I've always had an interest in photography and had 35mm SLR cameras for years although recently I've been using a compact digital. I've decided that I'd like photography to be a bit more than a hobby though. I've bought a decent digital SLR, a Nikon D50, the quality of the photos it produces is superb.

I've done photography courses over the years and reckon I can take photos as well as anyone, I have no formal qualifications though but am going to look into that this year.

I've already lined up one family function which I will be photographer at, a 60th birthday party. I'm also pitching for work at two local day nurserys to photograph the kids and sell the parents copies.

Going digital makes things much much simpler in terms of reproducing photos. Basically I was wondering if there are any photographers on the forum that can advise on how they got started? I know word of mouth is important which I'm hoping the function coming up will help with.

ive not into it as a job but i love photography, i do it on my bike and such which is a great thing, and i get mates and there mates aksing me to take photos al the time and i can.cud make tons,

best way to do it is word of mouth, bit of advertising and flyering, some professional looking flyers wud do u good, bet there are a few on here who could help you out as well. try advertising in shops and places like that and speaking to some local business's and schools is a goodun as well....

J

Have a word with Chris [Bushboy] I believe he works for a photogaphic company so he maybe able to help you somehow

I used to have a digital SLR, but i still prefer using my Zenith cameras

PNL said:

Have a word with Chris [Bushboy] I believe he works for a photogaphic company so he maybe able to help you somehow

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bushboy is anti digital, he stuck in the dark ages

herpsuk, some good ideas there, thanks.

PNL, I'm sure he'll spot this, I'll wait to see if he replies.

Chris, I had an old Zenit 11 SLR. You can get some nice results from them, but the new digital SLR cameras are a step up in every way. You just can't compare them.

Edit - I just spotted Dave's reply. He'll not approve then. 35mm camera users remind me of old boys in tweed jackets that refuse to update thier 1971 Ford Cortina because they're frightened of modern technology.

Here is my outfit , and the camera that is taking the pictures is a Sony S40 digital camera.

IIRC Ben B (i think, the Ben with the Bravo) has a DSLR and works as a photographer for a living. He also uses a Nikon, so he may be able to help you out quite a bit.

I have just started up a photography buisness with a friend, doing it part time whilst I continue working. Our first weekend (just gone) we did a wedding on Sat & Sun & got asked by a couple of people if we could do thier weddings too. We are doing this semi professional now but if you want to get into it I would suggest softly softly. There is also an awesome responsibility of doing wedding photography and portrait work is easier & is less likely to fail!

Both my friend and I use Canon EOS Digital cameras as we can share the lenses. The pieces of kit I reckon are most important for serious digital photography is a studio kit & some form of backup device for your images whilst on the move.

Advertising will depend on what you decide to specialise in. We are looking to do Baby portraits & Landscapes primarily as we both have children and know how to get them looking at the camera, we also both enjoy serious hiking and have loadsa pictures from the area which we sell in calendars & magazines.

If you want to do this fulltime you will need to drum up serious business and word of mouth is not enough, you will need to advertise in local shops, papers, etc. If you are going digital then a website with your portfolio on would be a must (we haven't done ours yet!!).

Good luck on your venture, it can be fun.

Steve said:

I've bought a decent digital SLR, a Nikon D50...

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You bastard! I hate you!
(I've wanted a D50 for a while now )
H

Tryfan_Tamer said:

I have just started up a photography buisness with a friend, doing it part time whilst I continue working. Our first weekend (just gone) we did a wedding on Sat & Sun & got asked by a couple of people if we could do thier weddings too. We are doing this semi professional now but if you want to get into it I would suggest softly softly. There is also an awesome responsibility of doing wedding photography and portrait work is easier & is less likely to fail!

Both my friend and I use Canon EOS Digital cameras as we can share the lenses. The pieces of kit I reckon are most important for serious digital photography is a studio kit & some form of backup device for your images whilst on the move.

