Are There Too Many Cameras For Sale

I have been looking to buy a camera for months now. I'm stuck in a place that many people in my position find themselves in. Do I buy a cheap used DSLR or a brand new Bridge Camera.. Some of the DSLR's I've had my eye on are the Nikon D40, Canon 350D, Pentax K100D, Sony DSLR A390L Alpha, and the Olympus E-400 (A small dslr). I do want a DSLR camera over any other type but I'm concerned about buying a camera that is now fairly old. And by looking at various photography forums and reading about what camera brands are the most reliable, these choices, specially with the age of them now, don't really fill me with confidence.

The rate at which all the brands seem to have faults and breakdowns is quite shocking to be honest. I would have thought they would have been more reliable..I was surprised to read the Panasonic is one of the more reliable camera brands. With most of the brands being Japanese I expected better reliability. Sadly, it appears to be down to luck of the draw in many ways as to whether you end up with a good camera that will last years or a lemon that has problems.

Canon 550D - Picture Credit: WikipedianJones

For this reason I would prefer to buy some kind of cover with the camera but I don't think it's available with such old used products. So then that brings me to the Bridge Cameras. There are some excellent ones for sale. I can buy one brand new and with product cover if its available (Square Trade) for the model. Another plus for the Bridge cameras is their versatility. One example is they have super zooms, which is not something I would get with a budget DSLR that comes with the standard lens. Apparently you would have to spend thousands of pounds on lenses to get that same level of zoom capability in a DSLR.

A few Bridge cameras I've got my eye on are the Sony HX300 (Cover available), Sony HS300, Panasonic DMC-FZ72EB-K, Nikon Coolpix L330 + L340 (Cheap to buy), Fujifilm FinePix S9200, Fujifilm FinePix HS50, and the one out of my price range, the Nikon P900 that has a massive 83x Zoom!. The problem is when I narrow it down to a few choices I do more research online and find another 10 cameras of each separate brand that are either very similar to the model I've been interested in buying, or they are slightly better so then the search expands and continues. It seems never ending.

That's why I wrote the title, Are There Too Many Cameras For Sale? And do we really need the latest and greatest camera to get good results. I don't think we do. And neither does this person. Now, in some ways it's great to have a lot of options to choose from, but I would have to say yes, there are too many!. This is choice overload. There are so many cameras of various brands like Nikon, Canon, etc that are basically identical to another 5 cameras of a different brand (Fuji, Sony, Panasonic) in terms of features and appearance. 

They may just have a few slight differences, like add on features, build quality, or upgrades. This makes it very confusing when trying to choose just one. And to be honest, I'm no closer to making a decision now then I was when I first starting looking for a new camera. Now I've discovered those retro style Olympus cameras like the OM-D EM10, PEN E-PL7, and the SH-2. They look terrific! So the search goes on..

This is worse than buying a car! Just not as expensive if it all goes wrong! The main qualities I'm looking for in a camera are super sharp, clear images and reliability. I don't care about having a thousand features like touchscreen and selfie mode that I'll probably never use.The same goes for WiFi. I'm quite old school, a USB cable is good enough for me. I just hope I end up buying one that lasts a few years. Am I asking too much? I will do an update post when I finally end up making a decision and buying one. With the way things are going expect a long wait!