There are countless ways to upgrade your gear as a photographer. Furthermore, camera companies market their next product as the next best in the industry. All of this leads to a lot of confusion, speculation and simple ambiguity. If possible, we would all upgrade everything at the same time, but money is a limited resource that we need to allocate with a high degree of efficiency. Over the course of my career as a professional photographer, I’ve designed a system that helps photographers upgrade without thinking much. When I first started, I didn’t know what to buy, how to spend money and where to get money to buy equipment. As I progressed, I knew what I wanted and how to spend it. However, I still don’t have the money to buy the device. Whenever I have to upgrade, I always think twice before buying something and honestly, I didn’t buy something I didn’t need. It’s a sad fact, and to this day, I’m still surprised when someone says they spent thousands of dollars on something and never used it. Upgrading is difficult. In this article, we’ll look at how to use limited resources with maximum efficiency and impact your work.
This system is designed to work for those whose setup includes off-camera lighting. Now working seriously in fashion, I’m no stranger to other genres of photography. Before finding my interest in photography, I was a generalist and shot everything from interiors, wildlife to portraits. Off-camera lighting is a widely adopted technique that goes far beyond portrait photography. With this, let’s dive in and see how I upgrade my gear as a professional photographer.
modifier
Assuming you already own a few dimmers, this should be the first thing on your list. Photography is about light. The word itself is literally translated as drawing/drawing with light. This is why I consider light to be one of the key elements in photography. Inappropriate lighting can ruin a photo even before it is taken. Having a choice of add-ons is much more important than having the right lighting for it. The modifier you use should be of the highest quality if you want great results. For example, if we consider the most primitive level of photography—mobile photography—we eliminate the need for cameras and lenses. All you have to do is shape and create the light. There are a few ways you can do this. The easiest way is to turn on the phone’s flash. Another step would be to introduce off-camera flash. One step further is to throw a modifier at that flash. As soon as you introduce more modifiers to your flash, mobile photography becomes a lot better. The opportunities are even wider with good lighting.
Light
This will be the second thing on my list. Truth be told, I use both Profoto and Broncolor devices. The Broncolor flash is a bit outdated, but it’s a ring flash, much more affordable than the Profoto, and works well. If we just talk about Profoto, a lot of photographers use old Pro-7 packages from 1998. I hope to become one of them by purchasing a bundle. This is a professional quality lamp that is superior to any similar lamp on offer. The only competitor that I imagine has this light is Godox P2400 system, which I heard is pretty good. If you’re interested in the Godox P2400 review, let us know in the comments! I’m off topic. Good lighting combined with a good adjuster will make for a much better image quality than a better camera. This is because the camera is made to capture what is placed in front of it. If it’s a low-light scene, it captures the scene exactly, at great resolution and detail. The thing is, if you take a high-resolution camera and put a bad scene in front of it, it makes the whole thing look worse than before.
lens
If you already have great light, consider upgrading your lenses. This is the last thing I would do, as my lenses are starting to show signs of aging. Unlike wine, it gets worse. That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop using it before it breaks. Lens technology has improved dramatically over the years. A lens from two decades ago will not perform as well as a modern example of the same lens. Not only that, the lens is also a tool used to compose, frame, and view images. Assuming you have good lighting, a suitable lens should capture the scene with detail and sharpness. Having a high-end lens and a bad camera is much better than vice versa. Concluding this, let’s move on to our last part – the camera.
Camera
I consider the camera to be a black box with a bit sensitive to the image inside. While every camera brand will give that definition to me, it’s basically a camera. The core functionality of the camera hasn’t changed since this thing was released over a century ago. Features and other fancy bits and bobs. Truth be told, I’ve never checked my camera menu and I’ve been doing the same thing for 3 years at this point. Upgrading the camera is something I don’t want to do as it won’t significantly affect my work. Unless you’re using something pre-2010, consider upgrading everything else and just behind the camera.
Stop thinking
Here we start, the upscaling algorithm works: Modifiers will have the most noticeable impact on your image that’s why I own more modifiers than I do image and lens combined. Next is the light; It will affect the quality of light. Good lights are underrated. The lenses then take in the light and create a high-end image circle, all of which can match a bad camera or a good camera. There hasn’t been a bad camera in the last decade.
How do you upgrade your device? Do you have a system? Let us know in the comments below!
