Best DSLRs 2022: From entry-level to professional | Articles | Photo, video, optics

DSLRs are still pop­u­lar in large part due to the near-infi­nite num­ber of lens­es avail­able. Pho­to: Pix­abay

Do not rush to “bury” DSLRs, because they still have some­thing to show you!

Despite all the claims that the days of SLR cam­eras are num­bered, many pho­tog­ra­phers, begin­ners and advanced, still pre­fer them. With the rise in pop­u­lar­i­ty of mir­ror­less sys­tems, the prices of many DSLRs have come down, so today many mod­els can be picked up at a decent dis­count. And DSLRs have sev­er­al advan­tages:

• last longer on a sin­gle bat­tery charge (an aver­age mir­ror­less cam­era allows you to take about 300 shots on a sin­gle charge, for SLR cam­eras this fig­ure starts at 500 frames);
• more choice of lens­es. Every­thing is very sim­ple here — SLR cam­eras and lens­es for them have been pro­duced for three decades, while mir­ror­less cam­eras have been active­ly devel­oped rel­a­tive­ly recent­ly;
• a larg­er body of DSLRs allows you to place more con­trols;
• the opti­cal viewfind­er (unlike the elec­tron­ic one) works even when the cam­era is turned off, it cov­ers the frame with­out col­or dis­tor­tion and delays in oper­a­tion. It also has no restric­tions on con­tin­u­ous shoot­ing (for most mir­ror­less cam­eras, after a long con­tin­u­ous shoot­ing, a “black­out” occurs — the viewfind­er does not work until the buffer is cleared).

In addi­tion, many pho­tog­ra­phers have already col­lect­ed an impres­sive col­lec­tion of mir­ror “glass­es” and want to use them with their own cam­eras, with­out addi­tion­al adapters and prob­lems with aut­o­fo­cus. And some­one just got used to the ergonom­ics of DSLRs and con­sid­ers them the most con­ve­nient thing in the world. For all of you, our top trend­ing SLR cam­eras of 2022.

The best DSLR for begin­ners 2022
Best midrange DSLR 2022
The best DSLR for advanced pho­tog­ra­phers 2022
The best DSLR for pro­fes­sion­als 2022
Best alter­na­tive DSLR 2022

The best DSLR for beginners 2022

Canon EOS 2000D

Canon 2000D is very com­pact and light. Pho­to: rtings.com

Strengths:

• eye-pleas­ing col­ors of pho­tographs in JPEG;
• very easy to man­age;
• com­pact body.

Weak sides:

• out­dat­ed aut­o­fo­cus sys­tem;
• not touch screen.

If bud­get is your top pri­or­i­ty, but you still want a decent cam­era for pho­tog­ra­phy, one of the best options is the Canon EOS 2000D. This is a sim­ple cam­era with a friend­ly inter­face and a con­ve­nient set of con­trols, which has every­thing you need for a begin­ner pho­tog­ra­ph­er.

The EOS 2000D is equipped with a good 24-megapix­el sen­sor, which is used not only in mod­els for begin­ners, but also in Canon’s mid-range cam­eras. Right out of the box and with­out addi­tion­al pro­cess­ing, the 2000D pro­duces pho­tos with pleas­ing­ly vibrant col­ors and good con­trast. And if you want to dig into the set­tings, “pull out” the frames shot in low light, you have the option of shoot­ing in RAW. The cam­era has good dynam­ic range and low dig­i­tal noise in the shad­ows, so it’s bet­ter for night pho­tog­ra­phy than your smart­phone.

The cam­era has a very com­pact body (it weighs just over 400 grams), so this is an inter­est­ing option for trav­el­ers and every­day shoot­ing.

This DSLR shoots 500 shots on a sin­gle charge, which is pret­ty good con­sid­er­ing that its mir­ror­less com­peti­tors strug­gle to squeeze out 200–300 shots.

How­ev­er, the 2000D also has a few obvi­ous weak­ness­es. First­ly, this is def­i­nite­ly not an option for scenes with fast move­ment — con­tin­u­ous shoot­ing is lim­it­ed to 3 frames per sec­ond. Sec­ond­ly, the aut­o­fo­cus sys­tem leaves much to be desired — miss­es, espe­cial­ly when work­ing with mov­ing objects, are com­mon for it. Final­ly, the max­i­mum video res­o­lu­tion is 1080p, so this is not the best cam­era for begin­ner video­g­ra­phers.

