Photography Tip Series- Beginner Photography Essentials
We all start out with any new hobby or passion curious to try all of the things we think we need, and usually end up wasting money on things that are only collecting dust. I definitely have my share of things I swear I would need and yet.. they're in a closet. We see veterans in their field with new gadgets thinking that’s what we need to be better! So i’m starting a new series of photography tips. My most asked questions are about equipment. If you’re a beginner photographer or even just want some basics to photograph your kids and family or maybe even food for Instagram here are a few tips and pointers. Four beginner photography essentials.
So you have your camera, some compact flash or SD cards and now curious what else are some necessaties for beginning to photograph kids or even posts for social media. Here's are 4 things I think are essential!
1- 50mm 1.8 lens. I can’t ever in good conscious recommend the kit lenses that come with your camera, although you’ll need SOMETHING to start. a great inexpensive lens is the 50mm 1.8 no matter if you’re canon or Nikon. They’re under $200and i know plenty of professional photographers that still use that lens and love it! I still use mine too. (i won’t recommend the more expensive lenses in this post and scare you, let’s stick with beginners! but if you have more detailed questions, feel free to ask me by emailing me) this is a prime lens so it doesn’t zoom in… you can zoom in or out though.. just back up or get closer ;) it’s a nice wide aperture great for portraits and allows you to shoot in lower light with a little bit faster shutter speed. it also will give you that soft background and crisp foreground you've been wanting. so if at all possible.. get away from those kit lenses.
** extra tip. kit lenses are those ones that say something like 18-55mm 3.5-5.6 (that 3.5-5.6 means it will change automatically on it's own when you zoom in, you have less control over it.) so rather than spending money on these types of lenses, start saving up for lenses that you'll want to keep forever. the 50mm is most bang for your buck and a great way to get into fixed F stop lenses.
2- Reflector- 5 way reflector. It’s under $20 and i bring mine to every shoot even if i don’t end up using it. I can use it indoors and out to reflect light back in their eyes, unzip to have it diffuse light or even use it to block sun. a great tool that can be used to add some extra light without the expense of a flash.
**don't use that flash that's already on your camera, ever if possible.
3-foam core or wall- you can purchase those cheap little white foam core or if you want to add a full wall head over to Lowe’s and get the 6 foot foam core to bounce light. These are great tools to use when you set any subject near a window and near more light bounced back.
4-Camera lens cloth. Aside from cleaning the actually lenses of dirt, dust, and fingerprints. These are great for cleaning the contacts (where the lens meets the camera body) I still have to send my equipment in to Nikon sometimes but just taking care of those pieces helps with these cloths.
I added in the links on amazon so you can purchase these items easily! the items are also shown below so you can see the price from my website before clicking. I hope this info helps you with your first few equipment purchases!
Keep Shining
Shanna Star
