Friend posted some pictures of our time in the Rocky Mountains with his Fuji xt1. I'm super impressed by that little 16 mp mirrorless. Made me wonder, what's the best under the radar/cheap camera you've seen/used?
He used decent glass, but nothing over 500 bucks.

Fujis are nice, but they don't always play nice with Adobe.

UpstateAg said:

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Friend posted some pictures of our time in the Rocky Mountains with his Fuji xt1. I'm super impressed by that little 16 mp mirrorless. Made me wonder, what's the best under the radar/cheap camera you've seen/used?
He used decent glass, but nothing over 500 bucks.

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I'm firmly in the Sony camp now and recently bought an a6400 for right at $800 through Greentoe. Have the new 70-350 pre-ordered (under $1000) and if I like the combo I will sell my FE 100-400.

Wish I had packed differently. Ended up not getting pics of Chasm Lake or Long's Peak that I wanted (also, altitude issues are freaking real, and I just wanted to breathe again so I didn't spend much time dealing with SD card issues).
Give me some pointers. Also, I know that one with the deer is weird looking, but I was messing around in LR Develop section.
http://lightroom.adobe.com/shares/50eb1f07edd94a5fba6f66b28fd5b084

Anyone have any thoughts on the new Panasonic S1H? Early returns have been very good. I've heard people say the low light is better than Sony and the color science is comparable to Canon.

Legalize-It-Ags said:

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Anyone have any thoughts on the new Panasonic S1H? Early returns have been very good. I've heard people say the low light is better than Sony and the color science is comparable to Canon.

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No experience but looks really cool. My only issue with my GH4 is the lack of dual cards so anything Panasonic adds to that is a plus. I'll pick one of these up when they go sub-1K.

Guitarsoup said:

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Fujis are nice, but they don't always play nice with Adobe.

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Fuji user here...I use Capture One. Used to use LR, but I don't care for the SAS rental model Adobe forces everyone into.

Question for everyone. I need something to just turn loose on my photo directory to get everything loaded and quick to preview. I've got tens of thousands of photos to go through, feels pretty overwhelming at the moment.

Lightroom seems to be the gold standard, but I don't really want to hand them a monthly subscription license. What's the most recent version of Lightroom you can get that works without having to pay the monthly extortion fee to Adobe?

Alternatively, is there something similar to LR in look, feel, and function I could roll with?

TIA.

Quote:

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I've got tens of thousands of photos to go through, feels pretty overwhelming at the moment.

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Are you just years behind in editing?

I use lightroom and just commit to editing N photos per evening (typically 500/1000). If you do it right, then you delete 98%.

Photo Mechanic is used by many of my friends to cull photos; then they import them into LR.

Fairly new to photography. Focus has been on landscapes as I backpack quite a bit. Wanting to add bird and wildlife photography to what I do.

Have read and reread Understanding Exposure a lot. Love it!

Any advice/direction for birds and wildlife?

Thanks!

Pacing The Cage said:

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Fairly new to photography. Focus has been on landscapes as I backpack quite a bit. Wanting to add bird and wildlife photography to what I do.

Have read and reread Understanding Exposure a lot. Love it!

Any advice/direction for birds and wildlife?

Thanks!

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But seriously, it kind of depends on what gear you have already. You will want a crop sensor camera for lack of a better term its magnification effect, plus they usually have a higher fps (frames per second) shooting speed compared to full frame cameras. Then you want the longest focal length lens you can afford. Birds and wildlife generally don't like being approached closely by humans.

Many people do a decent job using one of the superzoom point and shoot cameras like the Nikon Coolpix P1000, but catching birds in flight will be problematic with something like that. Tamron and Sigma make excellent megazoom lenses in the 150-600mm range for most popular mounts if you have a DSLR. Then on the upper level are the big prime lenses from the big camera makers like Canon, Nikon, and Sony. Those can easily run $10,000 or more unless you find a deal on a used one.

That's kind of the basic advice I have for now. Let us know if you supply/need more details.

Thanks for the info. I hear you on costs, etc. It's too late for me. I'm two camera bodies and 8 lenses into my addiction! I was telling a photographer friend about "my new camera" a few years ago and he just started laughing. "Oh, you have a camera? Cameras are cheap. It's the 'glass' that's going to break you."

Had no idea what "glass" was at the time. Now I do!

dubi said:

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Quote:

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I've got tens of thousands of photos to go through, feels pretty overwhelming at the moment.

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Are you just years behind in editing?

I use lightroom and just commit to editing N photos per evening (typically 500/1000). If you do it right, then you delete 98%.

Photo Mechanic is used by many of my friends to cull photos; then they import them into LR.

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Thanks. Are you using a current version of LR that's subscription based, or a licensed version?

Photo Mechanic looks interesting, think I'm going to try out the demo.

Subscription Lightroom

AG 2000' said:

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dubi said:

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Quote:

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I've got tens of thousands of photos to go through, feels pretty overwhelming at the moment.

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Are you just years behind in editing?

