My wife has wanted a good camera for a few years now and I want to get her one for christmas. I think her favorite part of our trips is getting good pictures. I know absolutely nothing about cameras and was hoping for a little help. I have seen posts on here with every one saying they love there dslr but there are so many and such big price gaps. I wanted to try to stay around 300-400 or under, and also thought it would be nice to get a package with a case, cleaning kit, etc. The kits vary. Is it worth it to do that. Or am I better off putting all the money into the camera. and what should I be looking for when comparing these cameras. Thanks in advance for any help or opinions.

Doing a search for DSLR under $400 on bhphotovideo.com will give you choices between Canon and Nikon entry level cameras with 18-55mm zoom lenses included. Between those two, I'd choose the Nikon because of the 24 Mp sensor compared to the Canon 18 Mp sensor. But both sensors will give you good images. The lenses are nothing special, but they'll give you reasonable images.

My personal cameras are Pentax, but there is nothing in that brand at your price point.

You might also look at KEH.com for used cameras and lenses.

Canon makes some great cameras at that price range. I went with the Canon rebel t5.
You have plenty of functions you can fiddle with and you can change out the lenses also. There are several cameras to choose from in the rebel series.

I was thinking about buying a good camera to bring on BWCA trips with me a few years ago. At the time, I was dating a photographer and she suggested I get a top of the line point and shoot. She said the top of the line point and shoots took great photos and their small size made them easier to carry and use in all kinds of circumstances, which to me said I would take it with me more and take more pictures. So I did some research on them and ended up buying a Canon G16 . I really like this camera. I take it on every canoe, camping, hiking trip and have taken many good photos with it. I think it's also in your price range. Check it out. And there must be more and better options in the same vein today.

I got a Canon SX60 HS a couple of years ago and its a wonderful travel and canoe camping camera
Its a bridge camera.. Not point and shoot though you can do that. It can be set to Auto or fully Manual or Shutter or Aperture Priority.
It is what they call a superzoom camera. It goes to 65x optical but frankly I don't go much above 20 because of camera movement in a canoe.
A decent lens. Not a low light astrophotography lens and has limited f stops ( closing of the lens openings) but has the capability to do bracketed exposures which I find extremely useful in high contrast situations.
Like you find on canoe trips.

I keep reaching for it though I have a full frame Canon 6D Mark II also.

The little Canon is a lot less to worry about than the kit I have with the 6D that amounts to more than two canoes cost. And its WAY more portage friendly
Cleaning kits cost about five bucks.
You need a dry bag.. you can get those inexpensively.
A spare battery is very handy.

If you find bundled kits with all sorts of accessories chances are most of the accessories are junk. I got the 6D with accessories.. All I wanted was the extra battery and 128 GB sim cards which alone would have been worth more than the fifty dollars extra that the accessory bundle cost. I threw out the useless wireless remote and the garbage tripod and monopod.

If you get a Canon point & shoot, check out the Canon Hackers Development Kit (CHDK). I used to have a SX20, one of the first crossover cameras that looked like a DSLR but just had a big fixed zoom lens. CHDK will unlock many features that are supported by the image processor chip in the camera but are blocked due to the factory firmware.

Basically you prepare a special SD card and the camera boots from it, overriding the factory firmware. Want to go back to the factory firmware? Just replace the CHDK sd card with one without it on it.

Many Canon point & shoots, especially towards the high end, share the same imaging & processing engine as the DSLRs. This enables those features that you'd otherwise have to spend $$$ to get in a different camera.

RIP my SX20. I got some pretty good night shots with it, with infinite control over shutter time & aperture.

In case you're not aware, there's a photography forum here that might be a good place to also post your question.

Like your wife, one of my favorite parts of my bwca canoe trips is about photography in a land filled with amazing subjects. Unless she is really set on a DSLR, I would recommend a bridge or superzoom camera as have some of the others here. At the price point you are looking you will not get great quality or many features in a DSLR, not to mention anything in terms of lens options.

The image quality gap between a good quality superzoom and a low end DSLR is still there but that gap has closed some in the last several years. Good cameras in this class take very good photos and you will have to look closely to see the difference. But there is SO much more in the way of features and flexibility that she will probably find herself actually using it more and missing less shots because you have to change lenses.

Imagine canoeing down a beautiful lake and taking some nice scenery pictures with a wide angle lens on your DSLR. All of a sudden there is a Bald Eagle perched in a tree across the lake, or a moose in the shallows in the next bay. With that wide angle lens you will not likely get a very good shot and the subject will be a tiny part of the frame. And by the time you change lenses, if your brave enough to try it in the canoe, that eagle or moose may be gone. With a superzoom you always have the right lens on so you get more shots and you are less hesitant to take shots because you don't want to hassle with changing the lens...again.

