photography - my gear

so the plan is to roll out some blogposts that will give some insight to the beginner photographer on taking better photos. D I S C L A I M E R : i am not necessarily sharing with you the "right" way to do this. i am simply sharing what has worked best for me & how i do things. i think i definitely have a lot to learn still! i am going to try the best i can to explain things in terms that everyone can understand, but feel free to drop a comment if you have any questions!

so a little background on me & photography:

i got my first camera when i was 13. it was some kind of Sony point & shoot i think. i'm not sure what ever happened to it, but i had a few more point & shoot cameras before i decided i really liked photography & wanted to upgrade to a dslr. my first dslr was a Canon Rebel T3i. i still have it! it is a fantastic starter camera & i can't recommend it enough. one day when i was a freshman in college, someone asked me to do their headshots. i had only ever done "fine art" stuff before that, so i was a little hesitant. but after i did them, several people started asking me for photos. i eventually made a Facebook business page, and my business took off from there! it took my 7 years to get where i am today. it took long nights of research, practice shoots, and trial and error before i learned what i know now. let me address this before anything: buying the same equipment as me does not mean you will produce great images. the equipment is just a tool that aids in great images. this is something i don't think is stressed enough and leaves beginners very frustrated! so let's talk about this equipment:

my gear:

• Canon 5D MKIII body

• Canon 35L f/1.4 lens (on my camera body 99.9% of the time)

• Canon 50mm f/1.8

• Instax Wide

• Instax Mini

• Minolta film camera with 50mm f/1.4 lens

*I shoot with my MKIII & my 35L for all photoshoots.*

my suggestion for beginners:

• Canon Rebel (any model)

• Canon or Sigma 50mm f/1.8 lens

let me let y'all in on a little secret: don't even bother buying the Canon Rebel DSLR kit package (the one that comes with the camera body & the lens). The lens that comes with that package (the kit lens, 18-55mm) is practically worthless. If you are wanting to get that "blurry background", you are going to need a lens that has a wide f-stop. the 50mm f/1.8 (also referred to as the "nifty fifty") is awesome. it's a reasonable price & will get your photos looking a lot more professional!

i have a lot more blogposts planned on photography tutorials. keep in mind though, i'm no teacher! i'll try the best i can to explain things easily. i hope this post was somewhat helpful!

-s

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