A three year old is not really photo ready. The tendency to drop, throw, sit on, kick, etc, all things disqualifies a three year old from camera ownership. Give the kid something else-less costly-to distract her, and wait a few more years before giving her a camera. Then get her some low cost point & shoot item. When she gets to be older still-say about 8-get her a low cost, refurbished, digital camera to break her photo teeth on. If she really gets into photography, buy her a more seriously system camera for her tenth BD.
To all the Grandpas and Grannies who want to buy cameras for their little grandchildren.....a small word to the wise.....
Make sure with the little ones 3 and up that whatever fun camera you get that u teach them to immediately put the wrist strap on! No pic taking until the wrist strap is on!! I bought a bunch of them. Cheap digital cameras from shopgoodwill often do not come with them.
My grand kids 3 -6 love taking photos! I print out their photos and they have their own little albums.
"Oh look!!! You took a fine photo of grandpa's nose"!!!
I originally bought my 6 year old granddaughter a Canon SX-Whatever that was menu driven, which made it difficult to show her things because our cameras were nothing alike. So, I bought her a Canon SL1 with the kit 18-55mm lens, which takes beautiful pictures. But since we like to go on adventures together I had her swap out the lens with an EF-S 18-135 mm so she had more reach. Yes, she changed the lens just like she installed the kit lense originally. She also installed and formatted her first card ever.
I went with the SL1 because of the small body which fits in her hands quite well. Although she is more interested in exploring than picture taking while on our jaunts, she has taken a few nice shots of chipmunks and other things.
Besides the fundamental control difference (menu driven as opposed to separate dials/selectors) another big difference was the lack of a view finder on the SX-?, which made steady shots nearly impossible for her since she insisted on shooting with her arms fully extended. It was fun watching her move around composing her shot with her camera at arm's length.
One reason I bought her a good quality camera is because she showed a real interest in photography and wondered if she would ever have a camera like mine? Imagine the excitement when she opened up the gift box to discover a nice Canon camera bag with a real DSLR complete with cleaning supplies, filters, etc.
Another reason I bought her a DSLR was so she could take really good pictures and slowly grow into the hobby with minimal limitations. She was really excited when we equipped her camera with my 70-200 followed by the 150-600 so she could try them out. That reinforced the fact that she has a very capable, quality camera.
Lastly, I bought her a good camera so I could view the world pictorially through a child's eyes. After a couple of outdoor shooting sessions it was time to go full circle by making some prints. On the way to Walmart I asked her if she had gone through all of her pictures and deleted the bad ones and she replied "Yes, but there wasn't any bad ones. I asked her about all of the blurry shots and she told me that she liked them because of the colors. :-)
I purchased her a refurbished SL1 through Canon for $279 last winter. I have absolutely no regrets about buying her a DSLR as she takes good care of it and it is much more practical for her to learn on because she can set her camera settings in the same manner as I do. I wish you could have seen the pride on her face when she learned how to take a picture of a flower on the opposite side of a wire fence without the fence appearing due to using a shallow depth of field. It was priceless.
I wish you well in making your decision and hope you enjoy shooting with the little one!
Btw, this is my first post but I have been an avid follower for over a year and enjoy both the informative responses and the friendly, and sometimes not so friendly banter! Thank you all for sharing your knowledge and experiences with your fellow Hoggers! I have learned a tremendous amount of insightful information and look forward to more and contributing some.
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