What Equipment Is Needed For A Photography Business?
You love taking pictures and would like to use your talent to earn some extra money. You might be asking yourself, what equipment is needed for a photography business?
Luckily, it is one of the businesses that does not require a lot when you are first starting out.
We will start with the obvious, a camera. Whether you are taking pictures of objects, (houses for real estate agents for example) or people, you will want a DSLR or Digital Single-Lens Reflex camera. What these cameras do is mimic the functions of a film camera. They snap pictures rapidly unlike point and shoot digital cameras. This is essential for portraits, weddings, or events.
The lenses are interchangeable so if you are taking pictures of a house listing for a Realtor, you have the ability to put on a wide angle lens. DSLR cameras also allow for a larger more powerful flash to be attached which is needed for weddings and portraits.
Is a website needed? Not necessarily. There are companies like Smugmug who will host your work on their website for a yearly fee. If you start to get real serious, then you might want to get your own site. But even this isn't all that difficult or expensive. WordPress sites are easy to create. You can find a web host for as low as five dollars a month. Domain names are pretty cheap, running about ten dollars. If you got serious with wedding photography, I would recommend your own website. Getting a wedding job can be tough so you really need to stand out above the competition.
Photo editing software is required now a days. If you are taking senior pictures, people expect that a blemish be removed from a teenagers face, or braces taken out. If you have some good poses that you took but the lighting is off, or there is an object you don't want in the picture, you can fix it and be able to use the picture. You can spend a ton of money on the top version of Photoshop but this is not needed when you are staring your business. I would look for an older version of Photoshop to start. You can always upgrade later as you get comfortable with the software.
Tripods will come in handy for portraits or real estate photography and are pretty inexpensive. Always make sure to purchase extra batteries and memory cards to have on hand at a shoot. You don't want to be in the middle of a photo shoot and have to stop because your batteries died.
Hopefully this answers the question of what equipment is needed when starting a photography business. As your business grows you can look for other things like a portable backdrop, different lenses, flashes, diffuser etc. Start out with the basics first, then invest in your business when you start making a profit.
Interchangeable Lens Camera
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