My first ever camera was a Sony Cyber-Shot-DSC-W70. Essentially a tiny little pocket point and shoot digital camera. It was cool, I got it from my mum for my 10th birthday. I didn’t use it that much, just when I was goofing around the house. I think I may have taken it on a few family holidays and mainly just took photos of sunsets. It used to frustrate me so much that the photos I took never looked like those “cool ones that are in all the magazines” and funny enough, I used to always think “pfft, what’s the big deal with photography, there’s nothing much too it at all, all I have to do is point and shoot.” Little did I know how stupid I was back then (still am).
I lost all interest in Photography at this stage, poof, gone for another 10 years, until I hit college and realised it was all bollocks. Then YouTube came knocking on my door (all explained in my blog about how I got into photography) and before you know it I was trying to figure out what Canon to buy. My passion for photography started with the:
- Canon 100D
- Kit lens 16-55mm, f4
I had this for about 6 months before I bought the:
- Canon 55-250mm f4 lens.
To boost my Zoom game.
Six months later and my passion for photography had grown immensely and ideas started to pop into my head on how I can make this crazy awesome thing my career. Deciding to do this is a big step, if you want to go professional, you must buy into a ‘Camera family’, not just one camera model, because with your camera comes all the lenses you think you may need and then there are the upgrades that your future self will want and then there are changes into filmmaking and different styles of photography that your future self will want too. I didn’t know this when I first bought my Canon. So, I had to think long and hard about my next move in the photography world. What kind of photos did I want to shoot? How far did I want to go with the photography game? What parts of a camera do I like the most and suits my style the most? (You may think that’s a weird question, but believe me, it’s not).
In the end, I sold my Canon gear and delved deep into the Sony family. I felt this was the best for my style and my future in this crazy industry. So now I use:
- Sony a6500
- Sony G 18-105 mm, f4
- Sony 50 mm, f1.8
- Sony 55-210 mm, f4.5
I won’t be able to give you advice on which family to go with, all I can say is to start with a solid entry-level camera. You don’t have to decide what family to go with at the start. Canon 100D is a very good start, or the Sony RX100. Then you can decide if you want to move up in the Photography world and see what family suits you best.
Enda.
Endatheroad 