One of my 15 year old twin boys has taken an interest in photography since I resurrected the use of my OM's this past summer. So the other day he suddenly announced that he wants 'a simple SLR' that he can use to learn photography. But truth is, he doesn't want a simple SLR as we know the term: born of the iPhone generation, I had to try to explain that the 'simple SLR' he thinks he needs won't do any thinking for him, and he'd have to set the focus, shutter speed and aperture. "What the heck's an aperture?!". Long talk ensued, as you can imagine. And that's the baseline we're starting at.
After which we've decided what he wants is a program camera that initially will do all the thinking for him (except probably focussing, for the reason given below) and allow him to take control at his own pace while rewarding him with good results that will motivate him to learn.
So I'm looking for ideas. Essential features are:
- Program mode to initially use to gain confidence
- Aperture priority and manual mode for when his ambitions branch out
- Split-image viewfinder to make MF easy (so I think that probably excludes most AF cameras except for a few oddities like the quirky Olympus OM30)
- Genuine manual controls on the lens/body for aperture and shutter speed, not hidden in menus or multipurpose dials and switches. (Again that alienates many AF cameras, so I think it's likely we'll be looking at purely MF cameras).
- Cheap, so $100 / £100 or less for a working example with a lens, on the assumption this will turn out to be a flash in the pan (but if it isn't, no harm done and I've kickstarted a hobby for life for him)
On the radar already is of course the excellent Minolta X700 and the underrated Olympus OM40 / OM-PC.
Pentax / Canon / Nikon must surely have had equivalents? Yet I can't think of them!
All ideas welcomed.
After which we've decided what he wants is a program camera that initially will do all the thinking for him (except probably focussing, for the reason given below) and allow him to take control at his own pace while rewarding him with good results that will motivate him to learn.
So I'm looking for ideas. Essential features are:
- Program mode to initially use to gain confidence
- Aperture priority and manual mode for when his ambitions branch out
- Split-image viewfinder to make MF easy (so I think that probably excludes most AF cameras except for a few oddities like the quirky Olympus OM30)
- Genuine manual controls on the lens/body for aperture and shutter speed, not hidden in menus or multipurpose dials and switches. (Again that alienates many AF cameras, so I think it's likely we'll be looking at purely MF cameras).
- Cheap, so $100 / £100 or less for a working example with a lens, on the assumption this will turn out to be a flash in the pan (but if it isn't, no harm done and I've kickstarted a hobby for life for him)
On the radar already is of course the excellent Minolta X700 and the underrated Olympus OM40 / OM-PC.
Pentax / Canon / Nikon must surely have had equivalents? Yet I can't think of them!
All ideas welcomed.