Camera suggestions/recommendations

[Super Santa]

Reposted from national board.

I am thinking of getting a new camera and am looking for suggestions and/or recommendations.

Primary considerations are ease of use, fairly simple yet capable of complex, digital and under $1,000.

I have not done any research as yet.  But have always liked Canon and Nikon brand names.

Any responses appreciated.

[Houdini]

Hi EB, few questions to ponder
1. Fixed lens or interchangeable?   
2. What will be it's primary use, landscape, portrait, all purpose? 
3. Do you currently own any camera equipment and want to expand on that hardware? 
4. How much experience do you have with a camera now? 
5. Do you plan on selecting "auto" and pointing and clicking or do you plan on selecting "M" and taking high-quality, well thought out photos?

[Super Santa]

1. Looking at interchangeable at this time.
2. All purpose
3. Currently have none to expand upon.  (Old 35mm is gone and have a point and shoot and cell phone).
4. Used to have a fair amount of exp, but not in recent years.
5.  Auto for convenience, but when I have time like to go manual and experiment and try for well thought out and higher quality shots.

[brew1brew]

I'm going to make a couple of suggestions based on what you wrote as considerations.

first there are two more things to consider, do you want DSLR or Mirrorless

The difference is DSLR has an optical viewfinder and Mirrorless has the LCD screen like looking at your smart phone when taking pictures with it. Some mirrorless cameras have an electronic viewfinder. So the question is do you want a viewfinder.

My first suggestion is to do your own research and choose based on what you learn. so here are a couple of good photo equipment review sites.

www.dpreview.com
www.steves-digicams.com
www.imaging-resource.com (they have a comairometer tool that is nice to compair equipment)

I'm going to give you two camera suggestions based on my likes.

DSLR - Pentax K50
with 18-135 WR lens - $896
with 18-55 & 50-200 - $696

mirrorless -
Fuji X-E1 with 18-55 lens - $799

Go to those web sites and compair specs and features of the two that I gave you, then research others and you will find one that you will like.

On the mirrorless I suggest Fuji or Sony as they are using the larger APS-c sensors where Panasonic and Olympus are using a smaller Micro four thirds sensor. also Nikon has a mirrorless system but that has an even smaller sensor.

Have fun

[Houdini]

First off, I've been a Canon guy since the 70's so I cannot comment on the other manufactures, I hear some of them make good cameras....

This would be a good starting over again camera, Canon T3i with a 18 - 135 lens
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Digital-18-135mm-3-5-5-6-Standard/dp/B004MN00C4/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1396358072&sr=8-6&keywords=canon+rebel
That is a high quality lens but falls short of the Canon pro lenses.

Here's a bundle with the same camera and lens and lots of goodies like a camera bag, cleaning supplies, flash, extra batteries, filters, memory cards and grip, and under your budget.
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Digital-18-135mm-Backpack-Battery/dp/B00GGO8ZMO/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&qid=1396360028&sr=8-18&keywords=canon+t31+bundle
If you've never had the joy of using an image stabilized lens you're in for quite a treat.

Avoid buying any Canon lens under $200, they're junk.

Another option would be buy a Camera body and buy the lenses separately; Tamron and Sigma make excellent high quality lenses that are about half the price of Canon pro lenses, or start with the above kit and add lenses as need and $$$ arises.

[HayHauler]

MAN!  That is a great bundle Houdini!  for $75 you get all of those other accessories.

Hay 
Jimmyt

[BuzzKill]

We bought Hollyday a new camera last year because the old one was just too slow taking pictures while on the bike, and the button broke.  We ended up getting a Sony (she's always liked sony) DCS-HX300 (I think) for between $300-400 becuase it was fast on, fast point and shoot, and has a 50x optical zoom.  At first we were looking at cameras with replacable lenses but chose this one because the zoom was better than all but the $1000 lenes.  It has lots of bells and whistles too. 

My 2 cents, keep the change.

[BuzzKill]

Sorry, it was the SX50 we got.

[Houdini]

Hey EB, Amazon has a sale on the Canon T5i for the next 31 hours, it includes the 18 - 135 MM image stabilized lens.

http://www.amazon.com/Canon-Rebel-Digital-Camera-18-135mm/dp/B00BW6LX20/ref=sr_1_5?m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&s=photo&ie=UTF8&qid=1396612747&sr=1-5

You can buy it for  a couple of hundred less with an 18 - 55 MM IS lens but it's not as versatile as the 18 - 135.