Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“Hard work beats talent every time”—Matt Armstrong
I think it’s a pretty obvious thing to say but I’ll say it anyway: Cameras don’t make photographs, people do. If you want to make a glamour photograph it’s obvious you’ll need a camera and some kind of light source, even if it’s just available light, to capture anything. But you don’t need a $7,399 Hasselblad XD 2 II to make a portrait of a model, your wife, friend or significant other. Any camera that takes interchangeable lenses will let you create really great portraits.
It All Begins with An Idea
A few years ago, I wrote a article for the print edition of Shutterbug magazine about putting together an in-home studio for less than $200. If you poke around their website you might be able to find it. All of the equipment, including the lighting gear, a background and stands really did cost less than $200. The article featured a portrait shoot I did with that setup and a camera and lens that cost less than $400 and that was a brand-new camera bought from Amazon.
There are also lots of bargains available in used or refurb cameras that you can purchase from camera stores, eBay, Craig’s List or maybe a friend. My purchase of my dream camera, the Olympus Pen F, was a refurb and it was almost half the price of a new one. It looks and shoots like a new camera but without the sticker shock that Pen F’s had for a long time and maybe they still do.
How I made this portrait: Tasha is a beautiful young woman with a lovely personality who I originally met at a car show. I photographed Tasha in the loft area outside the office of my former home using mostly available light from a large North-facing window to her right. Fill light was provided with a Canon 550EX speedlite with a Sto-Fen Omni-Bounce diffuser in place to keep the light soft.
The camera used was a Canon EOS D60 with an EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM lens (at 80mm.) The exposure was 1/80 sec at f/4.5 and ISO 400 with a plus one and two-thirds stop exposure compensation. The original JPEG file (made before my current RAW+JPEG regimen) was lightly retouched and then tweaked in Vivenza ,
When looking out for a bargain camera, here’s a few things to keep in mind:
Don’t let ego determine the kind of camera you should buy or use. Recently I talked with an aspiring portrait photographer whose camera was introduced four years ago and he told me when he went to photography meet-ups some people disparaged his use of “old” gear. That’s why…- Don’t let other other people determine how you spend your money.
- Having too much money tied up in cameras and lighting equipment or worse, debt for that gear, will sink a new pro or aspiring professional photographer faster than anything else. You should sell your photography to clients based on the quality of your images, personality and business ethics.
- The truth is that if your clients like you they will like their photographs. And they don’t care if you shoot with a used Panasonic Lumix GX1 like the one I recently bought from Roberts Camera for $125 or that aforementioned Hasselblad XD 2 II, although to be fair some might.
For some other thoughts on this subject, please read my post “You Are What You Shoot?” on my car photography blog/website when you have time
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If you’re interested in learning how I use cameras, lenses and lighting in my in-home studio and on location, please pick up a copy of Studio Lighting Anywhere which is available used from Amazon.com for less than ten bucks, as I write this. The Kindle version is $19.99 for those preferring a digital format.