I have spent a fair amount of money on photography equipment and have had a lot of fun learning to use it all properly. I’m still learning but most photogs will say the learning never stops.
I’ve used it all mainly for business purposes. I have been able to sell words to various magazines through the years and got frustrated when the same magazines paid someone else to capture images to go with my articles. I figured I’d better add another skill to the resume.
There was a trade off: I made the decision to give up golf, which I was no good at anyway, because I have no chance of making money with my sticks while I might be able to generate funds through photography. It has turned out to be a real money saver. I NEVER lose golf balls while using my cameras.
My cameras are all Nikons: A D90 and D80 for digital work and an N8008 for film stuff. I seldom use color film with my N8008 because I enjoy working with black and white film. Veteran photographers know this but I would advise anyone making the move to a digital Single Lens Reflex (SLR) camera to stick with the brand you are already using if you already have a film SLR. The same goes for a digital photographer looking to pick up a film SLR, new or used. The lenses usually transfer from a film camera to a digital unit if the film camera is modern enough to handle lenses that work on a DSLR. If your lenses don’t work on every camera you own, you are stuck with an expensive problem.
I’ve had a lot of luck with my Nikon equipment. I had a D70, which I gave to my son, and another Nikon camera from the F-series years ago. My son is a tremendous photographer but he doesn’t shoot much anymore.
I’m done buying cameras, at least for a while. The D90 represents about as much as I can spend for a camera. I needed a camera with better low-light capability and the D90 is good for that. The D90 also has video capability, but I use smaller cameras for video work. The D80 is excellent as well, but does not work as well as the D90 in low-light conditions.
My lenses include a Nikkor 50mm f1.4, a Tameron 28-75mm f2.8, a Nikon 35-80mm f4-5.6, a Nikkor 70-300mm f4-5.6, a Tokina 70-200mm f2.8, a Nikon 80-200mm f2.8 and Tameron 200-400mm f5.6. I’ve been happy with the lenses, mostly. I bought the 200-400mm at a bargain price and got what I paid for.
A very workable beginner’s kit might include a short lens, like my 50mm or my 35-80mm, and an intermediate, such as my 80-200mm or the 70-200mm. You can usually find used lenses like those mentioned for a fair price. Just be sure the lenses and camera work together before you buy them.
I recommend anyone interested in photography look into attending classes at a local community college. That’s what I did and I learned a great deal. I graduated from San Diego State University better than 30 years ago, but went to Ventura (California) College a few years ago and enrolled in Photography 1A. VC has an outstanding program. You get as much out of it as you put into it.
Of course, younger photographers can consider photo-related majors or minors or even just take classes while attending four-year schools.
Most of my experience is in sports photography and in later blogs I’ll write about getting started shooting sports. But for now I’ll just make a blanket recommendation that beginning photographers not be picky about what they shoot. If you have kids, volunteer to photograph their activities. If you are attending a photo class at a school, you have a golden opportunity. As a student, you should be able to photograph any activity on campus, be it sports, concerts or political rallies.
The most important thing is to get accustomed to working with your camera. I call the camera settings my soup: The ISO, shutter speed, aperture, focus mode and metering mode. I leave most of the other stuff alone. Experiment with your soup. Get used to learning what effect various changes make on an image. Do you want less depth of field? More? The beauty of digital photography is that you get real time answers to your questions if you change the soup from image to image.
Believe it or not, getting your hands used to working the camera is part of the learning process. The idea is to be able to make changes to your soup without moving your eye from the view finder. Since I use three cameras, I sometimes have to remind myself what I’m working with in order to get my hands working properly. That’s another reason to stay with a particular brand of camera; the dials and switches change but not too drastically from model to model.
You can see some of my photo work at www.speedylee.com.
That’s enough for now. Thanks for reading!
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