I always liked the Fuji Finepix big zoom compacts, though somehow never ended up with one and envied the ones buddies had. Anyway, I'd put those into consideration on a per model basis also. Can also find some Olympus ones that are okay.

If macro is a significant consideration, a smaller than APS-C might be desirable for the increased depth-of-field.

Used camera prices are so low (in my area, if one is a bit patient), that it might make sense to get several cameras.

I got a fully function Canon Rebel XTI for 25 CAN$ at Value Village about a year or so ago.

I also got a couple of Panasonic DMC-FZ28 units within a few months of each for about 20 CAN$ each. I gifted one of them. I got both at Value Village as well.

I forgot I got a Finepix s700 out of a yard sale junkbox for a buck early this year, needs a good cleanup and battery door fix, so wasn't counting it until functional. That particular model a bit below your requirements tho I think at 7Mpix. There was an okay sounding Lumix on local classies for $40, the SLR-ey types like to call them bridge cameras and use them lightly as backups, so look for "bridge camera" and get it off a photo geek who has like $5000 in his other rig and it's probably well looked after.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-11-06, 03:16:

I forgot I got a Finepix s700 out of a yard sale junkbox for a buck early this year, needs a good cleanup and battery door fix, so wasn't counting it until functional. That particular model a bit below your requirements tho I think at 7Mpix. There was an okay sounding Lumix on local classies for $40, the SLR-ey types like to call them bridge cameras and use them lightly as backups, so look for "bridge camera" and get it off a photo geek who has like $5000 in his other rig and it's probably well looked after.

Good point .

Pawn shops are anothe place to look . Bridge cameras from the likes of Canon, Panasonic and Fuji are good candidates, IMHO .

Also. I would not buy a camera without RAW capability as I find that the noise reduction baked into the JPEG processing pipeline is not that great at higher ISO settings, even on newer cameras.

Olympus micro four-thirds.

You bet I do have couple! Besides the ancient slow Olympus SP-550UZ as well. Yeah, I know about the value village thing but this is a hit and miss.

Great! I will try to find super zoomer this one is supposedly to do good macro, Canon PowerShot SX50 HS.

I found the chart of models made by Canon and I was able to quickly choose affordable models that is mid to high end. One of them is full frame and affordable. Not too old too.

Full frame model: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
APS-C model: Canon EOS 7D

I'll try to find other models by other brands.

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-11-06, 18:42:

You bet I do have couple! Besides the ancient slow Olympus SP-550UZ as well. Yeah, I know about the value village thing but th […]
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You bet I do have couple! Besides the ancient slow Olympus SP-550UZ as well. Yeah, I know about the value village thing but this is a hit and miss.

Great! I will try to find super zoomer this one is supposedly to do good macro, Canon PowerShot SX50 HS.

I found the chart of models made by Canon and I was able to quickly choose affordable models that is mid to high end. One of them is full frame and affordable. Not too old too.

Full frame model: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
APS-C model: Canon EOS 7D

I'll try to find other models by other brands.

Cheers,

I bought myself an Canon EOS 200D about 5 years ago as an upgrade from an ancient Panasonic Lumix FZ-45. It's a lovely little compact DSLR with a 24M APS-C sensor and lens compatability with the entire EF range. I wanted the flexibility/adaptability of an SLR, but being my first entry into the sector didn't want to spend a huge amount of money and then find I didn't make use of it. No chance of that - this thing has been everywhere with me.

Since moving into the world of DSLR, I've also developed a habit for picking up old, cheap, manual lenses - old M42 screw mount adapters work brilliantly with the Canon EF/EF-S mounting system, as they don't tend to increase the distance from the sensor. I've got quite a collection of old Asahi Takumars now (all the way from the fast little f1.8 55mm to the big-boy 300mm - what a lovely set of lenses!). Next step is a full frame canon to make best use of them (the EOS 200D is APS-C format).

I'd love a full frame EOS 5D mk3 or 4. But they're still too much money for an impulse purchase for me.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-11-06, 00:00:

Wanted to buy another used but good digital camera, that does not break the bank, under $300 CDN or so.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-11-06, 00:00:

Full frame model: Canon EOS 5D Mark II
APS-C model: Canon EOS 7D

Have you included prices of lenses into account? Even the cheapest Canon lens, the 50/1.8, could cost you about CDN$160 new or $80 used (sure, there are even cheaper ones online, but I wouldn't hold my breath for their conditions). That would be quite a big portion of your $300 budget.

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-11-06, 00:00:

OIS low light tolerance Macro Optical zoom highest possible but not important. […]
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OIS
low light tolerance
Macro
Optical zoom highest possible but not important.