I use lightroom and just commit to editing N photos per evening (typically 500/1000). If you do it right, then you delete 98%.

Photo Mechanic is used by many of my friends to cull photos; then they import them into LR.

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Thanks. Are you using a current version of LR that's subscription based, or a licensed version?

Photo Mechanic looks interesting, think I'm going to try out the demo.

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If you dont want to pay an adobe subscription take a look at Exposure X5. Its very similar to lightroom.

Breach of information for Adobe Creative Cloud users

https://m.dpreview.com/news/5825311091/adobe-exposed-the-account-information-of-more-than-7-5m-creative-cloud-users

Guitarsoup said:

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The correct answer is never, ever a 18-400.

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Why? I'm learning here, so explain it as you would to a child.

Raptor said:

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Guitarsoup said:

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The correct answer is never, ever a 18-400.

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Why? I'm learning here, so explain it as you would to a child.

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Image quality on lenses like that are **** and you usually have a really bad variable aperture that doesn't let in much light, so they are really only good in the middle of the day. And even then, they aren't that sharp.

Cheaper lenses also focus much slower.

Thanks!

Knowing this is saving me a lot of money and frustration.

AggieDruggist89 said:

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Haven't bought any photo gear since I got back heavy into golf.

Golf is definitely cheaper than buying lenses.

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Wife's debit card number was used today to buy $1134.29 from B&H Photo out of New York.

We had WF cancel the transaction, but it sucks that we have to cancel the card and may/will never know how this occurred.

(Secretly I had hoped she had purchased me a lens, but that didn't happen)

Change your debit card to just being an ATM card and use a credit card for buying stuff. It won't prevent a card number from being stolen but at least the money won't be missing from your account until they've completed their fraud review

Raptor said:

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Wife's debit card number was used today to buy $1134.29 from B&H Photo out of New York.

We had WF cancel the transaction, but it sucks that we have to cancel the card and may/will never know how this occurred.

(Secretly I had hoped she had purchased me a lens, but that didn't happen)

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We do not use a debit card at all.

Credit cards with miles FTW.

Does anyone have experience with the Sony A6000? I was looking at getting my wife one for Christmas. We travel a few times per year and she REALLY loves taking pictures. She has just been using her iphone X as her only camera, but has said from time to time that she wished she had a better camera. She has actually taken IMHO some really pretty good pictures. She has a great eye for framing her shots.
My sister-in-law is a semi-professional videographer and she told me to look into mirrorless cameras.
The pros seem to be that they are smaller/more compact than a DSLR with many options for lenses.

I know she would want a camera that she could easily transfer photos to her phone and maybe do some quick editing right on either the camera or phone (im just talking cropping, etc, not full blown photoshop)
Something that is easy to carry around and have handy like she does her phone.
Is the 16-50 lens it comes with a good all around lens?
Are there other better cameras for around the same price point?

TIA

I've used one and I own the a5100. I've got nothing but good things to say about them. I think they take quality pictures and are easy to use. I've got that same 16-50 lens and it works. There are plenty of other lens options if you want to expand or get a little higher quality but that one does the job for a lot of applications.

Are use that as my travel camera. I've taken it on some pretty insane hikes, as well as Ireland and Canada. It's a great little camera.

Texicurean said:

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Does anyone have experience with the Sony A6000? I was looking at getting my wife one for Christmas. We travel a few times per year and she REALLY loves taking pictures. She has just been using her iphone X as her only camera, but has said from time to time that she wished she had a better camera. She has actually taken IMHO some really pretty good pictures. She has a great eye for framing her shots.
My sister-in-law is a semi-professional videographer and she told me to look into mirrorless cameras.
The pros seem to be that they are smaller/more compact than a DSLR with many options for lenses.

I know she would want a camera that she could easily transfer photos to her phone and maybe do some quick editing right on either the camera or phone (im just talking cropping, etc, not full blown photoshop)
Something that is easy to carry around and have handy like she does her phone.
Is the 16-50 lens it comes with a good all around lens?
Are there other better cameras for around the same price point?

TIA

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For easy to carry around and use, I would go Fuji instead of Sony. JMO

What to get all depends on how much you want to spend. You can spend a ton.

Thanks for the replies. After I saw the positive feedback from you guys I went on line to do a little shopping.
Best buy has the A6000 combo lens package with the both the 16-50 and the 55-210 lens for $599 on a pre-black friday sale. I went ahead and picked it up this afternoon.
Im looking forward to seeing what she can do with it!

So I've not kept up with photo equipment for the past 2 years? So what's gotten better??

AggieDruggist89 said:

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So I've not kept up with photo equipment for the past 2 years? So what's gotten better??

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Canon and Nikon released mirrorless cameras and both are capable, but myself and a lot of other pros aren't adopting them because they are single card slot.

Man... What a nightmare....more lens mounts and or adaptors.

So I guess I will stick with my EF and u43 until there is a profound equipment advance in photography.

AggieDruggist89 said:

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So I've not kept up with photo equipment for the past 2 years? So what's gotten better??

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So new camera gear too?