In this review, we will be comparing entry-level camera Nikon D3500 and Canon Rebel T6. Most of the features are as same in both the cameras but the quality of images and video will be differ. There is also some positive and negative points in both of the cameras. Let’s take a brief look about these cameras.

Introduction

Nikon D3500

In my opinion, this is the best DSLR starter kit on the market simply because of what this camera offers in the price point that I comes at. Nikon removed some features but also added some new feature and it will be beneficial to most of the people.

Canon Rebel T6

This camera is available at a great price for beginners, students or anyone new to DSLR photography. In fact, it’s cheaper than a lot of average compact cameras. The rebel T6 doesn’t represent a major upgrade from its predecessor, however, the EOS Rebel T5 EOS 1200D which itself was hardly a huge overhaul of the EOS Rebel T4 EOS 1100 D.

Design & Handling

Nikon D3500

This camera comes with a guide mode and its super easy to use. This guide will be very helpful to the beginners and who are new to the photo industry. This is as much easy like you can choose any photo mode in your own without confusion. This guide mode is super helpful and considering the fact that this is made for beginners and it will be perfect for them. They also remove the function button so there was a function button on the D 3400 The function button was nice because you could assign it to do different tasks.

This camera has built in flash. This flash is plenty bright, if you’re shooting people up close or objects on your travels, this flash should be plenty bright and you don’t have to worry about there not being light outs.

This is a really well-built camera. Everything from the SD card slots, the way the buttons are laid out, it just feels really well built. This lens has this really nice texture on it. I’m surprised to get such a robust body with so many features and shortcut buttons on this camera. It’s grippy, it’s got a nice folks feel to it. This camera does not have a flip screen or a touchscreen that is more of a premium feature that you would get on a higher-end DSLR. Another thing, this camera is extremely light.

This camera has the look and feel of the 5600. The hand grip on the the right hand side is a little deeper, so it’s reminiscent of that 5600. The buttons on the back of the camera went from the left hand side on the 3400 to the right hand side. So, it’s all accessible with your right thumb when you’re holding the camera.

Battery in this camera, it’s not as good as Canon batteries and that’s like the one place that this camera is not better than its cannon counterpart. It’s not quite as long-lasting but it is a very good battery. The 3400 On a full charge will shoot at around 1,200 shots or frames. Now, this 3500 will shoot 1550, so that’s a nice welcomed addition.

Canon Rebel T6

Its display does not turn around, so it does not have a flip screen. The screen is fixed, you cannot turn it around, so it is very difficult flow of vlogging. The framing is kind of difficult but you can use it for vlogging because it is very lightweight and compact. The big positive point is it does not feel like a heavy camera, it is a lightweight camera, you can easily carry it around anywhere.

The EOS Rebel T 6 has LCD display is a 3-inch 920 K unit whereas the T5 posted only 460 k dots. This upgrade should make viewing images and using the menus a more pleasant experience.

Image Quality & Performance

Nikon D3500

It has a 24.2 megapixel aps-c sensor and now that sensor is impressive because canons competitor camera which is the T7 has a 24.2 megapixel sensor but that camera is seven hundred dollars, so for a half the price you get this pretty much a comparable sensor. The shutter speed ranges from 30 seconds all the way up to 1/4000 of a second.

As per the ISO, it goes from 100-25600 now. Before we get too excited, it’s actually not that great of an ISO because 25600 on this camera looks like trash. It’s super noisy, it is simply unusable. This camera is really only good up to 3200 or 6400, 6400 is usable with a little bit of noise reduction but for this camera 3200 is a sweet spot but considering the price again, that’s a really good deal. The lower the ISO is the better the image quality. So, at ISO 100 that’s standard in just about every camera out there. There’s some that go down to 50 and that makes it even better but most any camera you come across is going to be a low ISO of 100.

It does 5 frames per second in photo mode, that is a pretty adequate photo speed for like birthday parties, vacation,etc,. But, you’re not gonna be able to do sports photography or anything super serious with this but that is a very respectable shooting speed. After those 5 frames per second, it’s gonna need about roughly 18 to 20 seconds of buffer time until it’s ready to shoot again.

