Choosing the proper camera gear depending on your specialization is really important. Since photography and videography are very expensive passions, let’s narrow it down to what’s actually really needed.

Plan of this post:
1/ What camera Gear
a)Body

To find out which camera body you need you have to ask yourself a few questions. First do you want to print huge size images? If the answer is “yes”, ask yourself how many. Depending on that answer, you will know if you need a whole lot of megapixels or not. To be more specific, a camera with a solid 24MP (megapixels) Crop sensor will easily allow you to do 120cm x 80cm prints for most of them. Personally my Canon T6I (750D) allows me to print 140cm x 100cm with it’s 24MP crop sensor. Therefore if making wallpapers, metro commercials, or super duper big fine art prints, don’t even bother trying to get a 600MP sensor, it will most likely be useless and even, feel like a pain, because the better the quality of the image, the bigger the file (and price of your external hard drive).

Once you’ve figured out how many MP you need, ask yourself what the photos are for? Social Media? Website? Stock image? Calendars?
If your pictures are ending up on the internet, please, note that no matter the website, your files will be highly compressed. My highest quality pictures on this website corresponds to a Gopro hero 3 shot (12mp on a very small sensor). Therefore again, don’t fall into that marketing trap of MP.

So what should you be looking for exaclty?
-Weather sealing. No matter what your camera is used for, it is always a good thing to have some form of weather sealing, just in case.
-Flip out screen. I know not all good cameras has those, but believe me they make your life so much easier, so if you are looking for a camera body, take one with a flip out screen and if possible, one that goes to the side and rotate (sorry Sony)
-Recording capacity pretty obvious no matter what the camera was bought for, most of them will be able to do both so let’s try to have it able to record at least 1080P in 30fps (frames per seconds) with no crop. Very basic in 2020
-Sensor size. No matter the kind of camera and the number of MP a 1/2″ sensor with 108mp will give you a lower quality than a full frame sensor with 24MP.
If you want to know exactly why and how this is possible, well don’t worry, I’ll make a full post on the subject.
-Storage capacity, If you are shooting pro, or if you want to end up shooting pro, I highly recommend you buy a camera that has a double memory card slot. No matter if it’s SD and CF or double SD or double CF, as long as it can provide an instant backup, it makes the job safer 😉

Based on all of the above, you now know what to look for. So should you buy new or used? I personally only bought used camera bodies so I’ll make a video and a post on how to safely buy used cameras. In the mean time, let’s jump onto lenses.

b)Lenses
Most of the time, when you see a great shot that’s crystal clear and have all kinds of crispy details, this is due to the lens and not so much because of the camera.
So, we will divide lenses in two categories: Prime lenses, and Zoom lenses
Prime lenses are the very best lenses in term of image quality, sharpness and everything that goes with it. They usually can open the aperture wider than zoom lenses leading to a lot of f1.4 and 1.8 lenses being very affordable.
So what’s the trick? Well each lens can cover only one focal lenght. So if you have a 100mm lens f2.8, and you wand to zoom in, well you better start walking forward.
Now Zoom lenses, are the opposit, they are more expensive, more bulky, heavier, and usually opens to narrower aperture but since you can zoom in and out, they can be a great fit if you have to move a lot (like for a travel photographer for example).

In any case there are a small pack of 4 lenses that are the most basic and useful lenses no matter the type of photography:

16-35mm f2.8: Ultra wide angle zoom lens, with crispy sharp images, Great for Landscape, Close Wildlife, Real Estate, and selfies. A closed up photograph with this lens will make you feel your are on the subject. Great lens to make dramatic portraits or wildlife shots.

24-70mm f2.8: The one can do all lens, great for pretty much everything.

70-200mm f2.8: Awesome telephoto zoom lens that will provide you the crispy quality in a very closed up situation. Great for any kinds of photography except real estate. Although you will look closer at things, we will feel a space between the subject and the viewer.

50mm f1.4 prime lens: THE prime lens everybody needs is definitely that one. It’s also a “can do all” lens but what’s so special about the 50mm is that mounted on a full frame camera body, it will look like the exact distance you were from the subject, as our eyes corresponds roughly to 50mm lenses (35mm for cropped sensor)

To give you an example, I personally do Landscape, Wildlife and Travel photography. Therefore I only own one prime lens, à Canon 50mm f1.4, the rest are only zoom lenses: Canon 16-35mm f2.8 and Tamron 150-600mm super telephoto lens (for wildlife and telemacro photography mostly).


c)Tripod
A good solid tripod will most likely save your shots, so which one do you need?
Well for this you do not need too much explanations, I’ll just link my recommendations below with some affiliate links (won’t make your purchase more expensive, but will help me with my expenses ;))

1 Joby Gorillapod 5K (Vlogs, videos, photography needing lighter weights)
https://amzn.to/3feNqrh

2 Peak Design Travel Tripod (great lightweight tripod for traveling, also a super high quality solid tripod).
https://amzn.to/3k8aqfo

3 Innorel RT90C Tripod, Big heavy tripod, but very high quality, and best low price high end tripod in that category. Great for Landscape (when you are not backpacking), wildlife photography, studio, stars photography etc.
https://amzn.to/3hS14SY


d)Filters
Filters are a great option if you are a long exposure adept, or even if you shoot a lot in harsh sun conditions and you need to get some of those highlights softer, filters are your thing.
I personally only use filters for Landscape photography, and I truly love them.
Here you have a bunch of filters you can buy, and some Nd filters or polarizing filters will fit on 67mm lenses, some other on 88mm lenses, so in order to buy only one kit and spare that money, I recommend you to get this thing.
https://amzn.to/3girYD0
This adapter fits on all lenses and you can just get all of your Nd filtering glasses only once, and fit them on any lens, on any camera ;).


e)Side recording devices
You might want to use something more than only a camera, maybe like me you are a wildlife photographer and you need a trail camera, maybe you need a gopro, a drone, or anything else, include it in your budget if it is needed. I honestly have much more troubles photographing wildlife without a trail camera than with it.


f)Storage
Here the hard drive you will get depends on your camera body and the size of the picture file. Still from my point of view, having two 4tb hard drives is the best option if you are a beginner. The first one will carry your images, and the second one will be a backup that you always leave at home. I personally use this hard drive


g)Image processing
I personally use Lightroom only, so I think that taking the photography pack from Adobe is enough, but still, you could try another software like Luminar 4.

2/How to afford that expensive camera gear you need?
-Example through my story (Youtube video)

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