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Best Cameras for Intermediate Level or Amateur Photographers - 2021

So you have been using an Entry level DSLR or Mirrorless Camera with a kit lens for a while now and you have the basics down pat. You are ready to take your photography to the next level and want to get a more capable camera and lens combination. This guide is for you. I have listed here the best value for money cameras in the ₹ 65,000 (roughly 900$ USD) to ₹ 1,50,000 ($USD 2000) price range for camera body plus one non kit lens.

So you have been using an Entry level DSLR or Mirrorless Camera with a kit lens for a while now and you have the basics down pat. You are ready to take your photography to the next level and want to get a more capable camera and lens combination. This guide is for you. I have listed here the best value for money cameras for 2021 in the ₹ 65,000 (roughly 900$ USD) to ₹ 1,50,000 ($USD 2000) price range for camera body plus one non kit lens.

Canon EOS 850D + 18-55 IS STM Lens Kit

Price ₹ 74,990.00

Canon 850D Features

24.1 APS-C Sensor

AF : OVF: 45 AF points maximum (all cross-type) / Live View: Maximum 3 975 selectable AF point positions / Up to 143 AF areas (auto selection)

Shutter Speed Range (s). Stills: 30 - 1/4 000s, Bulb , Movie recording: 1/8 - 1/4 000s

LCD Monitor (Size) - 7.62cm(3.0in)

Memory Card Type - SD, SDHC*, SDXC*, *UHS-I cards compatible

Flash sync - 1/200s

Effective ISO Stills: 100 - 25 600 (H:51 200)
Movie: 4K UHD: 100 - 6400 / Full HD:100 - 12 800 (H:25 600)

Shooting Modes Stills: Scene Intelligent Auto, Special scene modes (Portrait, Smooth Skin, Group Photo, Landscape, Sports, Kids, Close-up, Food, Candlelight, Night Portrait, Handheld Night Scene, HDR Backlight Control), Creative filters (Grainy B/W, Soft focus, Fish-eye effect, Water painting effect, Toy camera effect, Miniature effect, HDR art standard, HDR art vivid, HDR art bold, HDR art embossed), Program AE, Shutter-priority AE, Aperture-priority AE, Manual exposure, Bulb Movie recording: Auto, Scene Intelligent Auto, Manual exposure, Special Scene (HDR movies), Creative filters (Dream, Old Movies, Memory, Dramatic B&W, Miniature effect movie)

Pair this Camera with Canon EF-S 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 Image Stabilization USM Lens (Black)

Canon EF-S18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

Price ₹ 29,990.00

Driven by Nano USM, this compact EF-S standard zoom lens with 7.5x zoom covers most shooting scenes, whether of your travel destination or an everyday scene. It retains the same optical technology used in the best-selling EF-S18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 IS STM lens, which prevents flaring and ghosting to realize high image quality. Dynamic IS corrects major instances of camera shake and it's just one part of the overall IS image stabilizing system which stabilizes images an equivalent of 4 shutter speed settings.

In fact, this lens is optimized for both stills and movie shooting thanks to Nano USM which ensures high speed, seamless, and quiet AF as you shoot. The lens uses a 7 blade circular aperture, which promises beautiful bokeh circles. It's also compatible with the optional Power Zoom Adapter PZ-E1, which helps you to carry out even smoother zoom operations.

Filter size: 67mm
Maximum aperture: f/3.5-5.6

Buy on Amazon India

Buy EF-S 18-135mm IS USM Lens

Buy on Amazon USA

Canon EOS 90D + EF-S 18-135 IS USM Lens + 128 GB SD card

Price ₹ 1,31,194.00

Canon EOS 90D Features

32.5megapixel APS-C CMOS Sensor + DIGIC 8 processor

Dual pixel CMOS AF

45 cross-type AF (Optical Viewfinder)

Face detection (Optical Viewfinder & Live View)

5 481 selectable focus positions (Live View)

Eye Detection AF (One-Shot & Servo AF – Live View)

4K Video (Uncropped/Cropped)

High Speed Capturing of 10/11 FPS

Image Stabilizer Lens-shift type & In-body 5 axis electronic image stabilisation

Peripheral ConnectionsHi-Speed USB, HDMI (Type C) / Microphone / Headphone / Remote

EF-S 18-135 IS USM Lens Features

7.5x zoom range

Filter size: 67mm

Maximum aperture: f/3.5-5.6

Buy EOS 90D Bundle in India

Buy EOS 90D Bundle in USA

Sony Alpha 6600M Camera with 18-135 mm Zoom Lens kit

Price ₹ 1,49,000.00

24.2 Mpix APS-C Sensor

5 Axis Optical Image stabilisation

Real time eye AF for still / Video and Animal Eye AF

Real time tracking

World fastest 0.02 Sec AF speed with 425 phase detection and contrast points

EXMOR CMOS sensor with outstanding light sensitivity

True-to-life 4K HDR (HLG) movie recording

High-capacity Z battery supports long-duration shooting

11 FPS continuous shooting with AF/AE, ISO sensitivity up to 102400

180 degree tilt able touch LCD screen

BATTERY LIFE (STILL IMAGES)

Approx. 720 shots (Viewfinder)/Approx. 810 shots (LCD monitor) (CIPA standard)2

VIEWFINDER TYPE

1.0 cm (0.39-type) electronic viewfinder (colour)

