What is the best equipment for a beginner photographer to get?

4 Comments

1. ronald says:

   August 28, 2010 at 9:37 am

   you can consider buying a Digital SLR camera to start photography some of them are Nikon D3000,Canon XSi, Canon T1i,Nikon D5000
   http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&x=0&ref_=nb_sb_noss&y=0&tag=bestdeals-y-20&field-keywords=digital%20slr%20camera&url=search-alias%3Delectronics

   Best laptop would be one with good hard disk for storage and supports good graphic card.For software you can consider Adobe Photoshop CS5 Upgrade
   http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003B32B2I?ie=UTF8&tag=bestdeals-y-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957&creativeASIN=B003B32B2I
2. KB says:

   August 28, 2010 at 9:37 am

   Coming from a low budget professional photog

   Here is the list…

   First you need a Laptop. Unfortunately you shouldn’t compromise in this department and go with a macbook pro. If you cant do that get a used macbook G4.

   Second is photoshop. A pro will use Pshop Cs5 which costs an arm and leg although worth it. You can save by getting Ps elements. If it still seems like too much, Gimp is a robust free photo editing software that can do much of you want.

   Good Luck

   Next is the big question, Canon or Nikon?

   As someone going pro avoid anything under the Canon t2i or Nikon D5000
   Try the D90 and 50D or D300s and 7D (a little better but costlier)

   Also look at getting a 50mm f1.8

   If you want to stay cheap I would recommend Nikon because of the lenses
   While a kit lens may cut it, you should get some faster lenses than a f3.5 variable

   Nikon has more options in the used lens market than canon because they never changed their mount. Also many of canons lower end lenses cannot mount on igher end bodies when you chose to upgrade. Ask yourself if Vibration Reduction (VR) or Image Stabilization (IS) on canon, Autofocus (AF) , Zoom, range, or speed (f-stop) is what is most important to you.

   All I needed was AF and speed when I got my lenses. Purchasing used lenses off ebay is very cost effective and can help you get the lenses you need. The big 3 (Canon, Nikon, Sony) make a pro range lens of 70-200mm at an aperture of f2.8 (roughly $2000 brand new), I got an older version (actually 2) of the Nikon lenses, the 80-200mm f2.8 for $400ish off ebay in fantastic condition and the only thing missing from the lens was 10mm length and VR.

   Both are great camera manufactures but I feel that Nikon is the more cost effective of the 2 in the long run…
3. Eclipse says:

   August 28, 2010 at 9:37 am

   If you want to get started without spending a lot of money, start with the cheapest camera that offers the features you really need and buy the "kit" lens. Canon, Nikon, Pentax and Sony all offer DSLRs with 18-55mm lenses for less than $600. Unless you need the speed and advanced features of their more expensive cameras, you can stop here because all DSLRs sold today offer the same exposure modes. All of them offer fully manual exposure, aperture priority, shutter priority, and programmed automatic exposurd modes. The names of these modes vary slightly from one brand to the next (Canon can be a bit odd) but, they all mean the same thing. If you want to be able to use ANY camera, learn these modes and you won’t care about how many scene modes or help menus a camera may have. You’ll be able to use your own imagination to expand your photography and that is far better than letting the camera bake your pictures for you with a limited number of special "scene modes." Don’t get suckered into spending $1000 or more on a camera that is beyond anything you’ll want or need in the next two or three years. Unless sports or fast moving wildlife are your focus, you should be able to buy a solid camera and lenses to get you started for well under $1000.

   Best laptop?….There isn’t one. Lenovo had one specifically marketed toward photographers but, few people bought them and they were over priced. My advice is buy a MacBook Pro or any Intel-based Windows notebook with a Core 2 Duo or a Core-i5 or better processor, least 4GB of RAM, a dedicated video card with at least 512mb or memory, a 250GB or larger hard drive and you’ll be fine. I personally stick with business models from Lenovo, HP or Dell because I’m actually certified to service them through my day job but, Acer, Toshiba and others all offer good products too.

   Many cameras are sold with basic editing software that may address all your current photo editing needs. That said, you may decide the basic software that comes with some cameras doesn’t meet your needs and something like Photoshop, Photoshop Elements or Lightroom may be a better option for you. With that said, most professionals will tell you that Adobe’s Photoshop (CS5 is the current version) is the golden standard of photo editing software, period. Everything else is judged in comparison to this product and for good reason. But, most people, including myself won’t, can’t and don’t use most of Photoshop’s capabilities. Adobe recognized this and offers Photoshop Elements which handles 99% of what most people want to do with their photos and it only costs $100 compared to Photoshop CS5 which currently costs $700 for a full license. Adobe’s Lightroom is another option that falls somewhere between Photoshop Elements and the full-blown Photoshop application. It is primarily intended to provide a tool for organization but, it can handle some crucial editing functions such as cropping and the heal/clone tool among other things. I’ve begun using Lightroom 3 along side Photoshop CS4 and found that LR3 has truly streamlined my workflow as it lets me post directly into Flickr or export to my own local collection of stuff I’m sending to MPIX for printing. Because of Lightroom; I don’t use Photoshop as much as I used to but, I like having the option. That saod, Lightroom and Photoshop combined represents an $850-900 investment that is a bit much if you don’t use Photoshop quite a bit.