Have you ever felt overwhelmed trying to buy the camera that’s best for you? Brieanna sure did when she started the topic Best Cameras for Beginning Enthusiast!! on the Q&A forum. But I’m so glad she posted something. I learned a lot as we worked together through the process of finding a camera that was right for her!

First off, we needed to decide if DSLR vs Mirrorless was the way to go. The difference between the two is almost like choosing between Film vs Digital back in the day when digital was first coming out. DSLRs are slowly phasing out nowadays, but the distant future of an already superb technology is not the only factor in the equation.

For this particular situation, we decided sticking with DSLR would be best.

The next question was what brand to go with. I generally recommend going with Canon since it’s been a top-of-the-line brand for a long time, is affordable, and has a massive amount of lens choices. It’s also the brand I’m most familiar with, and I think the menu organization and physical ergonomics are better than other brands.

So having narrowed it down to Canon DSLR, the next question was, budget. Or more practically, a budget range. So Brieanna thought through that.

With a budget set, the next step was to figure out just how much bang could we get for Brieanna’s buck. So I started doing a bit of research.

As I commenced my search, I started to get confused. I thought finding an entry-level DSLR was simple. “Just go for an EOS Rebel, and the higher the T#, the better it will be.” But it turns out that there are a lot of entry-level Canon DLSR cameras. There are T7’s and SL2’s and 750D’s and 2000D’s and T6s’s and . . . I couldn’t keep track of them all!

So I decided to make me a chart. And that chart helped me immensely!

A couple disclaimers about the chart. I listed across the top all the main things that were important to Brieanna (plus a couple things that I thought were important too). The chart isn’t intended to be comprehensive. It only includes Canon EOS Rebel entry-level DSLRs. It’s listed according to my subjective opinion on how good of a camera I think it would be. Worst at the top, best at the bottom. And, of course, it only includes cameras from no more than 10 years ago.

CANON Rebel…	Int’l title	FPS	Focus points	Mega pixels	Release date	Flip screen?	Touch screen?	Top LCD?	Body only	My rating
T100	4000D 3000D	3	9	18	2018	No	No	No	$$	12th
T6	1300D	3	9	18	2016	No	No	No	$$	11th
SL1	100D	3	9	18	2013	No	Yes	No	$	10th
T7	2000D	3	9	24	2018	No	No	No	$$$	9th
T5i	700D	5	9	18	2013	Yes	Yes	No	$$	8th
T6i	750D	5	9	24	2015	Yes	Yes	No	$$$	7th
SL2	200D	5	9	24	2017	Yes	Yes	No	$$$	6th
SL3	250D	5	9	24	2019	Yes	Yes	No	$$$$	5th
T6s	760D	5	19	24	2015	Yes	Yes	Yes	$$$	4th
T7i	800D	6	45	24	2017	Yes	Yes	No	$$$$	3rd
77D	9000D	6	45	24	2017	Yes	Yes	Yes	$$$	2nd
T8i	850D	7.5	45	24	2020	Yes	Yes	No	$$$$$	1st

If I had $$$$$ to spend, I would buy my 1st choice. The T8i looks like a really good camera. You really need more than 9 Focus points. And 3 frames per second is really out of date.

If all my budget allows is $$$, well, even though it’s an older camera, in my opinion, the 77D is the 2nd best choice out there. That is, if you can find it. On Ebay you might be able to find it at a reasonable price. On Amazon, I’d be surprised if it’s listed.

If, on the other hand, my budget happens to be $, then, well, I’m stuck with 10th choice. But at least it isn’t 12th choice!

Or maybe I can make by budget stretch to $$, for 8th choice. The T5i. Even though it was released way back in 2013, I would choose it over the 2018-released T100 any day.

Musing over the chart, it’s interesting to observe that features aren’t necessarily better the newer it’s released. The 2018-released T100 has far fewer features (at least as we are concerned with here) than the 2013-released T5i. I worked with a student who had a T100 once, and different things about it made it worse than my old 2010 T2i that I picked up many years ago for $100.

While this chart certainly has subjective underpinnings and may not be helpful for everyone, maybe one day an overwhelmed budding photographer will stumble upon it and find the entry-level Canon DLSR camera they were looking for!