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Hypothetical £1000 photographer kit challenge

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Unfocussed Mike

By Unfocussed Mike, 1729271363

As mentioned in another thread. I put this in General Chat deliberately so we can see the wider discussion about costs. If a model wants to put in a matching thread about typical costs, by all means do.

Scenario: You want to take, edit and upload really good photos of models. You have no camera, lenses, lighting equipment etc., or a computer or software for editing, or a phone.

Your resources:

- You have one thousand hypothetical British pounds for camera equipment

- You separately have a hypothetical £15/month for a camera phone on up to a two year contract and at least 20 gigs of data which you can use in addition to the above, if you choose.  (No hypothetical cash alternative available.)

Don't hypothetically hair-shirt it excessively. Hypothetically get something you could recommend to someone starting out who you don't want to hate you.

I am placing no other restrictions on what kind of kit you get. Full frame, micro four thirds, APS-C, whatever. Probably digital (but if you want to budget for film, processing and scanning instead, assume two years of it -- now there's an actual challenge). But good enough for Purpleport.

Edited by Unfocussed Mike

Perception said, 1729271972

I work with younger people (younger than me) and for whatever reason I think non digital hobbies are getting more and more mainstream , so no longer a “hipster” thing . So I get asked a bit about what id recommend , I give them

A list of options and the Nikon FM2 always wins out, with a 50mmf1.4. I’d not even recommend film anymore due to servicing and supply , costs etc but they’re undeterred .

Edited by Perception

Pix Photography said, 1729272117

Canon 5diii with 50mm f1.8.

A handful of smaller memory cards.

Godox or Yongnuo flash with remote trigger, lighting stand and umbrella.

Large reflector.

Whatever is left on the best laptop achievable for the money and photoshop elements.

Unfocussed Mike said, 1729272433

Pix Photography said

Canon 5diii with 50mm f1.8.

A handful of smaller memory cards.

Godox or Yongnuo flash with remote trigger, lighting stand and umbrella.

Large reflector.

Whatever is left on the best laptop achievable for the money and photoshop elements.

Gosh, you're right -- you can get that first line item for less than half the budget. I mean that really underscores the point, doesn't it!

waist.it said, 1729273176

  • µ4/3 camera, used £200
  • 50mm 44-m4 Lens £10 (came with 3 other less-interesting lenses)
  • 6 off 200-400 joule metal clad studio flash c/w soft-boxes, stands and a couple of wireless trigger sets £300
  • 6 way motorised backdrop system £220
  • 6 Paper rolls £230
  • 1 spray can matt black paint £5
  • 2 1000 x 600 sheets of 18mm ply wood £30
  • 1 box 5mm x 80mm hardened plated self-drilling screws

£995.00 - and yes, a wee while back, I actually did this using the money I saved by not paying for my software licences.:-)

Confession: I bought quite a lot of other kit too by deploying savings from the same source. However my the total spend is probably around £6k now. But if the purpose of this thread is to demonstrate that one can pick up a lot of kit for not much money if you shop around, then the answer is yes, you can. :-)

Edited by waist.it

Pix Photography said, 1729272986

Unfocussed Mike

The Canon 5diii and 50mm is responsible for a huge amount of images on my portfolio up till I went mirrorless a couple of years ago.

I'd still be happy if that was all I had to shoot with.

Unfocussed Mike said, 1729273049

waist.it said

  • µ4/3 camera, used £200
  • 50mm 44-m4 Lens £10 (came with 3 other less-interesting lenses)
  • 6 off 200-400 joule metal clad studio flash c/w soft-boxes, stands and a couple of wireless trigger sets £300
  • 6 way motorised backdrop system £220
  • 6 Paper rolls £230
  • 1 spray can matt black paint £5
  • 2 1000 x 600 sheets of 18mm ply wood £30
  • 1 box 5.5 x 80mm self-drilling screws

£995.00 - and yes, a wee while back, I actually did this using the money I saved by not paying for my software licences.:-)

Confession: I bought quite a lot of other kit too by deploying the same savings. However my the total spend is probably around £6k now. But if the purpose of this thread is to demonstrate that one can pick up a lot of kit for not much money if you shop around, then the answer is yes, you can. :-)

Needs a computer for the exercise... though you could edit with a hypothetical phone. But since you can get quite a good laptop for the cost of your paper rolls and backdrop system, this is a point well made!

jonathantennantphotography.co.uk said, 1729273181

Budget of £1,000 ? 

I actually bought a Canon 5diii in mint condition for £250. 50mm f1.4 £120, mem cards £15, 3 Yougnou Flash guns £25 flash trigger £15. Lighting stands x3 £30. Softbox/unbrellas £45 

MacbookPro £500 software ???  

All bought on eBay or FB marketplace 

Huw said, 1729273829

Canon, MPB 

100D, like new, 500 shots, £194 
EF 50/1.8 STM, like new £73
EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM pancake, like new, £119
EF 85mm f/1.8 USM, like new, £204
SD card.

Total: Just under £600.
I had that as my "adventure kit" kit until I went mirrorless, it was great. Couple of FPIs too....

Lightroom 1 TB, mobile version only £60 on Amazon right now.

Any recent iPad.  
Probably £340 used.
Or, for females with better hand/eye coordination, a decent Android phone, used, £300 or so.
That's what both my daughters use.  

www.Backmarket.com


Most of my recent photos are LR on an iPad mini.

