Is crop sensor DSLR a good start for photography?

Crop sensor as a name suggests is a camera with cropped sensor (22.2 x 14.8 mm). We often call crop sensor cameras as entry level DSLRs. After the entry level DSLRs, we have full frames cameras with sensor size, 36 x 24 mm and they are professional DSLR. Now, the main question is that "is crop sensor a good start?"

Let's first talk about crop sensor cameras. These cameras have many features to offer like lens changing compatibility, small size, good aesthetics, user-friendly ergonomics, and nicely positioned buttons for controlling the parameters.

Some entry level DSLR (crop sensors) also comes with wifi sharing, NFC sharing, Bluetooth sharing/control and even follow focus like Canon 700D and Canon 1300D comes with wifi sharing. One thing we Indians love most about crop sensor cameras is their price tag. These crop sensor cameras are very budget friendly.

Now assuming that you are pursuing photography as a hobby, not as a profession then crop sensor DSLRs are the right choice for you. These cameras can give you all the bokeh (blurring the background) for all those lovely DPs. But if you are serious about photography and looking forward to make this your profession then full frame DSLRs should be your only choice. There is a huge difference in terms of performance and quality of these two.

Ok, what if you want to learn photography from very basic?

Then, in this case, I would strongly recommend you to go for crop sensor first, because the absence of features like follow focus is going to help you understand the manual focus system. Slower Frames per rate is going to make you judge the right time to click the picture; lower ISO performance is gonna force you to understand how light works. For post processing, you can use Lightroom and Photoshop if anything needs correction.

Now the critical issue by cinematographers.

Are crop sensor cameras suitable for video recording?

With my experience so far I can assure you that if have the skills then you can get decent footage from crop sensor cameras also. You can easily record HD 1920x720 at 24fps and 720x480p at 60fps, which is decent for most of the cases.