Advertising will depend on what you decide to specialise in. We are looking to do Baby portraits & Landscapes primarily as we both have children and know how to get them looking at the camera, we also both enjoy serious hiking and have loadsa pictures from the area which we sell in calendars & magazines.

If you want to do this fulltime you will need to drum up serious business and word of mouth is not enough, you will need to advertise in local shops, papers, etc. If you are going digital then a website with your portfolio on would be a must (we haven't done ours yet!!).

Good luck on your venture, it can be fun.

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Lots of useful opinions, thanks very much. That sounds similar to what I'm doing. Baby and child portraits are the area I want to work in, hence my trying to get in with local nurserys. The birthday function will be a good tester for whether I want to do weddings and I know about the storage, I've just ordered a Nikon Coolwalker with a 30GB memory.

I'm working on a basic website, I'll post up the url when it's up and running.

hmallett said:

You bastard! I hate you!
(I've wanted a D50 for a while now )
H

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It's a cracking piece of kit, push the boat out get one. Under £600 will get you a kit with the standard 18-55mm Nikkor lens and the 55-200mm Nikkor lens. I read everything I could get my hands on about digital SLRs before buying and all agree that for the money you just can't get a better camera.

Here's a snap of my youngest boy taken using the D50. I haven't had a chance to really use it yet but will this weekend.

Excellent pic Steve. I only do photography as a hobby but was interested to see some of your work. Can't disagree with anything said in this thread so far.

Thanks Sam. Babies that age are difficult to get a good shot off, they never stop moving around!

oh dont worry. im not anti digital.. each to there own but film (in its many forms) still has the potential to produce a far better picture than a digital camera, no matter how many megapixels it says it has.

what you need to remember is that you need a good imaging sensor on it. a proper good quality one. just because it can take an 8mp photo, doesnt mean it will have the colours correct and get the exposure right without bleaching out the whites etc.

when I say film has the potential to produce a better picture, its because there is no limit to the detail a stip of film can produce! its not limited by the technology that the owner could afford. its only limited by the idiot thats using it

Obviously you still need a good lense to focus the light onto the film properly but you still need this with digital anyway.

I hate the way people say "oh this digital stuff is so much better... the quality is much better than i used to get with my film"... this is because the film camera you had was a pile of **** worth £20 from boots, and you still skimped on the digital camera for £50 from tescos. and your photos are crap quality... your just too much of an idiot to realise because youve never seen a "real" photo taken by someone that actually knows what a viewfinder is for

I wont rant. I could go on all day. I have nothing againced digital. Just againced the people that use it and have no idea what they are doing and what the advantages of digital are. The number of people that come into the lab who dont have computers and dont know what there supposed to do when they want the photos printed is huge! and even if they did have computers. they would be stupid to print them at home anyway. Even taking them to tescos is stupid! you get awful pile of crap photos! They use dye-sub printers which are no better tha nan inkjet.

ANyway.. im still ranting

edit : just seen that pic steve. Am I the only one here that thinks that looks artificial? its too cold and the skintones arent very nice. typical digital quality photo really.

Bushboy said:

edit : just seen that pic steve. Am I the only one here that thinks that looks artificial? its too cold and the skintones arent very nice. typical digital quality photo really.

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Well it was cold, but kids don't feel it so much, and we've started using Johnsons Baby Cream on his skin so hopefully that will tone it a bit.

Seriously though, the D50 gets rave reviews and like I say, I haven't had a chance to play with it properly yet. That was a quick snap on full auto mode, but yeah, my Dimage Z10 would have produced a similar result for a fraction of the price.

Oh Bushboy... whata rant! Digital will never be as good as film that much is obvious, however for anybody not wanting to blow a picture up past A3 there is very little difference and the benefits of checking photos is essential when learning about aperatures, Depth of Field, Shutter speeds, Flash, etc.

The weddings I did this weekend would have been more hassle with film & I had en experience a couple of years ago with a dodgy film that would have ruined a wedding hadn't it been for my Digital backup.