At the time of com­pil­ing the top, the Canon EOS 2000D can be pur­chased with a kit lens for 35 thou­sand rubles: a great option for those who want to start shoot­ing with a full-fledged cam­era with­out unnec­es­sary dif­fi­cul­ties and expens­es.

Com­peti­tor from the “sworn ene­my” — Nikon D3500. This cam­era is a lit­tle more expen­sive: today it will cost 45,000 rubles togeth­er with a sim­i­lar 18–55mm kit lens. But you get a lit­tle more vig­or­ous con­tin­u­ous shoot­ing — 5 fps. Oth­er­wise, the cam­eras are sim­i­lar: Nikon also has a 24-megapix­el sen­sor, a begin­ner-friend­ly inter­face and a not-too-advanced aut­o­fo­cus sys­tem.

Best midrange DSLR 2022

Canon EOS 850D

The Canon 850D has a handy swiv­el screen. Pho­to: camerajabber.com

Strengths:

• excel­lent pho­to qual­i­ty;
• user-friend­ly inter­face;
• reli­able aut­o­fo­cus.

Weak sides:

• no USB charg­ing;
• rather small viewfind­er;
• heavy crop­ping in 4K.

The Canon EOS 850D is a mid-range DSLR that can eas­i­ly be rec­om­mend­ed to any pho­to enthu­si­ast. Like its pre­de­ces­sor, it is com­pat­i­ble with a wide range of EF and EF‑S lens­es for all tastes and appli­ca­tions.

The cam­era offers a high-qual­i­ty pic­ture with good detail and bright Canon’s pro­pri­etary col­ors in JPEG. A decent dynam­ic range allows you to pull out details in shad­ows and over­ex­posed areas. The 850D uses a grip­py and fast aut­o­fo­cus sys­tem that han­dles mov­ing sub­jects quite well.

The viewfind­er in the cam­era is small and not very con­ve­nient, but the swiv­el touch screen is very bright and suit­able for out­door work. At the same time, the dis­play is quite demand­ing on the bat­tery — when shoot­ing through it, you will have 310 shots on a sin­gle charge, and when work­ing through the viewfind­er — 800. For novice pho­tog­ra­phers, there is a con­ve­nient hint sys­tem in the menu sys­tem, which helps a lot in learn­ing.

Canon EOS 850D can shoot 4K video, but only at 24 fps. At the same time, in 4K there is a seri­ous crop­ping of the frame. This lim­its the abil­i­ty to shoot wide-angle mate­r­i­al and, accord­ing­ly, vlogs. But in 1080p, the cam­era shoots with­out crop. There is also a con­nec­tor for con­nect­ing an exter­nal micro­phone and shoot­ing video in ver­ti­cal ori­en­ta­tion for social net­works. So, in gen­er­al, for not too demand­ing tasks in the field of video, this cam­era is a good option.

All in all, the Canon EOS 850D looks like one of the most ver­sa­tile and inter­est­ing DSLRs in terms of val­ue for mon­ey.

Alter­na­tive from Nikon: D5600. She has a 24-megapix­el matrix with­out an opti­cal low-pass fil­ter. The absence of a fil­ter in the­o­ry allows you to get sharp­er pic­tures, but can also lead to arti­facts (for exam­ple, moiré, which occurs when shoot­ing scenes con­tain­ing repeat­ing details, such as fab­ric pat­terns or pro­nounced ver­ti­cal lines in archi­tec­ture). The cam­era has a con­ve­nient swiv­el dis­play and a good aut­o­fo­cus sys­tem.

Of the minus­es — there is no 4K video at all (well, in gen­er­al, video shoot­ing capa­bil­i­ties are very lim­it­ed — there is no auto ISO and aper­ture con­trol in video mode), as well as a small buffer that fills up quick­ly dur­ing con­tin­u­ous shoot­ing.

The best DSLR for advanced photographers 2022

Nikon D500

Thanks to its fast burst shoot­ing speed, the Nikon D500 is pop­u­lar with wildlife pho­tog­ra­phers. Pho­to: bhphotovideo.com

Strengths:

• good qual­i­ty of pho­tos;
• excel­lent detail in low light;
• dou­ble slot for mem­o­ry cards.