Nikon also removed the AA filter. The AA filter is the anti-aliasing filter it’s also known as the low pass filter. It tends to softened images when it’s in the camera. So, a lot of entry-level cameras have the AA filter and Nikon removed it, so it’s kind of nice to see.

Canon Rebel T6

In the photography part, it has performed really well in all the situations maybe low lighting conditions, night photography, day lighting conditions, artificial lighting conditions, everywhere this camera has been performing really well due to the manual mode. So, you have all the manual controls that is ISO, white balance, shutter speed,etc,. As far as photography goes I have no complaints with this camera, it is a very good camera.

The sensor is awesome and it clicks some really good photos. It has an 18 megapixel sensor but it is a crop sensor, it is not a full-frame sensor but that’s okay considering the price of this camera.

Now one more thing that I really like about this camera is the color-science. Canon has always been really good with their colors like the screen tones are natural, the colors are natural, there is no extra saturation also and overall it feels really good. So, you can pick up this camera and start shooting immediately without even tweaking anything. But, if you are a pro photographer or if you are learning photography then you should use the manual mode because it is very good.

The sensor is the same as the EOS Rebel T5 at 18 million pixels, while the processor gets a modest upgrade to the digic 4 plus. However, considering that canon’s latest processor is the digic 7, the 4 plus is now looking like pretty old technology. There are also manual and semi-auto aperture priority and shutter priority modes, also the ability to shoot in RAW format.

There’s also a 95 percent coverage optical viewfinder. It doesn’t sound like you’re missing much, you can find unwanted elements creeping into the edge of the shot when reviewing images. Native sensitivity remains at ISO 100 to 6400, expandable up to 12,800 but given the slightly better processor, a modest improvement in low-light performance as promised. The ISO range now looks quite limited compared to much new arrivals.

Live view performance is dreadful. In bright light, the focus system requires 1.8 seconds to lock and fire and it slows to 5.2 seconds in dim conditions. You’re not going to use the rear LCD to shoot candid shots. The T6 keeps noise under 1.5% through ISO 3200 when shooting JPEG but there’s some aggressive noise reduction going on behind the scene, curbing image detail at even moderate ISO. Fine lines are noticeably smudged starting at just ISO 800 and images are very blurry at ISO 3200 and the top ISO 6400 sensitivity, ISO 12800 is available as an extended setting but I don’t recommend using it.

Video Quality

Nikon D3500

In video, it does 1080 at 23, 30 and 60 frames per second. So, you can get a bit of slow-motion out of this camera. However, the video in this camera is really nothing very special. It’s not bad in any way but it’s just very flat video, it doesn’t have like a superb auto-focus system like the Sony cameras do for video. It doesn’t have superb slow motion, any color profiles.

If you’re someone that wants to make like really cinematic work or if you want to perm dominantly use this for video, this is not the camera for you but considering the very affordable price point, I really can’t complain. It’s a very affordable camera and the video is exactly what you would expect at that price point.

Note that the auto focusing for video is different than the auto focusing for photo. The auto focusing for video is not great, it’s not that usable. So, if you’re gonna be shooting in video, do not rely on the auto-focusing.

Canon Rebel T6

In the part of video, this camera does not come with a headphone jack to connect external microphone, this is a big letdown. Anyway, it does not come with a headphone jack but other than that the video quality is actually very good because of the sensor again. You get really good colors, the quality is good and moreover the quality depends upon the lens that you use. So, if you want to use the kit lens, you can get some really good shots.

One place where video struggles is in low-light. So, when you go towards low-light conditions maybe in the night or so then then this camera really struggles in terms of video. But, in welded conditions, the artificial lighting conditions or even day lighting conditions if the lighting is good then you can get some really good video quality out of this camera.

The candy 1300D can shoot a maximum at 1080p 30fps, it does not have 1080p 60fps nor does it have 4k which seems a little odd. So, overall to sum it all up, the Canon 1300D is really good camera for this price.

Auto Focus

Nikon D3500

This camera has 11 points of auto-focus which is very respectable and also its direct competitor the Canon T7 only has nine. As for the actual auto-focus in this camera, it’s very good. Nikon is predominantly a photo company and so because of that they have a very good auto focusing system. In point of view, they have the second best auto focusing system in the industry right after Sony. I would definitely say Nikon has a better auto-focus system than Canon as direct competitor.

