R 50 / 7 / 10 for a beginning photographer

sheepless wrote:

Good morning - I am wanting to buy a new camera and at present with been reading alot of reviews and doing camera comparisons. I currently own a bridge camera.

I come from a "film camera" many years ago and had the classic Canon AE1. From there I had several Canon Powershots.

I have tried to dip my toe back into interchangeable lens cameras (owning Olympus 520E and Fuji XT-20) however my biggest problem was I found the menus to be cumbersome.

I have decided to go "back to school" (I'm well into 60 years) and take a beginner photo class so I need an easy to use camera I can grow into.

I'm currently considering both Olympus and Canon brands.

I have read a number of reviews recommending the R50 as a good beginner camera, but that it has limitations for user growth and there were recommendstions to look at the R10.

I'm also looking at the R7 as it is environmentally sealed (which appeals to me as I am going whale watching this year and I enjoy bird photography).

Having said that if the R7 is not as user / beginner friendly I will look at the R10.

Any thoughts / recommendations would be appreciated.

The R7 and R10 are similar in many ways, and in terms of the user interface are very similar indeed, so I would not regard the R7 as less user friendly, or the R10 as less capable of progression. As you say the R7 has better weather sealing, it also has a bigger battery, are larger sensor (32.5 vs 24MP), is larger overall, and has a slightly better viewfinder, and is generally regarded as more suitable to wildlife photography. The R10 is smaller and lighter, the sensor is capable of very good results, and it has the same autofocus as the R7.

I use an R5 with a range of lenses from 14mm to 500mm, but have recently bought an R10 as a small walk around / weekend away type of camera, and I am very pleased with the results. With the RF18-150 lens It is in most respects better than the "crop sensor" dSLRs I've had before (80D, 90D) and is very compact.

The R7 would do very nicely for your whale watching trip, but so would the R10 if you are careful with it. The ideal lens would be the RF 100-400, affordable and good image quality, but not weather sealed. If you can justify it, the RF100-500 L is the absolute best lens for wildlife, but it is a lot more expensive, fully sealed, larger and heavier.

Another system to look at is Olympus (now OM Sytems), the OM1 series have superb weather sealing (a friend dropped his in the water with no ill effects) and a very good range of lenses. The sensor is smaller, but still has very good image quality. Personally I prefer the handling of the Canons, and in my view the menu system is far better, but this is very personal. Are you able to get to a store to try them out?

Good luck with your search, feel free to come back for more advice but be aware that if you ask 10 photographers for their opinions you'll get 20 answers!  PS I'm well into my 60s too...but been fully digital since the first dSLRs came on the market.