Nikon D5500 Digital Camera Kit with 18-55mm and 70-300mm - Black

My Sony A6000 with the 18-200mm lens was stolen, and I couldn't justify sticking with Sony after that. Basically Sony is just too expensive for what you. After the theft, I still had my HVLF 43mm flash, 35mm Sony prime lens, Sony hotshoe microphone and after selling all those things I was almost able to pay for this camera and an additional 35mm Nikon prime lens. A lot of this review will compare it to the Sony A6000 which I previously had. I am an amateur photographer who doesn't have much to play around with Manual settings. Bottom line is for $1000 total (including the 35mm prime lens), I got a camera that was at least equivalent to the Sony A6000.The flash of this is much better than the built in flash on the A6000 which was so weak that I needed to get the external flash. The Nikon D5500 flash is built in and is way better than the Sony A6000 flash, due to it's further range and better resulting picture quality. If you have a bright background and need to use the flash for a portrait picture, then this works great. This was not the case with Sony's teeny A6000 flash.LCD. It's a touch screen, and allows you to touch the screen and focus on an object. The A6000 didn't let me do this. The A6500 does, but at a cost of 2.5X times this. It also fully swivels and turns and can be turned to face inwards when you're not using this, which is a great feature. The Sony A6000 sometimes missed the focus point which for me taking pictures of my kids was/is important. With the A6000 and my kids on the move, I didn't have time to move the cursor to track someone's face, which it also lost. With the D5500, you can either touch the part of the scene/screen that you want the camera to track and focus, or you can set it to automatically take the picture when you touch the part of screen/scene that you want the camera to focus on and then take your finger off the screen.Manual control is definitely not as good as the A6000. You cannot manually the ISO, shutter speed and aperture at the same time.Automatic mode and SCNs result in better pictures than the modes on the A6000.Overall picture quality is good enough for me which is mostly family and kid pictures with the odd landscape.Size is definitely bigger than the A6000 but with the A6000, I was using the 18-200mm lens and once you put on a big lens than the size of the body doesn't matter as much.Viewfinder is optical instead of digital. The A6000 wins here. Digital viewfinder shows what your picture is going to look like. Optical viewfinider does not. I definitely miss this feature.Lastly, as other reviewers have said, the wireless features of the Nikon D5500 don't work that well, which wasn't important to me. They also didn't work well with the Sony A6000 unless you had that touch NFC thing on your mobile or tablet. This was not important to me, but I still think Nikon could/should sort this out.In short, if you plan to get an A6000 and just use the kit 16-50mm lens and the 55-210mm lens, and you don't really care about a touchscreen and a good flash, then I would suggest you go with the Sony A6000 over this. If you plan on buying other lenses and care about having a good flash, and a touchscreen then I would go with the Nikon D5500. For $1000 total, I got the Nikon D5500, the 18-140mm lens, the 35mm prime lens, plus extra batteries, charger, camera case, shoulder strap and wrist strap. For me, this was the best camera in this price range which had all the features I wanted except one (digital viewfinder).

A superb camera. While I could go on and on about how good the new 24MP imager is; how light but strong the body is; how fast the camera handles big files; and the great overall quality of the images if you lens and technique are good -- it's the touch screen that really makes it stand apart. Once you realize virtually everything can be done via iPhone-like gestures on the big rear articulating LCD, it becomes the fastest DSLR camera I've ever used. This camera is also lighter than ANY DSLR I've ever used, and I've used many Nikon's and Canon's. Since it's largely made from a single piece of polycarbonate, it's exceptionally strong too. I've dropped it on the sidewalk, I know.Although it's still 24MP, Nikon says it's a new sensor, not a carry-over from the D5300. That said, 24MP can make mural-sized photos.This camera is more capable than most lens' ability to resolve. The kit lens (18mm-55mm) while decent, cannot do the imager justice. Try the f1.8 35mm DX, or any older Nikkor 50mm "normal" lens on a tripod. You will be amazed at the resolution. I tested the D5500 with a 50 yr-old f4 200mm Nikkor Q lens, and the results were spectacular. While this camera will only auto-focus with DX lenses, you can manually focus with confidence with almost any Nikon lens because a little dot appears in the viewfinder when you have focused accurately. Exposure can be gauged by looking at the LCD screen.Another strong suit with the D5500 is it's low-light capability. It is nothing short of amazing! Nite photography with fast lenses is easy, hand-held! It is so good, taking pictures of the Milky Way on a clear night is relatively easy. Photos taken at ISO's of 12,500 are ridiculously good. Sure, there's some noise, but it isn't too noticeable depending on the circumstances. Astronomers of the world unite, here is your camera!Make no mistake, the D5500 in capable hands, with solid technique and good lenses, can match ANY camera under $3000. Oh, and it weighs almost nothing and has a touch screen, did I mention that? :D

Nice quality camera had to buy a book to help me learn how to use it,