My wife has always been into photography. She has recently taken the interest in starting to make a somewhat small business with it. She has not been into hardcore photography for over 4 years. Her fears is she is out of date with with technology and does not want to waste money on overpriced cameras.

What we need is:

Good site to buy cameras from or suggestions of cameras
Tips to starting this small business
Good starting $ to get this going.
Best / Easiest Photo editing programs


She will just be doing personal photo shoots outside mostly through facebook / other websites from our area for small amounts of cash to start is the general idea here. We have a few starter photos with her current camera which is decent but we wish to upgrade cameras.

Any type of information would help

I'd start by listing your current gear and we can make suggestions from there. Also your budget per item you wish to upgrade

As for software, find a legit business copy of Adobe Lightroom, nothing else is needed if you're good at Lightroom and personal photoshoots are all you're doing imo

No currently gear.

Looking a realistic lump of cash we will need without any gear. All gear she used to use was for school.

I am not looking to dump tons of money into it but a realistic start up for her needs. I know the stuff is expensive.

Used nikon d3200 with kit lense is a fantastic start. An upgrade lense for around 100-200 would be a follow up. Depending on her use of natural lighting/lighting equipment you could get away with just a light reflector.

This post was edited by SC_Leader on Apr 30 2014 02:27am

Nikon d600/610 + 50 1.4 and 85 1.8 will get her out of trouble and will be a good start if she wants to shoot professionally. It's also a one off purchase which won't need upgrading for a very long time.

I suggest some simple short courses in photography and post production.

Starting a photography business isn't something that can be done on an ultra low budget especially if you have no formal training. It's a long process from understanding light, exposure, posing, creative composition and making the final adjustments in post production.

Good luck!

Go to the stores that carry camers like BestBuy.
see a camera you like and then go to B&H. (com)
They price match those guys this way you can touch and feel and hopefully you get someone who knows what they are talking about.

DSLRs For Dummies is actually a fantastic book to look through.
sounds downgrading but it is a slew of information in easy to understand examples

I don't do photography professionally. However, I think I can give a little bit of advice:

1) Your wife needs to know what kind of photography she wants to do professionally, and what her time-frame is from practicing to actually taking on clients. If she's looking to learn for a year or so before taking on clients, go ahead and get a D3200 or something along those lines. However, if she's looking to take on clients in a matter of weeks or months, I would get the right camera immediately. The bare minimum for someone who isn't doing professional telephoto work would be a Canon 6D, or a Nikon D610 (up-to-date material). I wouldn't go older, the newer gear really does offer a nicer megapixel count (so forgiving for cropping), as well as a much nicer dynamic range (so important). Both of those cameras are base-line full frame cameras from Canon and Nikon respectively. Good sites include B&H Photo, and there's a couple others as well. There's also Best Buy, and if you're in Canada then Futureshop is good.
2) I have not started a small business ever. I can't give you the greatest tips. Experience is important to build up before charging clients. Also, know what you want to do. Don't just say "I'm a photographer, hire me!" Possibly find a niche, multiple niches, or an angle. Be a familiy photographer who offers event photos, family photos, portraits, baby photos, etc. Or focus just on baby photos. Or do weddings and big events. Etc. You don't have to limit yourself, but remember that there's competition, and if you just say "I take photos, pick me", you might not stand out. If I wanted to hire a photographer to take photos of my theoretical baby, I'd want to hire someone who does that full-time professionally. I wouldn't hire the guy who does everything, I'd get the person who focuses on that as one of his primary advertised fields.
3) The camera alone will cost $1700-$2000 + taxes. You can get a bundle deal, but you might not want to. You need to figure out lenses as well, and this will depend a lot on shooting style & what kind of work you'll do. You'll likely want a wide angle, a normal or two normal lenses, and a longer short telephoto lens. This might be comprised of something like 14-24mm wide, 35mm and 50mm primes, and a 70-200mm telephoto. It's hard to say. If you go with Nikon, the 85mm 1.8G makes for an excellent portraiture lens that costs $500, which rivals the 85mm 1.4G which is a $2000 lens. You could get the 50mm 1.8G which is $200 which is great. Then you could get a wide-angle lens for about $1000, and that might be enough to start. You might not need that much (immediately), though in the end she'll need more than that if she's making photography her business. It does all come down to style and preference, but the tools of the trade are important. Not only this, she'll need to have flashes which cost money as well (at the very least one, if not two to begin).
4) Adobe Lightroom is probably the best and easiest to learn photography program. It's pretty necessary. She should shoot in RAW and use that. Photoshop CS6 will be extremely useful once she can get around to learning that (it takes time from scratch) -- not absolutely necessary, some people never use photoshop and just stick to lightroom. Obviously knowing more is better, and photoshop allows people to do things that Lightroom cannot.