Don't get me wrong, there is a definite time and place for DSLR's and still a quality advantage in many situations. But like others, I still turn to my superzoom on occasion if I am going on a hike , for example, and want to be ready for scenery shots, wildlife, and bird shots all at the same time. Another bonus, they generally do an excellent job with macro photography, better than DSLR's in some cases unless you spend the money for a good macro lens.

If your wife likes to take close up shots of flowers or mushrooms or insects you can get very nice results with a good superzoom camera. Another nice thing is that good bridge or superzoom cameras have full manual capabilities so you can have some creative control over the shots you take.

If she continues to have a passion for photography the next step might be a DSLR at some point. There are some good reasons to go that way as well but at the price point you are looking I think you would be disappointed.

I have hundreds of photos on this website of my outdoors adventures, most in or near the BWCA. I would say that about 90% of them have been taken with a superzoom camera and I think there are some pretty nice shots (at least a few).

My wife really likes the Panasonic Lumix cameras such as this one. We have an older version. While you can't change lenses and it isn't a DSLR, it is light, the zoom range is huge, the image stabilization is excellent, and the small viewfinder that you put up to your eye is great. Put that together and we've taken some excellent photos with it. It excels at wildlife photos.

The drawback is that it uses a smaller sensor than a full DSLR and so it does get noisy at low light settings, especially if handheld. You could do longer exposures on a tripod to try and improve on that issue.

So, it is great for some uses and not as good for others. But it fits the budget and at that price and weight she always has it out.

Choosing the right camera is very difficult. There are hundreds of models. The price range goes from $150 to thousands of dollars. There's a near infinite number of trade offs that you can make in terms of cost, features, size, image quality. There's just no one right choice. Thus, your confusion. I expect you will have a hard time making a decision.

The "problem" with DSLR's is that to take full advantage of them you really have to have the right lenses, not just the "kit" lens that comes with the camera. This adds hundreds to thousands of dollars to the price.

The other "problem" in choosing a camera is that cell phone cameras on the newest cameras are very very good. If you have an older cell phone, a better decision than buying a camera might be to get a newer water resistant cell phone with an upgraded camera - like iphone 8 or Samsung.

Here are a few choices in your price range if zoom/wildlife is your priority (already mentioned):
Canon SX60 - $430
Panasonic FZ80 - $350
Panasonic FZ300 - $450 (less zoom but better lens)

Here are a couple choices in your price range if low light/stars/landscapes are a priority:
Canon G5X refurbished - $450
Canon G1X II refurbished - $399 (better low light but no viewfinder)

Here are a couple "micro 4/3rd's" cameras a bit above your price range. They have interchangeable lenses, unlike the cameras above. So you could add lenses over time to add zoom/low light/etc.
Panasonic G7 (4k video) - $497
Olympus OM10 - $550

Here is what I would buy right now as entry level DSLR, and extra lenses. There are cheaper options, and many, many, many other alternatives. But to give you an idea what happens to the cost and weight of a DSLR if you add lenses (and these aren't really expensive lenses):
Canon SL2 - $599
Manual focus atrophotography/landscape lens - $319
Wildlife lens (2lbs) - $700
Cheaper wildlife lens (less heavy, less zoom) - $450

I now carry 2 cameras - a tiny Canon mirrorless interchangeable lens camera, with a wide angle/low light lens, and a cheaper used DSLR with either a cheap/light wildlife zoom lens, or once in a while a heavier zoom lens. If you get a DSLR, you want to put the money into the lenses, the camera body is generally much less important.
my Canon mirrorless refurbished (no lens) - $330
one of my mirrorless wide angle lenses - $399 (i got mine used)
Cheap DSLR (but very nice) - $99
Refurbished wildlife lens - $239 (I got mine for $130)

I'll be replacing my Canon SLR with a zoom lens with a GoPro. I've sold many photos over the years, but a more knowledgeable pro thinks I can get by with the convenience of a GoPro and after seeing many of his GoPro shots, I agree.

quote missmolly: "I'll be replacing my Canon SLR with a zoom lens with a GoPro. I've sold many photos over the years, but a more knowledgeable pro thinks I can get by with the convenience of a GoPro and after seeing many of his GoPro shots, I agree. "

Agree, or just use your phone. Phones are getting very very good.

Thank you everyone. So the point and shoot/ super zoom is sounding better. We have a go pro and Samsung 7 phones but they just can't get far shots or that good of low light or night photos. Again thanks for all the input and help I'm going to look into one of the super zooms now.

NotLight, all your links are a real kindness. Takes significant time to locate all those products and create the links.

While it doesn't take the most awesome night photos, I discovered this summer on the Ice Age Trail that my Samsung S6 has a pro mode which allows for up to 10 second exposures. For night shots where there's not a lot of ambient light this should produce decent results.

I think this one turned out ok.