One of the hardest decisions the photographer needs to make also ends up being, one of the first decisions when starting out in photography. There are so many considerations involved in this decision and rather than giving people a list of equipment, I would rather discuss a helpful evaluation process. The common criteria involved will be, cost effectiveness and reducing redundancy.Starting off, take some time considering, just how much money you have for this initial purchase. Keep in mind, that this purchase will set the trend, for any future purchases. I would recommend that you go slow and do your homework, before walk into the store to buy the equipment. Remember most name brand equipment is not interchangeable. Example: once you buy Pentax or Nikon, it will probably be more reasonable to stay with that manufacturer’s product from that point on. It becomes expensive to resell or trade-in and start from scratch once your skill level has increased. The money saved with this strategy could be directed towards better equipment in future purchase. You should know the basic type of photography you will want to begin with. I suggest keeping away from as much of the more complicated technical areas, until you have the basics mastered. Keep in mind that the less you buy now, the faster you will be getting good results. Later on you’ll be able to add to your equipment, in specific areas needed by your chosen subject mater. Also if the sales people in the store, don’t have time to answer your questions or let you look at all the different makes of equipment they sell, you can’t make informed choices. Walk out and try some place else.
Let’s begin with the camera body. The common mistake here is to buy a camera, which has little or no manual overrides on its AUTO exposure settings. This is a must to go beyond the point and shout phase of begin photography. Depending on the camera, you will also have many of the lens overrides controlled on the camera body as well. Have a NORMAL lens fixed to the camera and try the functions. A normal lens range is somewhere around 50mm with a 35mm camera format. A zoom lens, some where in that range is also acceptable. When evaluating different cameras, try to keep the same lens range while making your evaluations. Also keep in mind, you don’t want the most sophisticated camera body made, even if you’re able to afford one. The camera needs to be understood to be a good learning tool. This can always become your second camera body, once your able to understand the high-end camera functions.
The recommended starting lens should be somewhere between 35mm – 80mm range. This lens can be of fixed focal length or what is known as a zoom range. The important point here is, to have manual control of the aperture and the focus.
This camera lens selection will allow you to start this simply. You will be getting good result fast, from just these two items. The strong advantage to this is, the next time you return to the camera store you will be armed with a bit of experience. This will allow you to zero in, to the equipment you need for the next level of learning.
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