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How to buy equipment for Stock Photography Part I

posted on 17th of february, 2012

I have some tutorial videos on YouTube and I got an email from a guy about something that comes up very often in message boards, forums and so on so I hope I will be able to clear it out in the next two articles. The email said something like “I like the tutorial videos you did and I want to get into stock photography but I only have a small 10 mpix digital camera so can you recommend what should I buy before I start taking pictures”. Now I told this person – Its good enough. And I know that maybe a lot of you reading this are thinking something in the lines – what is this guy talking about a 10 mpix camera is not good enough for stock . Well it depends. Do you think that having a 36 mpix dslr will make it easyer for somebody who has never done a stock picture to get accepted...

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Tags: camera equipment lenses money

Comments (5)

	Posted by Teabum on March 02, 2012 Many good points in your article. I think, you don't need super fast lens, the latest cameras, more megapixels to have photos accepted. But you still need to have decent camera with a reasonable lens, that gives you results without too much noise and sharp. With camera on the "border" for image quality, you just become extremely frustrated with many rejections because of the technical quality. Better equipment saves you lots of extra work and let you concentrate more on photography rather then editing :) that's my opinion.
	Posted by Gmargittai on February 18, 2012 Many people posting on dpreview are infatuated with fast lenses that are capable of taking a photo in the most difficult lighting situation, have shallow DOF which is all good in general. But for stock one needs ideal or close to ideal lighting. Unless some news breaking editorial, pictures taken in difficult light situations are not going to get accepted. Now I am not saying one should buy crappy lenses. I found that investing in lighting equipment like soft-boxes muslin backgrounds and such bring you much more successful images for stock than a 24Mpixel camera.
	Posted by Dacky on February 18, 2012 Thank you for the comments and I am sorry that it was not formatted the first time but this I fixed already . About fast lenses in stock photography . I see your point Bradcalkins but here is my idea - if you go out and shoot and your wides apperture is 5.6 you will have to close to at least f8 to get a nice sharp picture . Now on the other hand if you start with 1.4 lens at f4 or f5.6 you will be in the sweet spot so this way you save at least 2 stops light that you might have to compensate otherwise . But great point .