Weak sides:

• 4K video with severe frame crop­ping;
• poor aut­o­fo­cus in video mode.

Despite its ven­er­a­ble age (the cam­era was released in 2016), the Nikon D500 is still Nikon’s top APS‑C DSLR, bypass­ing many more mod­ern cam­eras in terms of pic­ture qual­i­ty and fea­ture set.

The body of the D500 is large (860 grams), which is why it can hard­ly be advised to those who like to trav­el light. At the same time, the cam­era is equipped with all the nec­es­sary con­trol dials, which allows you to almost not get into the menu for set­tings.

Image qual­i­ty is top-notch: pho­tos tak­en with a 20-megapix­el sen­sor can eas­i­ly com­pete in qual­i­ty with advanced full-frame mod­els. Throw in reli­able aut­o­fo­cus and 10fps burst shoot­ing, and you have a great work­ing tool for any genre of pho­tog­ra­phy — sports, land­scapes, por­traits and wildlife. And it also has a dual mem­o­ry card slot with sup­port for fast cards for high-speed shoot­ing.

The D500 can shoot 4K video, but as with the pre­vi­ous mod­el from our top, video shoot­ing is not its forte. 4K is obtained with a pow­er­ful 2.25x crop (poor for wide-angle shots, and in par­tic­u­lar for shoot­ing vlogs), although, in gen­er­al, the pic­ture is of good qual­i­ty. Also, dur­ing video shoot­ing, you should avoid using aut­o­fo­cus — it jumps from object to object and makes a loud noise.

All in all, if you’re look­ing for a fast, great qual­i­ty cam­era and video isn’t your thing, then the Nikon D500 is an option that can eas­i­ly com­pete with many of the most advanced mir­ror­less cam­eras today.

Canon vari­ant: EOS 7D Mark II. This cam­era is cheap­er and sim­pler, but it also can shoot high-speed shoot­ing at 10 fps, and also demon­strates high qual­i­ty images in low light. The aut­o­fo­cus sys­tem is fast and reli­able, but los­es out to Nikon, espe­cial­ly in con­tin­u­ous shoot­ing.

Unlike Nikon D500, the cam­era does not shoot in 4K, but aut­o­fo­cus in video mode is bet­ter. The Canon EOS 7D Mark II also lags behind the com­pe­ti­tion in terms of dynam­ic range (shoot­ing in RAW on the D500 is more effi­cient).

The best DSLR for professionals 2022

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV

Canon EOS 5D Mark IV can save 8.8‑megapixel pho­tos from 4K video. Pho­to: camerajabber.com

Strengths:

• strong body and com­fort­able ergonom­ics;
• advanced aut­o­fo­cus in pho­tos and videos;
• fast burst shoot­ing.

Weak sides:

• no pro­fes­sion­al tools for video shoot­ing;
• aut­o­fo­cus through the viewfind­er does not track sub­jects well.

The Canon 5D is Canon’s top line of pro­fes­sion­al DSLRs, and the 5D Mark IV is its lat­est mod­el.

This 30.4‑megapixel full-frame cam­era deliv­ers super-detailed images and han­dles dif­fi­cult light­ing con­di­tions beau­ti­ful­ly. As with oth­er Canon mod­els on this list, you get pleas­ing sig­na­ture col­ors in JPEGs. But the main advan­tages of the matrix of this cam­era are man­i­fest­ed when work­ing in RAW — the noise in the shad­ows when shoot­ing at min­i­mum ISO is almost imper­cep­ti­ble, which gives ample oppor­tu­ni­ties for “pulling” details from dark areas.

The cam­era received advanced aut­o­fo­cus when shoot­ing in Live View mode (using the dis­play) with a cool object and face track­ing sys­tem. The sys­tem works very accu­rate­ly both when shoot­ing (includ­ing ser­i­al shoot­ing) and in video mode (which is not typ­i­cal for DSLRs). Unfor­tu­nate­ly, when shoot­ing through the viewfind­er, the auto­mat­ic object track­ing sys­tem does not work as reli­ably, but if you keep the aut­o­fo­cus point above the sub­ject, the cam­era almost nev­er miss­es.

