget would be a canon t2i to t4i. its small and has pretty good movie mode too. the canon 50mm is cheapo used and the stock lens is pretty decent too. it fits nicely in a man purse.

doesn't sound gay at all

yeah there are LOADS of DSLR options, infact nowdays even all the entry lvl models are great

haha no not at all

but a man bag is way better than a man purse

billingham makes lovely man purses though.

I've done more research, looked at these options, especially the sony NEX 7.

I have the possibility of buying a
Nikon D7000 + Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 XR Di-II LD Aspherical
825$
*Secondhand*

Is this a good deal? Should I wait for a better deal?


As for portability, I realize that I haven't been really precise. The size/weight of the camera isn't that important, as long as it's not excessively big or heavy.

So no big zoom like that: http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/vichie81/vichie811201/vichie81120100215/12084812-professional-dslr-digital-camera-with-big-white-tele-lens-on-white-background.jpg
Anything around the weight/size of the D7000 is good for me.

when buying second hand always ask/check for yourself the number of actuation the camera has. most people try to hack off overly used cameras because they dont want to replace specific parts. i forgot what eep told me to look for but im sure its under 2000-3000 actuation.