Ian Furniss Photography » Blog Archive » Gear Is … Useful!

Gear Is … Useful! – a beginners guide

Photography gear is something I imagine most of us having a love/hate relationship with. On the one hand we tell ourselves it’s irrelevant and get most offended when someone looks at our images and rolls out the old “you must have a great camera” line, and yet on the other, as soon as whispers are heard of a new lens or camera, we’re out there salivating with anticipation and wondering how long until we can preorder it. It creates a confusing position for those who are new to photography, and it’s not much help to those trying to progress either.

My personal take on this is that it pretty much goes without saying that better equipment won’t make you a better photographer, but what it will do is give you more and better ways to express yourself. To that end, and in the hope of clearing a little of the confusion for anyone who’s just starting out, here are a few ideas and thoughts to keep in mind.

When I first became interested in photography a combination of bad advice and gear lust saw me go through 3 cameras in my first year. I ended up with a mid-range camera but with trade-ins and devaluations i’d paid a top-range price to get it. As a result I can now honestly attest to the fact that the easiest and quickest way to generate money from photography or any other business is to cut out the waste and ridiculous purchases!

Anything you trade-in you are going to lose money on with very few exceptions. For that reason it makes sense to decide what you want to do before you hand over any cash. I say this because the market is getting very blurred now between low-end dslr’s and bridge cameras and if you buy a bridge camera but have the intent to take your photography seriously at any stage in the future, you will have to trade it in when you want to start buying lenses. I’d recommend anyone starting out and with an intention to take photography seriously, to skip bridge cameras and go straight for a dslr. Which one is down to personal choice based on intent but to give you an idea, here’s a couple of pics from The Travel Photographer Tewfic El-Sawy which he took a few years back on a Canon 10d. Quality photos that come from ability, not a 1dMkIV. Expensive top of the range gear will not make you a better photographer, only ability will.

Lenses can be a real problem to buy. There are so many on the market that it’s hard to know where to begin so i’ll start by saying that most of the time a £100-200 difference in the cost of a lens won’t give you a visually perceptible £100-200 difference in quality. Sure, you can measure the difference, but can you really see it? As a Canon user it’s for that reason that I only ever really consider L Series lenses. They last a lifetime, they’re sharp as a scousers wit, and because they’re designed for all Canon bodies they’ll also survive your upgrade path.

Now if there’s a trick to buying lenses for a beginner then it’s this. Borrow a friends camera or go out with them one day and take as many photos as you can of absolutely anything you want. Whatever appeals to you, whatever really fires your soul. When you get back home, import the photos and check the exif data to see what focal length the shots were taken at. There’s no point in going out and buying the biggest zooom you can find if all the shots you like are taken at wide-angle. Once you know which is your most used focal length, you then know what to look for in the shop.

Myself, I rarely use more than two lenses. A 10-22mm wide-angle and a 70-200mm zoom. With a few steps forward or a few steps back that covers just about anything I want to shoot including the image at the top of the page which was taken at 154mm c/o a big “No Entry” sign preventing me from getting closer. The only other lens i’ll carry with me is the 50mm f1.8 aka ‘nifty fifty’ that is just so good and so compact there’s really no excuse for not having one. With those lenses in mind these recommendations should get anyone started:

Wide-Angle:
Canon EF-S 10-22MM F3.5-4.5 USM Lens £669.00
Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM Zoom Lens £639.00 (Buy once option)
Sigma 10-20MM F4-5.6 EX DC HSM £398.99 (Budget option)

Zoom:
Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 L USM Zoom Lens £1,119.00
Canon EF 70-200mm f/4 L USM Lens £519.00 (Buy once & budget option)

Bearing in mind that most Dslr’s come with something like a 17-55mm or 17-85mm lens, whilst some of the prices there may seem a little frightening, think of it this way. If you smoke, then for the price of a packet of cigarettes a day in 2-3 months you can make up the difference between a budget lens and an L-series. Alternatively, drive 30 urban miles less each week and you can make up the difference in around 4 to 5 months. With those sorts of time frames I can’t think of a convincing argument against spending a little time practicing your photography whilst waiting a few months until you’ve saved enough for a quality lens that you won’t have to trade in.

Hopefully there’s enough there to help or give thought for anyone starting out, but the same idea also applies to taking your photography further. As before, the easiest way to generate extra money is not to spend it in the first place. Other than fun stuff, I hardly ever use Photoshop any more. Lightroom is a much better alternative for me and it’ll save you £3-400. Laptops or a PC? I hate to say it but if you really don’t need a Macbook Pro then there are big savings to be made with a Windows 7 laptop/pc (ok, i’ll go and wash my mouth out now!). Do you really need that iPhone to run your business? A Blackberry will save you £200+ and do much the same job with the bonus that you now only have to drive a couple of miles less each week to afford that L-series lens. In these days of economic hardship we can’t always avoid buying gear and sometimes it’s essential, but buying wisely or even renting can cut your overheads dramatically.