Reply To: Attitudes and Behavior on Social Media

[iliketag]

I absolutely agree with what Nesgran said about the kits as good starter lenses to learn the camera. People don’t give them enough credit, I feel. It’s definitely possible to get great shots with them, but if you’re going to jump into the business side, even part time, you’ll want to start expanding your gear and upgrading. If you want a 50mm, I would highly recommend the 1.4. I had the 1.8 for a year before upgrading to the 1.4. My 1.8 hardly came off my T3i (600D), but I saw a holiday sale on Amazon and jumped at the opportunity to pick one up for around $275. Look around to see if you can find one used or refurbished for around $200/250 and it will be worth the difference in price (and saving a wee bit longer). They go fast at that price so be ready to buy.

One of the things my boyfriend pokes fun at me most is that my gear is worth as much as his car. Now, I haven’t paid that much for it… most of my gear was purchased secondhand on craigslist or by wheeling and dealing with my manager on open box equipment that was special ordered and we’d never sell on a regular basis – that’s how I got my 70-200 as a barely used, open box for $600… So under insurance, my gear is worth as much as a car (which may be the reason I still don’t own one……) but, I have a full time job and between bills and spoiling my boyfriend, it’s the only other thing I spend my money on.

The only thing I say that contradicts what dont.care is saying is; I wouldn’t necessarily upgrade to the 1d series yet. I would recommend investing in lenses then moving to a full frame. Become familiar with the gear you have, lenses are virtually interchangeable (until you go FF and then it gets a bit different in terms of re-memorizing your distances – it goes quick though), so you can carry those over regardless of what body you’re working on. When you’re ready to make the move to full frame, get into the 5D series. The 1Dx is a large jump, mostly in price, that handles differently.

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In terms of the business side of things, it seems where I live a lot of clients come through facebook. Maybe not initially but you have people who lurk through your pages and develop an opinion AND even want you to recreate shoots. I have had strangers (friends of friends whom I don’t know personally) come to me saying “Can you do a shoot with us for an engagement just like that?”. I don’t normally take on what would be regular clients because I don’t feel like I’m good enough for that yet. Most of my shoots are with friends or as favors to friends. But if I were to go onto a facebook group under my business’s name, I really wouldn’t want to use foul language or be insulting others. On here I try and keep the language to a minimum too, just because of how I feel about maintaining a level of professionalism, even anonymously.
I don’t know, maybe it’s just a pet peeve of mine…

There are a lot of portfolio builders in that group too that post, but the posts are usually answered by other builders saying “Oh, you really need to work on *this or that* before working on your portfolio. Oh, by the way, I’m looking to build a portfolio and I need to second shoot with someone, so, anyone interested contact me!”
On someone else’s post! Are photographers really that catty’a lot?