When first starting out, I heard 4 things pretty consistently: A good photographer can shoot with anything, you have to find 1 or 2 genres as your expertise, you have to get a Nikon or Canon and one is either a good photographer or good editor, but rarely both. Am thankful and humbled to be good at both. I shoot everything that catches my eye. lol And I went outside the box, the norm, with a Sony A33 as my first DSLR.
Having grown up with mostly Black and White images via 35mm film and Polaroid, it gave me the ability to actually see and visualize what I’m composing in my camera in B&W. Often taking the shot to edit into a Black & White image I’ve envisioned. It’s been awhile since I have shot with my 35mm Minolta and 120 film Holga cameras. Life’s been to crazy over the past years.
So what photography equipment do I use at present?
(2) Sony A77V DSLR, mostly old film Minolta Lenses, a decent tripod and head, a Lowepro camera backpack (which carried most of everything I needed to spend a month in Italy)
Lenses run the gamut: numerous prime, telephoto and recently purchase an ulta-wide lens. Mostly use a Minolta AF Macro Zoom 28mm to 85mm lens to capture the moment.
What do I use in my Creative Digital Darkroom?
Adobe Premium Pro CS6 which includes Photoshop and Illustrator among the Suite (stand alone), Lightroom 4 (stand alone) and On1 Photo Raw 2018/2021.
No, I have never rented nor will I ever rent Adobe Creative Cloud. What I have still works great! Unfortunately the time will come to abandon Adobe, but On1 has come a long way over the years and is very comparable to Adobe photo editing programs. The new On1 Photo Raw 2020 is very impressive and seriously considering it in the near future.
My advise to new photographers?
Think outside the box. And … Do you! Use what camera and editing programs that you want. Getting into photography as a hobby or professionally is an overwhelming process and costly. There’s too much bad information online, tons of options of what to use and many giving their “opinions” as factual for all.
Find a good photographer to have or see as your mentor. Start out with the minimum needed to see if photography is for you. Don’t go overboard! Take your time and enjoy the journey that’s right for you. 🙂
