The Essential Beginner Gear (part 1)
Congratulations! So you want to become a Photographer? You’ve picked an amazing time to join the creative bandwagon (and I mean this in the most positive ways you can ever imagine), I can promise that your journey is going to be full of the most fun experiences ever regardless of what area of photography within which you chose to “specialize”.
I’m writing this article to share what I would recommend as the most essential gear to start on your journey. This is based on my experience as well as advice I have gleaned over the years from experts across the industry…and of course, the college of Youtube.
Before I delve in, a bit of a warning. I strongly advise that you don’t get carried away and try to buy everything at once neither should you get professional gear to begin with. My advice is that you start small and build up, let your interest pay for itself. With the right exposure, photography can quickly become a side job that pays for itself but you’ve got to invest time in learning the ropes. Also watch out for GAS, Gear Acquisition Syndrome; no one told me about this until it was almost too late and I had ended up with loads of gear I didn’t need. I eventually got rid of almost £2000 worth of useless gear…I know better now.
I’m going to share 10 essential items I believe every beginner photog needs to start their career. Please remember that this list is not definitive but rather just my recommendations. I should say at this point that I am a huge fan of #Canon gear but I will try to balance my recommendations, where I can, with other notable brands out there.
One final point, while you will always be tempted to buy your gear brand new I recommend checking out sites like mpb.com or similar sites that have graded used gear at affordable prices. I have used mpb.com for the last few years and I am very happy with their service.
Ok, let’s dive in…
Camera
This should go without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. You will need a good DSLR ( digital single-lens reflex) Camera. There are loads of options across the main brands Canon, Nikon, Sony, Panasonic, and Fuji the key thing is that you go for an entry-level Camera Body. One of the advantages of going for the entry-level is more often than not, you will get a kit lens as part of the bundle.
For an absolute beginner, I recommend the Canon 4000d. It’s an entry-level body that comes in at about £300.00 (on Amazon) and you could probably get used for around the £200 — £250 mark.
If you’ve already started experimenting with mobile phone photography, this body acts as a nice segway into ‘proper’ photography.
It’s not a full-frame sensor body, but I wouldn’t worry about that at this time.
Shooting modes as described by Canon are:
Scene Intelligent Auto, Creative Auto, Portrait, Landscape, Close-up, Sports, Food, Night Portrait, Program AE, Shutter-priority AE, Aperture-priority AE, Manual, Movie Mode
Experiment with as many of these modes as you can, play around with settings so you get familiar with how things work and what does exactly what. As you get better I would recommend that you spend more time in the Shutter Priority, Program AE, Aperture Priority and the dreaded Manual Mode.
Recommendations from other brands:
Nikon D5600, Sony A6000, Panasonic GX80
In my next post, I’ll cover Lenses and which ones you should invest in as a beginner.
Thanks for reading
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