The Canon EOS R50 is the camera Canon built for people who’ve been shooting on a phone and want more. It’s tiny, it’s cheap, it focuses very well and it’s simple to use. Released in early 2023, it became one of the best-selling interchangeable-lens cameras in the world, and for good reason.

Canon has since released the R50 V, a viewfinder-less, vlogging-focused version. The original R50 is still the better pick for most beginners because it keeps the eye-level viewfinder that makes shooting outdoors so much easier.

The Nikon Z50II is a small, cheap camera with an expensive brain. Launched in November 2024 at about $910 for the body, it takes the Expeed 7 processor and subject-detection autofocus from Nikon’s flagship Z8 and Z9 and puts them in a compact APS-C body with a proper grip and a viewfinder.

That’s a big leap over the original Z50 from 2019, which was a nice camera with ordinary autofocus.