When Hannah and I first started photography, we had SO many questions, and we wanted all the answers as fast as we could get them. We would scour the internet for hours for any sort of free content from blogs or webinars to get any educational information that we could without spending money. Although finding those blogs and webinars could be difficult at times, when we found a photographer or entrepreneur that we liked, we stuck with them like glue. So now that we have been shooting for a little while and have done our fair share of real deal educational courses, we want to give back to photographers who are now just beginning their journey by answering some of the most common questions we’re asked and see out in the community.

One thing that many people struggle with is investing in gear. We’ve said before, we really recommend starting out with a beginner DSLR that you can afford. We are both huge Dave Ramsey fans and feel very strongly about investing in things that you can pay cash for. So, we recommend you start out with a beginner DSLR, a Canon Rebel for example, and maybe just the kit lens it comes with. Once you have that, shoot anything and everything until you’ve learned how to use it in manual mode. Then once you’ve saved up enough money, get a better lens, we started out with a Canon 5omm 1.8, which is a very affordable portrait lens.

Use that lens until you’ve mastered your camera settings. It certainly will allow you to create work that you’re proud of- we still use that lens! Then, once you start looking at you own work and feel like something is holding you back, and you have the money to upgrade, we suggest you then upgrade to a full-frame DSLR camera, the Canon 5D Mark iii for example. You will see a HUGE difference in your work once you make the switch.

From there, we suggest upgrading to lenses that you know you’ll use all the time. If you want to try lenses before you buy them (which we highly recommend), you can use rental companies like Lens Rentals. We still use rental companies when we need to rent multiple lenses for a wedding, and we will continue to until we have enough cash to buy the needed lenses outright.

That’s our two sense on upgrading equipment. We hope it helps! If you have more specific questions, feel free to shoot us an email at contact@chelseaandhannah.com!

-Chelsea and Hannah