Unlimited calls and data, Three mobile, £24 per year.


Under £1000.

I could happily shoot with that.

The expensive stuff just makes life easier.

Unfocussed Mike said, 1729273854

jonathantennantphotography.co.uk said

Budget of £1,000 ? 

I actually bought a Canon 5diii in mint condition for £250. 50mm f1.4 £120, mem cards £15, 3 Yougnou Flash guns £25 flash trigger £15. Lighting stands x3 £30. Softbox/unbrellas £45 

MacbookPro £500 software ???  

All bought on eBay or FB marketplace 

I should have made this more difficult

waist.it said, 1729298447

Unfocussed Mike said

waist.it said

  • µ4/3 camera, used £200
  • 50mm 44-m4 Lens £10 (came with 3 other less-interesting lenses)
  • 6 off 200-400 joule metal clad studio flash c/w soft-boxes, stands and a couple of wireless trigger sets £300
  • 6 way motorised backdrop system £220
  • 6 Paper rolls £230
  • 1 spray can matt black paint £5
  • 2 1000 x 600 sheets of 18mm ply wood £30
  • 1 box 5.5 x 80mm self-drilling screws

£995.00 - and yes, a wee while back, I actually did this using the money I saved by not paying for my software licences.:-)

Confession: I bought quite a lot of other kit too by deploying the same savings. However my the total spend is probably around £6k now. But if the purpose of this thread is to demonstrate that one can pick up a lot of kit for not much money if you shop around, then the answer is yes, you can. :-)

Needs a computer for the exercise... though you could edit with a hypothetical phone. But since you can get quite a good laptop for the cost of your paper rolls and backdrop system, this is a point well made!


OK fair point. In which case I would argue that I received and redeployed several perfectly serviceable laptops for free (which I did). These perform perfectly adequately on Debian c/w FOSS graphics software. I.e machines acquired and configured for zero or near-zero cost that can process images at reasonable speed, on modern, regularly-updated, security-patched software. Freebies that would have been consigned to landfill, had they still run Microsoft Windows! :-)

Edited by waist.it

Huw said, 1729274304

Huw said

Canon, MPB 

100D, like new, 500 shots, £194 
EF 50/1.8 STM, like new £73
EF-S 24mm f/2.8 STM pancake, like new, £119
EF 85mm f/1.8 USM, like new, £204
SD card.

Total: Just under £600.
I had that as my "adventure kit" kit until I went mirrorless, it was great. Couple of FPIs too....

Lightroom 1 TB, mobile version only £60 on Amazon right now.

Any recent iPad.  
Probably £340 used.
Or, for females with better hand/eye coordination, a decent Android phone, used, £300 or so.
That's what both my daughters use.  

www.Backmarket.com


Most of my recent photos are LR on an iPad mini.

Unlimited calls and data, Three mobile, £24 per year.


Under £1000.

I could happily shoot with that.

The expensive stuff just makes life easier.


Or swap the iPad and LR mobile for a used Thinkpad and Canon DPP software.

Afrofilmviewer said, 1729275495

Ok.

So what I started with (basics)

D3100: £167.49

50mm: 195.00

Laptop: 450.00 (I think)

Borrowed version of lightroom 5: free.

Now?

D600: £219

85mm: £250

The other things remain the same.

Kept it at the absolute basic. Not that much has changed. Although I now have a sigma 85mm 1.4 which even now would be the whole budget. And more RAM.

Afrofilmviewer said, 1729275816

I'm also very suspicious of particular hobbyists with high gear expenditure.

Paul Monty said, 1729276035

Could I spend the £15 a month on renting a studio every now and then to avoid spending money on lights?

Unfocussed Mike said, 1729277468

Afrofilmviewer said

I'm also very suspicious of particular hobbyists with high gear expenditure.

I mean, over the years (we're talking nearly 20 since my first secondhand DSLR) I guess I have spent too much, though I never bought the highest-end things, and my spends were incremental.

I've barely spent a thing in the last five years. The camera I use is now a ten year old model, and the only thing I'd like to be better is the viewfinder. There hasn't been a bad DSLR since 2008; you could probably complete this £1000 exercise with a Nikon D850, the greatest DSLR ever made. Realistically the Sony A7II in 2014 is the start of a 24mp full frame mirrorless quality plateau that for stills work has been more or less flat for a decade; truly small differences.

Tech hobbyists overspending for status reasons and then convincing themselves they did so for technical reasons is a very old story though, and it shows no signs of going away.

3D printing is a great example and it parallels photography. The marginal gains of a £600 3D printer over a £150 3D printer are quite small, for example, and the extra spend doesn't address, at all, how you get value out of that purchase, which is by learning how to do your own design -- a thing that costs nothing incrementally, only time and effort.

Guitars are another example: the marginal gain between a £150 G4M electric guitar and something at £900-1000 is surprisingly small, when seen in the context of actually being able to play the thing.

The reason I set this little challenge is to show that as photographers, our costs are actually pretty fixed, and really limited. Even if you want quite a good mirrorless camera!

Whereas for a model... makeup, hair, skincare, dental, outfits, maybe gym membership for some, is endless rolling cost, and it likely increases over time.


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