How expensive is photography?

When starting out, I usually got recommended really expensive cameras I just couldn't afford. I thought of this hobby as a really expensive upfront cost getting into. In fact, every photographer I've met has ridiculous kits costing over thousands of pounds, making it feel really intimidating on trying to get in.

But, much of what a professional photographer might say, I've spent almost half the amount on camera equipment than a brand-new entry level DSLR from what professionals suggest (Nikon D500, Canon EOS 4000D). Though, I do have problems with my gear, and it's entirely a preference to what you might prefer.

This blog post helps to guide anyone interested into this hobby, whether it's just starting out, or someone wanting to find the most affordable options out there!

What do you really need?

Well, a camera, of course! Albeit, it depends entirely on what you want to take. If you want to do film photography, you'd need an SLR. If you want to do digital images only, a DSLR or a mirrorless camera might be more preferable.

An SLR (Single Lens Reflex) camera is just simply a mirror which blocks the view of the film, that mirror allows the viewfinder in the camera to show you what the camera sees. When you press the shutter, the mirror flips up, exposing the light to the film, which produces the image.

A DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) is fundamentally the same as an SLR, but instead of it being film, it's a light sensor which captures the image instead of film, saving it into an image file for you to view.

Mirrorless cameras are just sensors without the mirror flicking up and down when you take a shot. They often lack a viewfinder or have a very clever system which captures the view or uses a small display screen outputting what the sensor sees.

I call these cameras, but they're actually termed as camera bodies, as usually from what I've read online, it's just a body, the lenses are the most important part. The body only matters for the lens mount, resolution (For digital cameras) and any other useful quality of life features such as a digital viewfinder, automatic light sensor, time-lapse or a variety of shutter modes. It's worth looking at what the camera body offers for these, rather than “what the body is most suitable for”.

If digital, there are things such as cropped sensors which can affect the field of view and makes lenses zoom in further than what you can get normally. Full frame sensors are large, meaning a bigger camera with a larger field of view, while cropped sensors give easier portable bodies. It's something worth considering when purchasing a body. (Adobe has more info regarding this!)

So from this rant, you'll need:

• A body
• A lens

And it's really that simple. Some cameras come with lenses, some have a fixed lens, such as my dad's Fuji camera, but that's all you need! And that's bold for a very important reason, as what I wanted had bumped up the costs quite a bit!

But what about the lens anyway?

So I didn't explain much about lenses because it's quite a lot to explain, but the primary knowledge I got from lenses is that you got 4 main things to consider:

• The focal length, known as the “zoom” of the lens
• Aperture ring, the iris of the camera, affects the light coming in and background blur (depth of field)
• Prime or macro, basically fixed focal length or adjustable focal length
• Extra features, autofocus, stabiliser, auto aperture ring, etc

There are so many forms of lenses out there, an example being my most recent purchase of a “Mirror Lens”, it's got a focal length of 500 mm, it came with a 2x telescopic adapter to make it 1000 mm. It's a fixed aperture of F8 and is a prime lens. An “Elicar Compact Reflex Mirror” and it's been a new favourite of mine for wildlife photography!

And with this lens I was able to capture these wildlife pictures:

The lens is truly what people say, it's the most essential part, you'd be probably spending more money on a lens than the actual camera body when you get into what you want to take photos of. When I went out to take those pictures, I met a person who had a £600 body, with a £1500 Sigma 300-800 mm sigma macro lens. He was able to capture even better pictures than I could, but he is a lot more skilled than me! (He also had autofocus on his lens, which I didn't)

How much I have spent so far

For both SLR and DSLR not including film and film development, it's costed me £250, with filters, protective caps and straps, that's an extra ~£20 in total and I usually have purchased the cheapest possible.

Keep in mind, this £250 includes every lens I have purchased, ones I haven't even found the right moment to use yet, and that's also the camera body. While professionals recommended me to purchase a camera double this price.

How did I keep it affordable? I originally purchased a Pentax SLR, and I wanted to keep using the lenses on other cameras in the future and aimed to purchase a DSLR with the same mount as I kept using up too many rolls so quickly.