MONITOR TYPE

7.5 cm (3.0-type) wide type TFT

14-bit RAW output with rich tonal gradation

Focus Peaking and Focus Magnification

External mic and audio input plus headphone jack

S-Gamut/S-Log shooting

One-touch remote, One-touch sharing, Location Information Link

Buy on Amazon India

Buy on Amazon USA

Sony A7 Mark III with 28-70mm Lens

Price ₹ 1,59,900.00

Sony A7 Mark III Features

24.2MP 35 mm full-frame CMOS sensor with back-illuminated design

Standard ISO range from 100 to 51200

15-stop dynamic range at low-sensitivity settings

14-bit RAW output for natural gradations

5-axis optical in-body image stabilisation

4D Focus – Wide, Fast, Steadfast, AF performance inherited from α9

Fast Hybrid AF with 693 phase-detection and 425 contrast-detection AF points

Tenacious AF/AE tracking during continuous shooting at up to 10 fps and up to 8fps in live view mode with mechanical or silent shutter

4K HDR with high resolution, wide dynamic range, and a wide color gamut approaches reality

Outstanding reliability and features for smooth, confident shooting in a compact body

Fast AF/AE tracking for continuous shooting at up to 10 fps

2 Year standard warranty + 1 year extended warranty on registration on alpha community

Full pixel readout without binning for high-resolution 4K movies

28-70mm f3.5-5.6 lens included

Buy on Amazon India

Buy on Amazon USA

SONY Alpha 7M3K Mirrorless Camera Body with 28 - 70 mm Zoom Lens

Fujifilm XT30

Price ₹ 67,500.00 Price in the USA $899.00

Fujifilm XT30 Features

(APS-C) X-Trans CMOS 4 ,26.1 million pixels

Ultra Sonic Vibration Sensor Cleaning system

Accepts SD Card (-2G) / SDHC Card (-32G) / SDXC Card (-512G) UHS-I

ISO 160 to 12800

Mechanical + Electronic Shutter

Intelligent Hybrid AF (TTL contrast AF / TTL phase detection AF)

DCI 4K 30p/4K 30p/FULL HD 120 p Video

Fujifilm Film Simulation Modes

Playback functions RAW conversion, Image rotate, Auto image rotate, Face Detection, Red-eye removal, Photo-book assist, Erase selected frames, Multi-frame playback (with micro thumbnail), Slide show, Protect, Crop, Resize, Panorama, Favourites, Voice Memo Setting

Wifi and Bluetooth 4.2

Wireless function Geotagging, Wireless communication (Image transfer), View & Obtain Images, Remote camera shooting, PC Autosave, Image Transfer Order, Instax printer print

Battery life for still images. Approx. 380 frames

Operating Temperature 0°C - 40°C (+32°F - +104°F)C

Buy on Amazon India

Buy on Amazon USA

Lens Recommendations for the XT30

Fujinon XF18-135mmF3.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR Zoom Lens. Price ₹ 67,248.00
Fujifilm XF 35mm F1.4 R Lens. Price ₹ 45,450.00
Fujifilm Fujinon XF16-80mmF4 R OIS WR Lens. Price ₹ 59,000.00

Fuji Film XT3

Price in India ₹ 93,531.00

Fujifilm XT3 Features

26.1mp x-trans cmos 4 sensor with degree x-processor 4 image processing engine

4k movie recording

Internal SD card 4k/60p 4: 2: 0 10bit recording

First mirrorless digital camera with aps-c or larger sensor that is capable of 4k/60p 4: 2: 2 10bit hdmi output when it was launched

2.16m phase detection pixels across entire frame and low-light phase detection limits has been increased over x-t2 by 2 stops, from -1ev to -3ev 3.69 million dot oled color viewfinder with 0.75x magnification and blackout-free burst

Accepts SD memory card (-2GB) / SDHC memory card (-32GB) / SDXC memory card (-512GB)
UHS-I / UHS-II / Video Speed Class V90 *1

Sensor Cleaning system Ultra Sonic Vibration

Auto bracketing

AE Bracketing (Frames: -2, -3, +3, +2, ±9, ±7, ±5, ±3 Step: 1/3EV, 2/3EV, 1EV, 4/3EV、5/3EV、2EV、7/3EV、8/3EV、3EV)
Film Simulation bracketing (Any 3 types of film simulation selectable)
Dynamic Range Bracketing (100%, 200%, 400%)
ISO sensitivity Bracketing (±1/3EV, ±2/3EV, ±1EV)
White Balance Bracketing (±1, ±2, ±3)
Focus Bracketing (Frames: 1-999, Step: 1-10, Interval: 0-10s)

Intelligent Hybrid AF (TTL contrast AF / TTL phase detection AF)

Video Recording

DCI4K/4K 29.97p/25p/24p/23.98p 400Mbps

Full HD(2048×1080)/Full HD(1920×1080) 59.94p/50p/29.97p/25p/24p/23.98p 200Mbps

Film Simulation Modes

16 modes (PROVIA/Standard, Velvia/Vivid, ASTIA/Soft, Classic Chrome, PRO Neg.Hi, PRO Neg.Std, Black & White, Black & White+Ye Filter, Black & White+R Filter, Black & White+G Filter, Sepia, ACROS, ACROS+Ye Filter, ACROS+R Filter, ACROS+G Filter, ETERNA/Cinema)
B & W Adjustment: -9-+9

Buy XT3 on Amazon India

Buy XT3 Kit On Flipkart

FUJIFILM X-T3 with XF 18-55 mm F2.8-4.0 R LM OIS Lens Mirrorless Camera Kit

Lens Recommendations for XT3