**See summary at the bottom if your attention span does not span far**

Photography can be as complex or as simple as you want. What are you looking for?

I shoot on this with a bunch of different lenses (from $200 – $900 lenses). This is the smallest, lightest lens I have. This is the other lens I use the most.

All of that equipment isn’t the lightest. DSLRs are the biggest body cameras. Lenses can be big or small. My DSLR with the light lens from above is really travel-friendly.

I knew that I was going all-in with photography when I bought my first camera body, so I wanted something slightly more advanced than most people will start with. I would normally recommend something more like the Nikon D3300 or D5300 if you’re feeling frisky.

Lenses that come with camera bodies aren’t great. If you want nice pictures, you’ll either need a really nice day or a nicer lens.

This lens (mentioned previously) will be lightweight and get you more of what you want for digital pictures.

If you want really nice pictures of people, consider this lens (also mentioned previously).

 

tl;dr summary

If you just want lightweight and simple, you should probably just use your phone. You could also buy a point-and-shoot camera, but I’ve never bought an expensive one and never had success with cheap ones. If you want to disconnect from the internet, you could use your phone in airplane mode.

If you want to give photography a shot, get a cheap body and maybe one lens.

If you want to upload photos directly to your camera on the fly, get the Nikon D5300 body. It also has a flippable view screen and wifi built in.

If you don’t care about all that and just want it to be automatic, get the Nikon D3300.

 If you’re traveling, want scenery, or maybe multiple people in a single shot, you should get the 35mm f/2. If you want to take headshots of your friends, get the 50mm f/1.4.