Whether you’re looking for a side hustle or you just enjoy snapping beautiful pics with your smartphone, amateur photography is an excellent hobby. Getting started doesn’t have to be that complicated, either. If you don’t know your way around lenses and megapixels, you don’t need to worry. All you need are a few tips to get going.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what to look for in a digital camera or if you’re loaded up on memory cards and accessories as long as you follow some key tips.
Don’t stress about the equipment.
Even if you can’t afford the most expensive laptop, DSLR, or LCD lenses, you shouldn’t worry. In fact, it might be a little cost-prohibitive if you haven’t really experimented with photography before. You can even refurbish digital camera equipment to save a bit of extra money. While a fancy digital camera might be nice, what really matters is your image quality. If you think you can take a stunning photo on your smartphone, then maybe that’s all you need.
If you start to get more invested in the art, you can invest in a viewfinder, aperture, and an image sensor. For now, though, stick to the basics.
Get your storage in order.
Nobody starts out like a pro. While you may have a great eye for image quality, digital photography often involves taking dozens – if not hundreds – of photos. As such, you’ll need a large enough folder or hard drive to store them all. Or, you could ditch the external hard drive and opt for cloud storage. All you need is a wi-fi connection.
While a Dropbox folder or Google Drive folder might seem like the best way to go, you’ll probably want a digital picture storage device that offers unlimited storage. Since Dropbox and Google Photos make you pay past a certain point, they’re probably not the best best. Also, if image quality and high-resolution digital images are important to you, you’ll need the added storage.
However, even if you only have a terabyte of storage space free, that may be enough capacity to get you started. Plus, an external drive or SSD can be bulky and unwieldy. If you’re taking digital photos on your mobile device, cloud storage or a cloud service is going to be your best bet.
Have a backup plan.
Even the newest digital cameras and smartphones only have so much battery life. While a new camera may have more battery capacity than older models of a digital camera, it’s still bound to run out at some point. Nothing is more frustrating than tinkering with your camera settings, aspect ratio, or shutter only to realize your device is powering off. Whether you carry around a durable backup batter or you have a second point and shoot camera or mobile app for digital photography, it’s always a good idea to carry around a second power source.
Plus, it’s easy enough to find something in your price range. Think long-term when you’re planning a digital photography session.
Experiment with your photos.
Even if you love high-resolution images for their great image quality, it’s always a good idea to play around with your format. Whether you’re tinkering with lighting, image size, or your dynamic range, there are plenty of ways to tinker with the format of your photographs. You can do so as you take pictures or you can alter the raw image.
Have fun.
Even if photography is your side-hustle, you should still enjoy what you’re doing. This counts doubly so if this is a hobby for you. If you find out that your workflow is interrupted by stress or you don’t enjoy the exposure you’re getting from your side gig, take a break. Photography should be an enjoyable art form.
Amateur photography is a great escape for anyone. Even if you’re on a tight budget, you have a free option with your cell phone camera. Have fun and take a lot of photos. You never know what you might capture on film.
