Hey, this is Scott of Photography Banzai. In this video I'm gonna talk about some tips and
tricks that could help you speed up your progression in photography. These are the
things that I've learned over the years. I've stumbled into or over. You know,
spending too much on equipment, or buying the wrong stuff. Doing the wrong things.
So I'm going to go into a few tips on that. The first one is if you are low on
cash or you just don't want to spend a lot. Decide which type of photography you
want to get into. That will define what equipment you should purchase. So for
landscape photos you definitely want a nice tripod. Don't get a piece of junk.
Just end up throwing that out. Your camera itself.. higher resolution is probably
a good idea. And then the lenses, you can probably use a kit lens to get started.
Just use smaller apertures. Find the sweet spot of that lens to get the
highest sharpness and all that. You will have to get filters, so consider those as
well and the purchase. The best ones to get are pretty expensive. They're the
types that are just big flat pieces of glass with a holder that attaches to
your lens and camera. Besides that a wired shutter release
is the cheapest option for avoiding shake. With macro photos you will want a
one to one ratio magnification lens. Forget the kit lens, it's really not
going to help you too much unless you get extension tubes. But it's a smaller
aperture lens to start with. Not an ideal situation. So the one to one ratio lens
it's probably the best option. Maybe a thousand dollars or so or buy a used
option which is always good. You also want some type of lighting. LED lights
are probably the best option. You can use the flash as well. You'll attach that to
the front of your lens, or around the camera in some way to get those macro
situations lighted well. So for nature photos with animals in them, you
definitely need a large telephoto lens. Probably a tripod in some situations but
image stabilization is a key feature in situations as well. I think the best
option especially price-wise is a camera with the lens fully integrated. It won't
come off it's not an interchangeable camera. Maybe a Sony RX10 series camera.
It's a very long range zoom lens attached. High quality images. The sensor isn't
huge, but in those cases smaller sensors can definitely do the job. It does have
stabilization and all that as well. For portraiture, something around 35 or 50
milliliters to start price-wise is good depending on your camera. If you're going
full frame get a 50 if you're going a crop camera get the 35. They're really
just the cheapest options. An 85 millimeter is probably good or better in
that case. Really depends on what type of style you want. If you want a lot of
compression go with a longer focal length. So once you've got your camera
gear you want to do photography, right? So practice is a big thing. Of course,
landscape you just go out and find really nice places to take photos. But
for people photos you've got your family and friends of course. But there are a
lot of other options. One option that I have done in the past actually
throughout all of my photography is conventions. So you've got a convention...
anime, science-fiction, whatever. They're kind of the fandom pop-culture
conventions. A lot of people in those conventions are wearing costumes.
Now they do like having their photo taken. You just have to be polite.
Consider etiquette in those situations. So as long as you are polite and ask first,
I don't think you have any issues and it gets you a lot of practice. Gets you a
lot of options. A lot of ways to grow in those situations pretty quickly. And you
will form relationships. You will see people, regulars, and all that. Where you
can get those connections made which is really helpful for more practice. With
flash photography I do think it's something you
should get in too early. It does help every other type of photography for the
most part. It's something that can be expensive but it can be pretty cheap as
well. Consider the third-party manufacturers which are what I use.
There's Yongnuo, Godox, Cactus... You can buy a few flash or just one and then get a
trigger. So you want to do flash off the camera. You really don't want to do it on
the camera. You can at times. It really depends on the situation, but having the
flexibility of those radio frequency triggers and flash really is nice.
Especially with the current flash that have the transceiver triggers built
inside the flash itself, it's really a great option and it's pretty cheap. And
then starting early on flash is extremely helpful. Because it takes a
long time to learn a lot about flash. Of course, a simple thing about flash is the
closer the softer the light will be. And the larger the light source the softer
the light will be for the most part. Now, that will also help you get into
modifiers. There are a lot of cheap options with modifiers as well. Just look
for maybe an umbrella a nice light stand. So actually about light stands...
I like the nano ones. They fold up a different way compared to the regular
light stands. They might be a little cheaper or less expensive depending. But
the good thing about these nano light stands is they're a lot more versatile.
You can take them places much more easily. So I've actually.. gave away my original
light stands that I'd bought years and years ago to a friend. And then I did buy
the nano versions. And I use those at the moment for most of my stuff. So with
flash and actual settings I do think you want to use full manual mode when you're
using flash. There's a lot of variables involved. And using full manual in your
camera with the flash allows you to consistently understand what's happening.
And it allows you to grow with flash and be able to fully control and
adjust light. And not have to worry about if the camera is going to automatically
decide something. In other situations when you're not using some type of external
flash... You want to consider other more simpler camera control options. I use
aperture priority a lot. I really don't understand the idea to always use manual.
It doesn't really necessarily help you in a lot of situations to have to
consider all that while you're taking photos. I really like to focus on
composition. In those cases using aperture priority helps a lot for me.
Because I like the control that it happens with changing aperture, but I
also like the simplicity of not having to focus on shutter speed. Or not having
to focus on ISO. So in this case cameras that I use for photography allow me to
adjust the minimum shutter speed. That's really important of course. So that
variable is taken care of when I'm not caring about freezing action or getting
blur or whatever else. So in those cases just controlling the aperture is
extremely helpful. And of course a lot of cameras have exposure compensation right
there ready for you to adjust. That said, something like just reading your
camera's manual is extremely helpful. You'll find little tips and tricks in
those manuals that you'll be surprised you never knew in those cases. So it is
good to read your manual. At least skim it and understand, you know, what what's
all capable with your camera. Of course other research like videos such as this
or similar content is extremely helpful. Learning something beforehand is good,
but of course getting out there and just taking photos is also great. So those are
the tips I have at the moment to help you expand your progression in
photography. Hope you found it interesting.
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I'm Scott from Photography Banzai, Thanks!