Get Started With Your First DSLR Camera for under £400

Nikon D3300 - DSLR Camera
Nikon D3300 – DSLR Camera

Get Started With Your First DSLR Camera for under £400

Personally I would go for Nikon or Canon, there are other brands out there and people’s choice of cameras is a personal choice, for me, my first choice is a Nikon.

My first DSLR camera was a Nikon 3300 which retailed at just £280 and came with an 18-55mm lens, the camera features 24.2megapixels, an ISO Range of 100-12,800 and shoots 5fps.

The Canon DSLR camera in the same price range would be the Canon EOS 1300D with an 18-55mm lens, but has a smaller ISO range than the Nikon D3300 and comes in a little more expensive at £299

Why not buy a Fuji, Olympus, Panasonic or Sony? Well, I also own an Olympus E-500, again it’s a good entry level camera, but my personal issues with it is where some of the function buttons are at the back of the camera where my right thumb tends to go, and often I accidently hit one of these buttons.  Also what goes against all these camera brands is that they are just not as popular as Nikon and Canon, so when it comes to getting hold of second hand lenses, they are more expensive to purchase than Nikon & Canon lenses which are widely available second hand at low prices.

Canon EOS 1300D - DSLR Camera
Canon EOS 1300D – DSLR Camera

Memory Cards:

I use Sandisk Ultra Plus Class 10 SD Memory Cards with 64GB which retails around £20 and is shock proof, waterproof, x-ray proof and can take on extreme temperature conditions, so a very durable storage card.

The lens:

The 50mm lens is the best general lens and is a lens you will keep forever, it’s great for shooting portrait as well as shooting photos of your kids and works great indoors in low light.

Lens Filter:

Not everybody uses filters, but they can be handy to use just to protect the lens itself.  You can pick up a single lens filter off eBay for just £10.
External Hard Drive to Backup All Your Photos:

A good buy is a Toshiba Canvio Ready Portable Hard Drive with 1TB of storage and costs just £46.99 from PC World.

Spare Battery:

A spare battery is always a great idea, as you will be able to continue to shoot even if the battery in the camera body dies. Spare Nikon & Canon batteries retail for about £25.

 

In total, you would have spent approximately £380, setting you up with all you need for your first DSLR Camera.

Published by mikebuss

Former British Soldier and Professional World Record Breaking Ultra Endurance Athlete... Founder of MB Media Global Ltd Editor - Journalist - Photographer - Adventurer - Land Rover Obsessed - Fitness Professional - PR & Marketing. Contact: info@mbmediaglobal.com

14 thoughts on “Get Started With Your First DSLR Camera for under £400

    1. The reason I mentioned Nikon & Canon as the better options is that because they are so much more popular and widely sold, there are far more second hand bodies and lenses about from Nikon & Canon that brings the price down.

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  1. I started & stayed with a Nikon D70, I could never get into photography so would never upgrade or anything.
    I can see a huge difference in my point & shoot Sony to my, now ancient, D70 x

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  2. Great information. Honestly, I have never had a real camera like you have talked about. I will definitely come back here if it’s in my plans.

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  3. Thank you for the post. Very useful information. as a YouTuber, I know the importance of having good equipment for the best results. Unfortunately, I’m still hooked on using my phone for photos, but might consider getting a real camera soon. This helps a lot. Thanks.

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  4. I love reading more about cameras. I always make picture at fan conventions. There’s often bad lightening and you’re not always sitting close for the Q&A’s. So I really do need a good camera.

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