She'll be flooded with an overwhelming amount of information. Just remember when learning:
1) Learn the exposure triangle. That means she should know how to shoot in aperture priority mode and/or manual. That means she should know what ISO does, what aperture does, and what shutter speed does. Underexposed = too dark, overexposed = too light, too slow of a shutter speed might result in a blurry picture, etc.
2) Know what sensor size means (full frame vs. APS-C), and know how focal lengths work.
3) Learn about focal lengths and composure. Why would you shoot at 85mm, and why would you shoot at 16mm. How does distortion affect the photo, and why might you want more (or less) of it. Hint, more can dramatize a picture (ex. with a baby or something else) stretching it out, whereas a longer focal length with less distortion would be better for a portrait (you don't want to stretch someone's face out).
4) Learn how to get a picture in focus. Don't use 39-point autofocus or whatever is offered. Learn about single-point autofocus, and why you might use something else. Single-point would be best for most photography, and lets you target someone's eye as the point of focus.
5) The rule of thirds: Learn it, and learn why you might break it or not.
6) Foreground, mid-ground, back-ground. You might not always have all three, but they're important to take into consideration when framing a picture.
7) Point-of-focus. Where is your eye drawn to? This has to do with the above two mentioned things, but also other factors can come into play.
8) Hand-holding technique. How to hold the camera with minimal shake.
9) Storage of photos, shooting in RAW, digital organization, etc.

There's lots more to learn. She should decide how soon she wants to take this on, and then tackle it from there. Everything comes with time (a lot faster than you'd think if she's willing to read, learn, and practice). There will be misinformation that she'll have to get around occasionally (ie. which lens is best, or what focal length means, or this or that). For example, some people will tell you that a 50mm is a 50mm no matter what on APS-C and on full frame. True, but that's just confusing for a beginner. They behave differently on the two different sensors due to the conversion (1x on full frame vs. 1.5x on APS-C). She may also look at reviews on cameras and hear that a camera takes "sharp photos and is great for night time photography"... that might be misleading as well. She'll also be discouraged by a lot of people who will say she can't become a professional so quickly... and to be honest, there's a lot of truth behind that: It will take a lot of practice, and she definitely can't jump into it immediately. But if she's a fast learner and really dedicated to it, she could be into it quite quickly.

I thought I'd follow up after checking back: Just because certain forum-goers, other professionals, and particular enthusiasts might have a large base of technical knowledge, doesn't mean that she needs to know that much. I know far more than certain professionals need to know about particular technical aspects, and yet I'm not in a position to go pro (if I practiced and intended to become professional, I probably could go that route eventually -- but I couldn't just start a business tomorrow). Your wife won't need to know absolutely everything. She could still be confused about particular aspects and work professionally. Being a professional isn't necessarily about knowing everything about the trade: It's about knowing how to do a good job. If she takes on a family for a photo shoot and she does the photos as they want, and she provides the photos using lightroom perfectly, and she gets the prints done (or provides the jpeg files to them) and they're happy, then that's a job well done! She may not have needed to know about polarized filters, graded filters, panorama stitching, Photoshop CS6 advanced editing techniques (or even how to use Photoshop CS6 at all), or how to manage focusing when dealing with fast-moving subjects. The list could go on about the things she wouldn't need to know.

Upon revisiting what I had mentioned, I think it's important that she at least knows about how much she doesn't know. Ignorance is never a good thing, especially when it's ignorance of your own professional field. However, mastery and over-memorization of everything is unnecessary. The two things need to be balanced. I wouldn't necessarily mention these points to just anyone, but the thing is that (it seems) your wife wants to get into photography very very very quickly. I've seen a small handful of my friends take a stab at professional photography without developing the experience that is necessary. If you go to other photography forums, you might notice that there is some animosity against individuals who want to make a profession of photography without having spent a significant amount of time learning: it would be like if you went to law school to become a lawyer, and then all of a sudden people started taking a stab at being a lawyer without any education. It would seem ridiculous. That's how some photographers feel about that. They see competition pop up, confusing their customers, and there really is a big difference between a veteran of the field, and someone who rushed into photography without much experience. But, everyone starts somewhere! It is easy for someone to be overly ignorant and content with the work that they do, or on the flip-side for someone to become overwhelmed and get scared off.

This post was edited by Canadian_Man on May 11 2014 09:32pm