In terms of video shoot­ing, the Canon 5D Mark IV, while not par­tic­u­lar­ly able to com­pete with top mir­ror­less cam­eras, in gen­er­al, it remains a reli­able tool. The mod­el can shoot 4K/30p video, but unfor­tu­nate­ly, as in the case of oth­er mod­els from the top, with a rather seri­ous frame crop­ping (1.64x), which lim­its the options for using the cam­era. The cam­era is equipped with head­phone and micro­phone jacks, and can also shoot HDR mate­r­i­al (high dynam­ic range) in 1080/30p. How­ev­er, advanced video­g­ra­phers are unlike­ly to be inter­est­ed in the mod­el, because it did not receive the main pro­fes­sion­al tools: peak­ing focus for pre­cise focus­ing, a “flat” log pro­file for sim­pli­fy­ing col­or cor­rec­tion and “zebra” for track­ing bright­ness. So the cam­era is quite suit­able for reportage shoot­ing — thanks to reli­able aut­o­fo­cus and good per­for­mance in low light, but it can hard­ly be con­sid­ered a seri­ous tool for com­mer­cial video shoot­ing.

Over­all, the Canon 5D Mark IV is one of the most ver­sa­tile pro­fes­sion­al DSLRs on the mar­ket for pho­tog­ra­phers of all gen­res.

Nikon, of course, has a wor­thy com­peti­tor in this cat­e­go­ry — Nikon D850. This is a 45.7 megapix­el cam­era for super detailed shots. Like Canon, it can shoot series at 7 fps, boasts a high-qual­i­ty pic­ture and a wide dynam­ic range. The cam­eras dif­fer in terms of aut­o­fo­cus: the Nikon sys­tem is good when shoot­ing through the viewfind­er, but not very effec­tive when work­ing through the dis­play (accord­ing­ly, it also los­es in video mode). Canon has the oppo­site — it is weak­er when shoot­ing through the viewfind­er, but in Live View, the pro­pri­etary Dual Pix­el sys­tem bypass­es the com­peti­tor in speed and accu­ra­cy.

Best alternative DSLR 2022

Pentax K‑3III

The Pen­tax K‑3 III feels great out­doors thanks to its rugged weath­er­proof hous­ing. Pho­to: www.raiklight.de

Strengths:

• top pic­ture qual­i­ty;
• effec­tive sta­bi­liza­tion;
• strong body and com­fort­able ergonom­ics.

Weak sides:

• the screen does not recline or rotate;
• unre­li­able aut­o­fo­cus in Live View (when shoot­ing through the screen).

And, of course, in our top we could not get around the Pen­tax com­pa­ny, which for many years cre­at­ed its own “mir­ror” for every­one who did not want to shoot with Canon and Nikon. The sys­tem still has a lot of fans, and cam­eras from the K‑1 and K‑3 lines are con­sid­ered by many to be almost immor­tal due to their strong body and advanced pro­tec­tion from bad weath­er.

The Pen­tax K‑3 III is the newest mod­el on our list and pos­si­bly the last DSLR ever.

It fea­tures a 25.7‑megapixel APS‑C sen­sor that cap­tures amaz­ing­ly detailed pho­tos. The built-in 5‑axis sta­bi­liza­tion sys­tem helps you cap­ture sharp shots even in low light con­di­tions. Despite the crop sen­sor, the cam­era is great for shoot­ing in the evening (ISO can be pushed up to 25600 and still get a work­ing result).

In addi­tion to the already not­ed high-qual­i­ty stur­dy mag­ne­sium alloy body, the cam­era is also equipped with a con­ve­nient set of con­trols.

Of the minus­es — the tra­di­tion­al frame crop­ping in 4K video (while the cam­era shoots 1080p from the entire width of the matrix), a some­what out­dat­ed con­trast aut­o­fo­cus sys­tem and a screen tight­ly attached to the body.

Pen­tax K‑3 III is an inter­est­ing option for pho­tog­ra­phers, espe­cial­ly for those who pre­fer to use an opti­cal viewfind­er: advanced sta­bi­liza­tion, fast con­tin­u­ous shoot­ing (up to 12 fps), a reli­able stur­dy body and a pow­er­ful bat­tery (800 shots on a sin­gle charge). The mod­el is suit­able for advanced pho­tog­ra­phers and pros of var­i­ous gen­res, for every­day shoot­ing and for trav­el, unless, of course, you don’t mind car­ry­ing a large cam­era (820 grams) with you. In gen­er­al, the final chord of Pen­tax turned out great! Although, maybe not final — time will tell.