In my humble opinion Canon Digital SLR with a decent lens produce the best colour results. I have several lenses ranging from a 50mm (1.2) Prime lens to a 70-300mm (2.8) Zoom lens. The fact that the lenses cost a great deal more than the camera (in fact 5 times as much) should tell all the key to good photography. Digital/film, Canon, Nikon, Konica all will be crap with a crap piece of glass in front of the sensor!

I have used Digital for 15 years now and I use to work for the Mirror (now Trinity Mirror) group. Nearly all the photographers used and still use Digital cameras because of the obvious benefits.

In essence if you want a poster the size of a small house then film is your choice... us mere mortals Digital is the better option by a long way.

Oh, and the photo. It is too cold but a little bit of manipulation would make it a winner... and you film boys don't DARE tell me that you never manipulate images...!!!! To be honest most parents would kill for a picture like that and at the end of the day you don't need to impress the photo 'experts' just the parents.

oh yeah course i manipulate stuff. its my job .. but i dont with my film stuff. its very unlikely that I bother to correct it via photoshop.

The only upside on digital I can see is that its alot cheaper. but its not necessarily a good thing. plus why should you have to manipulate your work? you never used to using film before all the digital technology came out and you were getting great results then, so why take a step back by not taking as much time taking the photos because it can be corrected out. If you took your time and did the job you used to then you wouldnt have to spend hours infront of the computer correcting a whole weddings worth of photos

I also see that its a good thing that you KNOW the camera is defo taking the pictures. but thats not to say its more reliable as electronic equipment does tend to stop working when you least want it too. plus memory cards are faaaaar from indestructable.

The canon Dslrs seem to be the best of the bunch. We get alot of proffesionals where I work and they seem to produce the most "film like" results. although we compared the results from one ladys work (Karen Zetter http://www.karenzetter.co.uk/Assets/graphibooks.htm ... I did the photoshop of the bridge with the coloured flowers ) with her new DSLR to her old work and the film stuff is far better.

but as you say, you only need to impress the client. not the expert. But what I dont understand is why the general public are now accepting crap results as good ones? The instant digital prints with dye sub printers are fooking awful! Yet, the general public thing they are betterthan sliced bread just because they are quick! I wouldrather wait an hour and get a processed print on proper photographic paper.. not that cheapo kodak xtra life rubbish.

grrrrrr well saying that.. most people settle for inkjet prints of there holidays on standard photocopy paper at home.. just because they think they are clever printing there own "photos"

Good on you Steve, will this be a little pocket money to soften the blow each month or are you hoping to take it further?

Dunno if it is in big demand over the water but around here lots of peeps I know would pay big £££ for pics of there animals, dogs, cats etc!

Wow, Chris has a lot to say on this issue and rightly so given this is his job, I understand your argument Chris!

Liam

It is like everything else in life... we accept crap food (McDonalds, BK, etc) we accept crap films, we accept crap football... we are becoming a people who just accept crap! In fact most of the stuff we eat and drink is so processed it makes Digital photos seem almost natural!

I agree with your points on 'knowing' the camera but this weekend I was in a really dark church with little light and they wouldn't accept flash photography . The only sunlight was streaming in through a stained glass window directly behind the bride. Whilst I guessed the settings for my camera I was enough out to have made the pictures useless if I hadn't been able to see the instant results and corrected them. I had visited the site the day before but I could only get in after 21:00 which meant the light was completly different. I guess in film I would have taken numerous shots at different settings and picked the best but when the groom kisses the bride you only get a few seconds of time.

I also always shoot in RAW which enables me to post process the pictures more effectively too. We have had some great pics from this weekend and it is only the church photos I am going to have to work on.

Before Digital became the defacto standard most of the photographers use to scan thier negatives into photoshop to 'tweak' them. So I don't really believe that Digital has made that much difference to the professional market... they still airbrush, crop, fix cast problems and remove 'artifacts' the only change is the tool that captures the original image.

Oh btw great pic!