So I’d like to buy a real camera and stop taking family photos with my cell phone.

So what can you guys reccomend that takes great pics, has zoom lens , and I want WiFi capable .

For $300 max.

Stick with the camera on your phone if $300 is your budget.

Actually not.  Android users who have a gmail.com account (and are signed in on their phone to their gmail account) have their photos backed up to Google Photos (accessed easily in chrome if you are signed in).  Open Chrome on your computer (and sign in if you aren't) and then click on the little checkerboard-like icon on the upper right of a new tab (Google Apps) and select Photo.  Your backed up photos are there.  Yust download them.

Unless you have deliberately or ignorantly not signed in on your phone so that neither your photos or contacts are backed up...

I'm sure Apple's walled garden has something similar where your iPhone photos are backed up to their iCloud so you can access them on your iPad (and that's as far as you get).

You should be able to fine any number of "not bleeding edge" DSLRs used on eBay for $300.  Maybe with lenses.  I've liked Olympus for years - I have two E-620s and a 'professional' E-5, all out-of-production.  There are several e-620s 'kits' on eBay in your budget.  Glass (lenses) is likewise less expensive than 'bleeding kewl' new mirrorless DSLRs.  The e-620s use old tech CF cards for storage, but I use CF adapters for SD cards.

What do you have for a phone. If it’s anything made within the past few year it will out perform anything you will get for $300. If you have an iPhone you can download some apps that will allow you to shoot in raw format.

Another vote for "stick with phone camera if you're going to be that cheap".

You could get a Nikon D3400 with 18-55mm lens for under 400 bucks.   That's entry level for a DSLR and it's a decent camera. 24 megapixels.

Pitch in another $100 and get a D3500

https://www.adorama.com/inkd3500ka.html?EmailPrice=T

I’ll have to do some poking, but there should still be a few rebates running on stuff.  You might have to bump up the price range a bit though.  Off the top of my head, the Nikon D3400 and Olympus OMD-EM10 MKII should be around there and are good choices for DSLR and mirrorless.

That said I’d strongly consider sticking with your phone camera and saving up for more.  Camera gear gets expensive fast when you add in the extras you’d need, etc.

Found a SMOKING deal on a Pentax KP, could not pass it up.
For glass went the Tair-3s route for telephoto, dug around enough to find an un issued lens kit with flawless looking glass, and the stock from another seller.
Sure I will have to adapt it and manually dial it in but paired with the pixel shift on the KP it is a golden ticket for a 1/10th of the cost for a f/4.5 300mm equal.

Just need to find a sub 200 18-50 or 20-70 weather resistant daily street grinder and will be set.

WOOT has some Fuji mirrorless on sale currently, but I have no idea on Fuji. There are a few guys here that like them.

No, they weren't.  Just download the photos to your computer and then delete them  off Google Photos.

What kind/format of camera do you want to buy? Full frame DSLR? Crop sensor DSLR? Mirrorless? Point and shoot? What are you hoping to accomplish?

I agree with sticking to your phone at that price point.



I took this with my S9, and am pretty pleased how it turned out. Especially being handheld.

I'll just trot out this shot again as an example.

iPhone 5.  This is straight out of the phone.

BrightonRail by FredMan, on Flickr

For $56 I bought a Olympus TG1 off Ebay. It was $40 more than my cell phone and will take better pics. And all told I will have less than $75 in both, each doing what it does better than the other.

For a camera forum to consistently recommend a cell phone is like asking what AR I should get and reading a dozen replies about why you need an AK.

rant on: This is why the $300 price range is almost empty of camera offerings and the market is drying up. No, a cell phone isn't the end all be all answer for taking photos. It's the exploitative destruction of photography by putting something in the hands of anyone who can tap a touch screen and then making them think it was all about their skill.

I'm suggesting that just because a company has put tens of thousands of dollars into the programming to sell millions of the product across the world, that the owner isn't a much a part of the equation as they think. Anybody can click an icon. A photographer can take a photograph despite his equipment.  Flight 1549 did not land in the Hudson on autopilot, CPT Sullenburger was flying it. I don't think any passenger at the controls sitting there watching the dials spin would have been a better answer.

NPC's can't even video in widescreen as it is. Making the phone correct operator error? When do they learn how to do it right, and what then distinguishes the professional from just anybody on staff with a gizmo? Keep it up, there will be no cameras at all or professionals to operate them.

rant off