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Looking to buy a decent entry level camera, looked at the canon t3i, t5i and a Nikon 5309 and 5200. Anyone have any advice or recommendations?

What do you want to shoot with it? What features are you looking for?

Just something better than my phone or my point and shoot camera. I'd like to be able to play with apertures and better low light pictures maybe shoot picture of something other than my food or beer kind of camera

If you want to play with your aperture and with good low-light capability I'd recommend buying any of those digital SLRs with a compatible prime lens or two. Zoom lenses don't open up as much and are really difficult to get good low-light shots with. Kit lenses are usually fine for all around outdoor lenses, though. Zoom lenses that go up to 250mm or 300mm are good if you're taking shots at your kid's soccer game or whatever.

Nikon vs Canon? Doesn't matter, really. Just pick the one that feels the most intuitive to you. Canon has the nifty fifty plastic lens, though, which is a great value (canon ef 50mm f/1.8 ii).

I find that a 35mm lens is good for shooting street/people scenes that are relatively close, also does nicely for landscape. If you want to do portraits it would benefit you to have 80mm+.

any one will work, and take great pics. i like canon better personally just for button layout. no reason to get t5i over t3i unless theres a feature you really want - the extra money would be better used on part of an extra lens.

Love my Nikon D90, have been collecting lenses for it for the past couple of years and it's great.

I think were getting a good deal on the t3i two lenses zoom and standard, a case/bag,charger, extra battery,neck strap and 64 g memory card for mess than 650$

If I were to start again I wouldn't bother buying zoom lenses, but that's more to suit my style. It's pretty much impossible to know what kind of photographer you'll be when you're making your first purchase, so getting a good deal on equipment is a great place to start.