Which camera to buy depending on my existing skills?

Hi. I'm Dr with PhD, during my PhD studies i took lessons about photography bec we need knowledge to take our patients photos before and after. But my experience mainly in close shots. Now I want to do it as a hobby also. Like portraits, nature, events, etc… I was checking the market wow so many new cameras ( long time I'm away from the news! ) I got confused between canon and nikon. Canon has new release eos 5D mark III. The thing is should I buy full frame camera or just go for regular ones like canon rebel series or nikon D7000?

I have the 5D mk II, and there's only two things that I would improve upon it. That would be more AF sensors in the viewfinder and a faster image cycling speed. Both of these issues are addressed in the Mark III and much much more.

Wonderful image quality. I have shots taken at 6400 ISO and with some careful processing work in Adobe CS-4 they look vary nice.

It's a great camera.

Full frame sensor offers you the image quality of the soft backgrounds that only come from a larger format. Smaller image sensor formats will show more details in the background, and much of the battle to quality portraits is to have a soft non-competing background.

The smaller image sensors give you a boost for Telephoto lenses but you get hurt paying a lot for trying to get wide wide angles shots because you have to by a wider lens angle then what you get to use for the image.

hope this helps. You can see many of my shots on the link below.

The D700 is an excellent camera

I have a Canon EOS 60D and I love it. A lot of semi-pros use it and it is just a few hundred dollars more, and a step up from the rebel series. That is if you want to save a little cash. The 5D Mark III is an extremely good camera, but in all honesty, both would last you a good while as a hobbyist.

I've always said if you have a million dollars to spend on a camera, that doesn't mean you have to get the most expensive one. I like to bike, never owned a car in 26 years. I see no need to buy a custom built $3000 one, even though I can afford it. $900 is just fine.

With cameras, more advanced models offer basically one main thing, control. You may remember ISO stops, 100-200-400 etc. A high model might have 100-115-142-157-189-etc. I see no reason for all that. Second thing people miss is lenses. A very basic setup (one worth a darn anyhow) might cost $5000 + camera. 70-200 2.8 $2000. 85 1.8 $1500. 10-20 4 $500. 50 1.4 $600. A flash $400. If you had a $5000 budget for a camera, you might want to rethink that. Lenses are more important as you'll find out fast if you buy bad ones. A $100, 000 camera with a bad lens is a cellphone-camera and a bankruptcy.

Cameras are never about money. Go into a store and play with everything. See which one's you personally like. Think of it like apartment or date hunting. The on that fits you is the best one for you. There's nothing more silly that someone who has a camera with the strap proudly proclaiming it's very expensive model, taking smiling pictures of their kids in front of advertisements. I advise you to get a good camera that will do what you want. Not a status symbol or the best just because it's the best.

Depends what you can afford and what you want to achieve…

for all those things you want to do, you might want to see about 3 or 4 different lenses…

and why change the camera you have?

lenses you'd need would probably be:

35mm f/1.4 (sigma)
50mm f/1.4
150-500mm (sigma)
70-200mm
24-70mm

each one provides you with different options…

but what you need to do first, is know how to use the camera properly…

get an entry level camera with a couple of kit lenses and learn photography basics…