Starting Microstock - Budget Equipment pack for less then $500
We had seen that the DSLR cameras are the best choice for Microstocking. But DSLRs are expencive, you will say, I will need a big pile of money just to start.
That kind of statement no longer stands, some of the entry level DSLR body in combination with good 50mm prime lens, will be enough to start and still that kind of a combination will not be an impact for your budget.
You can start with this kind of equipment pack and than as you microstock income, your photographic knowledge and your your appetites grows bigger it will be easier to upgrade to more serious equipment.
The base of this pack is a bit old DSLR body Canon Digital Rebel XT 8MP Digital SLR Camera (Body Only - Black)
You will notice that the upper price is for body only, not kit. The kit lens which is coming with this camera is Canon’s EF-S 18-55mm f3.5-5.6. That kit lens is one of the worst lenses that you can get, to be fair I have seen few good samples of those lenses. But that just one in the hundred, they are usually terrible.
So we need some optically good and cheep lens for our starter pack, there is a solution. Thats the Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens
In the Digital Rebel XT package, you will get one NP-2LH lithum-ion rechargeable battery pack with a battery charger. With one battery pack you will be able to make more then few hundred photos. Also you will get a neck strap and USB cable to transfer your photos to the computer.
Another essential thing that you will have to buy additionally is new memory card, the SanDisk 1 GB Ultra II CompactFlash Card
You have seen how do cheep ticket for entering microstocking world looks like. Maybe this kind of combo is not to flexible, cause you have only the prime 50mm lens, so you will have to go near your subject if you want to zoom. But in the overall picture quality, you will get much much more that you have payed for.
If you enjoyed this post, please consider to leave a comment or subscribe to the feed and get future articles delivered to your feed reader.
Comments
Those cases when agencies are accepting photos from point&shot are more like an exception then the general rule.
In my opinion, main obstacle for buying a better p&s or a prosumer for start microstock is it’s price.
For example Canon’s G9 camera, that represents good choice for advanced users, cost about $450, or take Fuji’s new F100FS it costs $700.
Also, when you decide to go DSLR, and that step is imminent, your year old prosumer will cost only one third of a price.
Ok, I know, buying a digital camera is not a savings account, digital equipment is loosing it’s value. But that value reduction trend is a bit slower for the DSLR equipment.
[…] We are still in the entry level class DSLR, but now we are going a bit further from the low budget equipment plan. […]
Good choice of kit with that prime lens, I’ve not used the cannon. but the Nikon 50mm 1.4 is almost as good as having a macro lens when taking table top photos for microstock, and also good for doing portrait work too. I still think a starting user can get away with a reasonable quality point and shoot camera if they downsize the images a little and shoot the right subjects - just the test the water (an SLR will soon follow!. Microstock agencies have a habit of rejecting even the best quality images if the subject is not good and conversely accepting something that is a little marginal if it is a rare/difficult to shoot subject that they are in short supply of.