our ideas

Cameras are no small investment. I compare it to buying a car: you do your research on makes and models, how new or used would you like to go, then you go and spend a bunch of money on it while having a stroke as you watch your bank balance go down. 

Find a purpose for your purchase

With big purchases like nice cameras, it would make sense that you would want to use that camera to earn some money and start earning back all that money you spent. I bought my first camera last summer, a Canon 6D, and had no intention of using it for profit at the time. I spent $900 on a camera body alone, and at least another $300 on a couple of secondhand lenses. This was a chunk of money I hadn’t intended on spending right then, and I had no intention of using any of it for profit, I just wanted to learn.

My bank account might have been better off if I had gotten a simple digital camera to practice photography, but I wanted to learn photography on the kind of camera I was already learning to use for video during weddings.

How I use my camera now

It has now been about a year since I got my camera, and I have only recently started to use it for my own profits. Even though I had no intention of using my camera for profit when I first bought it, spending that chunk of cash was worth being able to learn the equipment, keep it for a long time, and eventually work my way up to making my own money with it. I’ve been asked why I would make such a large purchase if I had no intent of using it for profit, but the answer is simply “because I want to learn and photography makes me happy”.