Canon's DSLR bodies have no OIS build-in; any lens meeting all your four requirements could easily exceed your budget.

Lenses do pop up in thrift stores for very low prices. Condition does vary.

Main concerns are fungus, scratches, seized mechanisms and auto-focus issues.

My second Canon EF 50mm F/1.8 mark I was a 10$ find. I also got a Canon EF 80-200mm F/4-F/5.6 for around the same price. Both work fine.

I also scored some M42 mount stuff, including a Takumar (maybe a Super, not sure now as has not been used in a while) 50mm F/1.4 and a 135mm F/2.5 . Both are the non MC variety, AFAICR .

I also scored a 25$ Nikon D50 DSLR with a fully working kit lens as well in the last 18 months or so.

The above is just what I remember off the top of my head.

My point is not to brag about being a hoarder, but to illustrate that one can find good deals on usable equipment if one is patient enough, at least in my area.

I gotta get my head round Canon lens fittings and variations. "Somewhere" I've got a pre-digital 35mm Rebel SLR with 2 lenses, and just spotted a bare canon body for cheap locally.

Edit: Hmm found the ad again, it's a Rebel XT, retro digital camera practically 🤣 no but a solid classic, 8MP big sensor, which I think should give great pics still... I'm kinda in that headspace where I think things got "as good as you need" around 5-6MP then there was a bit of a golden era up to 10MP and then sensors got tiny and resolution increases got pointless and it was all downhill. Dude wants $50 for it, has body, battery, charger. Anyway, gotta see if I got the film Rebel and what it's got, not sure if a 2000 or 3000 or what it was.

EditII: Well crap, found a bag with the Rebel EOS 2000 body and no lenses... Vague memory of taking them out sometime, when acquaintance doing college photog, saying "here, try these out.." and not following up... so not sure if they're long gone, or just separated and somewhere else or what.

Edit III: Further investigations leaving me with more of a confusion headache than clearing anything up. Went looking to see if film rebel lenses returned to wrong photog bag, and found the bag with Canon AV-1... with 4 lenses... which I didn't remember having more than a couple for..... but all the lenses in there seem to be FD, right for the AV-1... not for the film Rebel... but strangely, there are two Canon FD 50mm F1.8 with it, why the heck should there be two, apparently some few years apart though. Then there are a 28mm F2.8 and a 135mm F2.8 Auto Image/Astral photo house brand, made in Japan by Vivitar and from looking them up quick about the only 2 of that house brand worth keeping. Odder than that though, is I've got a memory of one camera came in with a long lens and really short lens, and I was bummed about no 50 for that one... so damn, have I got another FD mount around, that that 28mm and 135mm came with... and if so why was I bugged about no 50 when there's two 50s for some reason... so yah.. no damn idea what's going on... Photography been a past interest years back but kinda grabbed things I saw very cheap "in case I get back to it" and forgot what all is where or what it is, instantly... and meanwhile photog has not been so much back burner, as back burner in the camper I forgot where I parked... soooo yah.

Edit IV: in case you were waiting for the thrilling conclusion. I stopped looking. Figured I wouldn't get serious enough back into photog to be using the Rebel digi before I forgot I had it, or anything digi I bought now wouldn't have been thoroughly bricked by 2037 bug or ruined by batt leakage or something before I actually got around to using it serious again. So sticking with phone I have with me, or nearest handy point and shoot. Any other bits I got like the Zenit B, Praktica BC-1, for film and the mysterious whereabouts of film Rebel EOS lenses, and possibly another outfit by Nikon hiding somewhere, will just have to wait until they make an appearance or my inner shutter bug is reanimated.

EF lens is for flagship cams using full frame and APS-H.

EF-S is for rest of mid range cams using APS-C sensor. Both lens and cameras is designed together so the rear most of the lens extends just bit inside the body closer to the smaller sensor. This way you get best use of the lens.

Cheers,

pentiumspeed wrote on 2023-11-11, 01:39:

EF lens is for flagship cams using full frame and APS-H.

EF-S is for rest of mid range cams using APS-C sensor. Both lens and cameras is designed together so the rear most of the lens extends just bit inside the body closer to the smaller sensor. This way you get best use of the lens.

Cheers,

I have not seen a point to moving to to full 35mm coverage EF bodies and lenses for my use case.

EF-S lenses are lighter and smaller than EF ones and my 70D with battery grip, EF-S 17-55mm f/2.8 and 580EX II flash is heavy enough as it is . On the occasions where I need to operate in lower light and/or get shallower depth of field, my cheapish Yongnuo 50mm f/1.4 gets the job done .