So, having an auto-focus system that’s very reliable on a camera like this is great because this camera is really made for people that are like amateurs, very new to cameras.

Canon Rebel T6

Several of the other features of the Canon Rebel T6 EOS 1300D are the same as in the Rebel T5. It has the same modest nine-point auto focusing system with one central cross type more sensitive point.

The T6 powers on confirms focus and captures an image in about 0.4 seconds, a fine mark for an entry-level DSLR. In bright light, it’s nine point auto-focus system locks on to subjects and fires in about 0.1 3 seconds, not the fastest out there but not slow either. But, in dim conditions, the focus speed slows to 1.4 seconds when using the optical viewfinder which is terrible for an SLR.

Lens

Nikon D3500

This camera comes with an 18 to 55 millimeter interchangeable lens which means you can take it off and you have the opportunity to grow your lens collection. Also, it has a locking system on it. Overall, this is nice to have this price point with an interchangeable lens system. Usually, at this price point, you can only really get a compact which has a fixed lens on it.

As for the actual lens, it’s a very good lens. I’m actually really surprised by the quality of this lens. It has a nice grippy feel to it. The focus wheel is nice and fluid and actually really feels good to change manual focus, so if you do plan to use this camera for focusing in video this is actually a fun focus system. Overall, this is a really good lens. The lens isn’t good for low-light because it does not let in a lot of lights.

Now, it’s not like the greatest lens ever but for $100 this totally beats the canon lens that you get with canon cameras which is an 18 to 55 as well and that’s just like a completely trash lens, it’s plastic and it breaks.

Canon Rebel T6

The EOS Rebel T6 uses the EFS lens mount which is compatible with all of canon’s EF range of lenses. So, there’s a wealth of choice out there to suit all budgets.

The bundled 18 to 55 millimeter lens doesn’t perform that well either. At 18 millimeters F 3.5, it scores just 1477 lines per picture height on a center-weighted sharpness test. It hits 1803 lines at F 5.6 but much of the frame including the mid parts and edges lag behind that average, you’ll need to stop down all the way to FA to get a shot that’s crisp through most of the frame, 1987 lines on average and even then the edges are blurred. There’s also significant barrel distortion about 3.6 percent at the 18 millimeter setting which gives images a modest fish-eye look, especially when focusing close.

There’s no setting for in-camera distortion correction I realized that performance is better at 35 millimeter. The average sharpness score is 2150 lines at the brightest F 4.5 f-stop and while edges lag behind the center and fidelity, they are pretty solid at close to 1900 lines. Shots at f11 are also sharp but you should skip shooting at f-16 and f-22 as they harm image quality. Distortion isn’t an issue at 35 millimeters.

Wireless Connectivity

Nikon D3500

This camera has Bluetooth to transfer images to your device from the camera. This camera also uses snap bridge. You can remotely take a shot or remote shutter capability with snap bridge they enabled that on this 3500 and that makes it kind of nice. Nikon dropped the infrared sensor. It means, you’re not able to use the wireless remote. In place of that you have to use snap bridge in your smartphone.

Canon Rebel T6

It comes with Wi-Fi and NFC. So, you can transfer your photos and videos immediately to your phone with the use of Wi-Fi which is a plus point. You can also use the phone as a remote shutter but that is only for photos, you cannot use it for videos. So, if you want to see yourself while you’re shooting on your phone then you cannot do that, you can do that for photos but not for videos.

Conclusion

Nikon D3500

There’s two types of people that should buy this camera. The first one, the enthusiasts are hobbyists, someone who likes photography and want to do better than your cell phone photos. The second one is the beginner which like who just started film school or just picked up a camera maybe want to make it into career.

The quality of image between the 3500 and 3400 and the 3300, they’re all about the same. They virtually used the same sensor, they have the same resolution and the image quality is going to be almost identical. If you’re looking for an entry level camera, the 3500 is still a viable option.

Canon Rebel T6

The 1300 D is a good camera for photography not for videography because of the lack of the headphone jack. So, if you want to use this camera for videos, you can do so and you can record external audio that’s totally up to you. The camera keeps many of its predecessors, tried and tested features but offers nothing particularly new or exciting.

Buy Nikon D3500

Buy Canon Rebel T6