If I have the opportunity for this again, would I purchase the same brand? Likely not, I've learnt how you can get adapters, and it might be more appropriate to aim for a cheaper DSLR and convert my current lenses to it. As Pentax K mount lenses are not as popular and can be expensive when you're going for the higher end options! You lose out when adapting lenses too, such as losing autofocus, auto aperture, or the body doesn't automatically get the focal length of the lens.

Avoid buying new, please! Every purchase except rolls of film and cheap AliExpress things I purchased has been the reason this hobby has been so affordable. Keep it realistic, you don't need the shiniest new camera body when photography has been around for so many years.

Camera innovation has sucked these past couple years and some may think this is a hot take, but genuinely I cannot find anything new which isn't professional grade and not consumer available.

My equipment (so far)

Not including the 7 lenses I purchased as lenses vary for what you want to take photographs with, though I'll make a separate list of each purchase

• (DSLR) Pentax K-M (otherwise known as K2000) was purchased used for £90 and offers a whopping 10.1MP image (same as most front facing cameras on phones!), it was slightly broken, unaware the mode dial wasn't working and was fixed in an hour after discovering.
• (SLR) Pentax MG purchased for £27 “untested” and had slight damage which was fixed, as mentioned in my other blog post where I got into film photography.
• (SLR) Pentax P30N purchased for £20 which came with a Cobra Flash and a 35-75 mm lens which arrived broken, which was a nightmare to fix, but I wanted the lens, not the camera. But the camera's great!!
• (Tripod) Titan TP10 for £18 used, apparently this was a very beginner-friendly tripod, and I'm actually quite happy with it! Though everyone will have an issue with their tripod, mine doesn't like the height adjustment lock, it gets loose too easily and the camera falls if I don't twist the lock tight enough.

And the lenses:

• (Mirror Lens) Elicar Compact Reflex Mirror lens 500 mm (with 2x telescopic) £55
• (2x Macro lens) Pentax F3.5 28-80 mm and an SMC A Macro F4 35-70 mm lens for £25
• (Macro lens) Hanimex MC Auto 28-80 mm F3.5 zoom, £8, but I got a full refund (No return required) as it wasn't for my camera mount.
• (Macro lens) Tokura 35-75 mm, it came with a £20 camera and was broken, but it's been my most favourite lens as it has a focus as close as 0.35 meters and I absolutely love it.
• (2x Prime lens) Chinon lenses, both a 50 mm F1.7 and a 135 mm F3.5 lens for £14

I also have a 35 mm prime lens which came with the Pentax MG I originally purchased, with an 80-300 mm macro lens for £27.

For the rest, if you're interested in replicating a misty water shot or plan on doing long exposure images. I suggest either buying a ND filter from AliExpress or keeping your eyes out for any of them on eBay. Filters can be expensive, but the cheap ones from AliExpress have worked a treat for me, though with any strong filter, it can wash the colours out a bit and that's the cost for their affordability. I purchased this (link), and I was able to produce these images using it:

Is photography affordable for entry level users

Yes! I think so, at least with the way I entered into this hobby. Some may not be happy with the way I got into it, but I'm not paying for the luxuries. I use manual focus, I use RawTherapee to process my photos. I just 100% recommend waiting for a nice and affordable DSLR popping up into eBay which doesn't look broken and just picking it up and trying it.

Like this camera (link) where the seller offers 2 lenses and 2 “bareries” telling you to “Buy it NOW!!!!!!!” looks excellent to start off with, it's a EOS range, it's a full frame DSLR I believe so you can use EF, TS-E or MP-E lenses (According to Canon) without any problems, and it's a perfect gateway into starting out photography!

You don't need to be fancy, and genuinely just be reasonable with what you come across. Think about what form of photography you want to do, wildlife, landscape, super macro, each one may require a different lens for each and do a bit of research into what lenses you might need and work around that.

Some extra roundup of pictures I'd love to share