I'm thinking of buying entry level DSLR Nikon D3500. I haven't used DSLR before, so I'm not sure if it is a good decision to buy DSLR. I would like to know if with this camera I can shoot portraits with blured background such as on the new smartphones with two cameras. Another thing I want to know if buying DSLR is good for beginners in photography and amateur photographers and is it worth the money.

I'm new in this community, so I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask this question.
['https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/108713', 'https://photo.stackexchange.com', 'https://photo.stackexchange.com/users/85164/']
Is an entry level DSLR going to shoot nice portrait pictures? By itself, *no*, absolutely not.

It's easy to make the joke that the camera by itself just sits there and doesn't take pictures at all, being an inanimate object and all. Of course, we know what you actually mean, but there's really some truth to that. A DSLR is by nature a flexible tool, and that includes the flexibility to *get bad results* as well as good ones. So, in a very real way, whether you get nice pictures is up to you, not the camera.

If you put some time, effort, and brain-power into learning how to operate a DSLR *and to understand fundamental concepts about light and composition*, you can **absolutely** get better results with a DSLR (entry level or above) than with a phone camera.

However, if you just want to snap pictures without learning anything or working for each shot, a high-end smartphone is guaranteed to produce results you'll be happier with 99% of the time.

**Spending your money on a DSLR (or other interchangeable lens camera) and hoping that that alone will produce good photographs is a recipe for frustration and disappointment.**

You say: 

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> Another thing I want to know if buying DSLR is good for beginners in photography and amateur photographers and is it worth the money.
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and fundamentally, to answer this, you need to know if you want to actually be a *beginner in photography* — that is, someone who is *starting on the path to something bigger*. Do you want to be an *amateur* in the true sense of "someone who does something because they love it"?

If the answer is yes, then it's probably worth quite a bit of money (and in fact, I'd suggest starting beyond so-called "entry level" cameras — see [Are there disadvantages to a prosumer camera for a beginner, aside from cost?](https://photo.stackexchange.com/questions/5883/are-there-disadvantages-to-a-prosumer-camera-for-a-beginner-aside-from-cost)).

On the other hand, if you mean "someone who doesn't know much and doesn't care to" (a [dabbler](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/319354/whats-a-word-for-someone-with-low-level-of-knowledge-in-an-area-and-no-intenti), perhaps), then without even knowing your financial situation I can say that no, it would not be worth the money.
A DX sensor has a crop factor of 2/3. You are presumably talking about the 18-55mm kit lens. For portrait work, you'd likely use it at its long end, giving you about 83mm equivalent focal length with an aperture of 1:5.6. That will give you the same depth of field as an 1:8 aperture setting on a 35mm film camera with the same kind of effective focal length which is quite discernible but not terribly strong. You'll want to arrange your scene appropriately so that the background is indeed some distance away.

The computational blurring on a smartphone aims to emulate the visuals of quite smaller depth of field, namely larger sensors/aperture. If your viewing device ends up being a smartphone, you'll not likely be able to appreciate the much more natural action of optical object isolation (but due to camera and lens parameters, more subtle) over computational approaches, particularly since the small display scale increases the perceived depth of field.

If you are going for print, things will look different already, however.

Is it worth the money? It depends on your purpose. If you don't intend to throw further money at the problem of doing portraits (namely buying a suitable prime lens or a less basic zoom lens), you'd likely be better off with a 15-year old Sony DSC-R1. It has about the same sensor size, goes to 120mm equivalent at 1:4.8 aperture. Its age has definite implications for handling (no image stabilisation, so tripod wanted), speed, storage media, convenience, autofocus, sensor resolution (10MP) and sensitivity (ISO400 is where noise starts) and so on. But for your principal criterion of a small depth of field at reasonable image quality in portrait situations, it will deliver more than the D3500 with a kit lens, but you will be left without an upgrade path.

Of course, analog cameras will deliver effortlessly in that category at quite cheaper secondhand prices but handling film is a hassle in comparison. Even if you do want to end up using film, learning your photographic skills using digital first is going to save you a lot of time and money.

To summarize: you want to throw money at a problem. The direction you are planning to throw it in is a good starting point but you'll need to throw more in that direction before achieving your goals. Partial goals may be achieved cheaper by throwing in a different direction first and thus getting a good idea how and where to throw larger wads of money for best effect at some later point of time.

Buying your learning gear preowned often means that as you develop a good idea where you want to be heading for real, the gear retains most of its resale value. Newer gear often is more supportive with regard to getting good results with moderate effort, however.