If I had to start over from scratch and on the cheap, I would likely get
- A used Canon EF-S body with at least 10MP and AF on par with A Rebel XTI/400D or better and the cheap 18-55mm f/4-f/5.6 kit lens (ideally a stabilized variant)
- A Neewer E-TTL capable flash like the NW760 (or better/newer)
- A used EF 50mm F/1.8 EF mark 1 (ideally), an EF 50mm F/1.8 STM or a Yongnuo EV 50mm f/1.4 , depending on availability and/or budget

For macro, I would get a cheap small sensor camera bridge camera with decent macro capabilities (I am not big on macro these last few years, TBH, so I would cheap out on that). For example, this is what I got out of a FujiFilm FinePix S5200 Zoom (FinePix S5600) with a cheap thrift store +4 diopter closeup filter (AFAICR) in 2006ish .

For macro work I can highly recommend the Sigma EX DG OS HSM series (available in just about every modern mount type, including EF-S). I have the 105mm variant and it is a great piece of kit for the price.

https://www.sigma-global.com/en/lenses/105_28_os/

There are various focal lengths available, the 105 sits in the middle.

megatron-uk wrote on 2023-11-11, 21:53:

For macro work I can highly recommend the Sigma EX DG OS HSM series (available in just about every modern mount type, including EF-S). I have the 105mm variant and it is a great piece of kit for the price.

https://www.sigma-global.com/en/lenses/105_28_os/

There are various focal lengths available, the 105 sits in the middle.

Definitely better than my garage sale grade macro kit.

Supposing I picked up a Canon with an EF mount I might do something whacky like get an FD to Praktica and Praktica to EF adapter and stack them as extension rings to use the 135mm AutoImage/Vivitar as a macro or just with the Praktica adapter to use Praktica (East German Zeiss) 70-200mm macro zoom. Think it's 30cm closest, but the adapter might shorten that a bit too. I don't remember shooting much macro but think you can full frame an inch with that lens on the Praktica.

When using adaptors, the rule of thumb is you need to ensure that the flange distance of the camera body mount is less than the flange distance of the lens mount, otherwise you need a correction lens in the adaptor (unless it can be recessed) and this would need to be uber quality glass (tolerances would need to be very precise) as the lens quality is usually pivotal on the closest elements to the sensor. FD is less than EF mount (and needs clearance for the mirror) so FD lens cannot mount (physically or optically) directly onto EF. Introducing more than one adaptor (both of which may need optical correction) is going to make the quality of the glass worse. Just go directly FD -> EF using a single adaptor with an optical correction lens in the adaptor if at all (or forgo FD on EF unless you really want to use that lens). No need for whacky-ness.

Micro 4/3 are great for using many different mounts since being mirrorless, they have a small flange distance.

I used to shoot Leica R Elmars on my Canon EOS with the occasional M42 lens (there are some really decent M42, Lieca killers if you look around and check out the serial numbers), but replaced my DLSR's and big bulky gear set about 10 years ago with a single Olympus EPL1 and Voightlander Nokton (25mm/F0.95 ... 50mm equiv) which is great for low light. RAW Post processing hides the noise thats comes from not having a full frame. The Micro4/3 has adaptors for all the old lens I used to play around with and opens out to others (like C-mount, albeit recessed). It has IBIS (in-body image stablisation) which works on any lens so is great for using non-native mounts. I still occasionally mount my Leica's on it, but tbh their size makes them feel very badly balanced on the EPL1.

I wouldn't recommend getting an EPL1 now as they are quite old and I suspect come a long way, but a Micro 4/3 with interchagable lens opens up so many posibilities and a whole range of possible lenses.

No I was saying wacky because I was doing it wrong on purpose, talking non-optical adapters to deliberately throw infinity focus out and put minimum closer for macro use. If your head explodes just spoon it back in as best you can and take it to ER.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-11-12, 00:39:

No I was saying wacky because I was doing it wrong on purpose, talking non-optical adapters to deliberately throw infinity focus out and put minimum closer for macro use. If your head explodes just spoon it back in as best you can and take it to ER.

That is pretty much how extension tubes work, but if you want to stack mount adapters to get the same effect, that's fine with me (and my non exploding head 😉 ).
I have yet to try an extension tube with EF contacts with an EF body and lens . I wonder how easy/hard it would be to setup (semi-)automated focus bracketing and stacking with a setup like that .

This though... sell a kidney now in case there's one production run ever? wait for original price to slide down a bit? wait for knockoffs? https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/samellos/im-back-film