This post will cover everything from Camera to filters and everything in between a person may own to create their own photoshoot or have in their studio.
Camera's
So let's get started with Camera's, the most important piece of equipment. The most common type of camera's used by professionals is a DSLR camera. Older models are a great entry level for beginner photographers as well as offer stunning quality nonetheless.
Here is an image of a DSLR Camera labeled -
These camera's can be a bit complex for the first time user but help immensely as you grow more familiar with them. They allow you to alter your Mode, ISO, Shutter Speed and let you choose if you want to take one image or multiple at the click of a button.
Camera's such as these are generally aren't cheap though, with newer models costing even more. For example, the Nikon D7000 DSLR Camera bodies can cost £450 or more but this isn't the most expensive camera out there, no.
Lenses
Camera lens are not essential for ordinary photograph taking but will give you an edge in taking images with your camera. Not all lenses are the same though and others are made for specific things, like a macro lens. A macro lens allows you to take up close shots of things, for the sake of an example, a macro lens will allow you to be able to take detailed and full pictures of insects as if they were larger. This can actually lead to a really good look and is a genre of photography that has always fascinated me.Macro Photography -
The lens also provides exceptional quality for this to look effect and to happen too, macro lens achieve this by having a magnification of 1:3.1 as well as close focus at 37.4cm as seen in a Tanrom lens.
Other lenses do different things and perceive things a different way. For example, a Pentax DA 10-17mm Fish-Eye lens allows for a wide angle. Wide-angle lenses themselves have three different classes though, Wide, ultra-wide and fish-eye. These lenses allow you to see as wide as 180 degrees in the fish-eye lenses case and bends all the straight lines in a image to around the centre, creating a circular effect in the photograph.
Use of a fish-eye lens -
- Zoom Lens
- Prime Lens
- Telephoto Lens
- Long-Focus Lens
Tripods
Studios also use tripods for their work sometimes too. A tripod, like mentioned earlier, gives a steady and focused shot but also allows for the height to be adjusted where manually bending over or kneeling would be required. Basic tripods allow for steady straight on shots where a ballhead will allow you to adjust the position of the camera though these are quite expensive for what they are.
The tripod as a whole should be as popular as the camera and it's lens but falls short with photographers often buying the cheapest one they can find because all in all, its just 3 sticks of metal glued together if you look at it.
Not everything about a tripod is redundant though, heavier camera with longer lenses can be supported by a lot of tripods available to purchase which negates the risk of your ballhead slipping out of position or your camera becoming dislodged and then damaged.
Software
Software is touchy subject in photography but I do agree that in a lot of cases, using programs such as Photoshop to edit your photographs helps immensely in creating a good looking piece. This isn't the only piece of software I'd used though. My other piece of software comes from Adobe as well, this program is Adobe Photoshop Lightroom CC/6. What this allows is for you to organise and edit your photographs unlike photoshop which is predominantly used for graphics-orientated work. Lightroom offers a mix of that photoshop side but also some organisational capabilities unlike photoshop which is full of features you probably wont even need or use.From the screen shot above, we can see that Lightroom allows you to see your entire album of taken pictures along the bottom whilst also have the ability to open one and edit it directly and easily from the side bar to the right. Things like the highlights, shadows and the vibrancy can all be altered to name a few.
Monitors
Monitors aren't a core part of your photography set up but are useful when editing photographs properly. To be more specific, if you were to pick out a generic monitor found in a store to do your editing on, it wouldn't always be bad but the colours on the screen may be another story. This matters a lot because when editing you may not be editing things how you think you are.Colour calibration is the most important thing you should be paying attention to when editing your photographs, you want the colours to be as correct and calibrated as possible. You wont really notice a different if you've been editing without the use of a colour calibrator for a while. The difference when you do use one for your monitor is outstanding and will shock you though. For a colour calibrator I recommend a Spyder4Express or Spyder5Pro as seen above.
Lighting
Good lighting is a must for people wanting to taking compelling and good looking pictures of people, studios often use up to 3 different lights in order to create a nice looking photograph. I myself am familiar with 3 point lighting and studio work of this kind from my previous backgrounds in GCSE Photography where we were taught the In's and outs of photography from a beginners level.
Lighting can also come naturally, external lights aren't always needed when outside or not focusing on people, sun rays from being outside or light breaking through clouds can be all it takes to set your photograph off.
Camera's also provide a light source too which is togglable, this is the flash on your camera and it can be decided whether or not you want it to activate. But aside from this, third-party flashes are also obtainable which will flash when you decide to make it do so. Going back to GCSE Photography, these were also used in the studio provided.
Filters
Filters do exactly what they sound like they do, they allow the photographer to filter out certain things, for example, a polarizer will filter out glare from shiny surfaces like water but wont work on metal. They also darken the sky if taking a cloudscape photograph as well as reduce haze to keep images taken looking vibrant and saturated.
I also spoke about honey comb grid filters in the studio induction we were given and how they help make light more narrow when accompanied with things like a beauty dish, snoot, etc.
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