4 Affordable Tools For The Beginning Photographer

Have you ever tried something and were so bad that you shocked and repulsed yourself and just wanted to never do it again?

As I wrote about in my article 7 Tools That Will Massively Improve your Photography, that’s how I was with taking pictures two years ago.

I couldn’t take a picture you would want to look at to save my life. I didn’t even understand basic things like the rule of thirds.

But I was passionate about cooking and sharing my food, so I knew I couldn’t “never do it again”. I had to learn! So I started the process of – what felt like – swimming through mud, trying to understand positioning, and figuring out why my photographer-sister was always telling me my photos were too dark.

And now they look more like this:

I may never be great, but at least now I get it. I finally understand why people told me to dump my kit lens and why backlighting can be tricky.

I’m swimming through clear water now instead of mud – I may be swimming upstream, but at least it’s water, ya know? Here are the primary tools that have helped me get there.

4 Affordable Tools For The Beginning Photographer

This online photography course (Snack-Sized lessons for busy parents). This course helped me so much with learning how to find the best lighting and how to position my kids for good photos. Even though my main focus is food photography, as a parent, I also love taking pictures of my kids, and really, the principles of good photography apply to all types of subjects.

Canon Rebel Camera Body. Even though I had the Canon D-70 recommended to me by professional photographers as an entry-level camera, I quickly learned that we had very different ideas of what was affordable and what was entry-level.

The thing is, for most of us, an entry-level camera body is not going to be what holds our photo quality back. Entry-level cameras these days are very good! I bought a Rebel T2i with a lens and carrying bag for $300 on eBay. (That was two years ago, and you can get them for a lot less than that now.)

HOWEVER, I recommend getting a body only so you don’t hold yourself back with an inferior lens like I did for so long.

The T2i is an older model that isn’t even made anymore, whereas the T5i is newer and fancier but is also more expensive. Which camera you get completely depends upon how much money you’re interested in investing.

A Quality Camera Lens. For about a year after buying my camera kit, I used the kit lens and wrinkled up my nose a little bit every time a photographer told me I needed to upgrade lenses to take better pictures.

What was wrong with my pictures the way they were thankyouverymuch? But at the beginning of this year, I finally bit the bullet and spent $100 on a Canon 50mm prime lens, and it was worth every penny.

At the time, I didn’t realize that having a fixed lens would give me 100% crisper images with no blur, no matter how big you blow them up. Now, I can’t even shoot with my kit lens. I tried it when I took it with me to Argentina.

A Simple Editing Tool. Editing is not something I’m good at. That said, most of my photos get some editing, even if it’s just a boost in exposure. While I have Adobe Lightroom, I haven’t figured out how to use it or Photoshop efficiently, so I find myself returning to PicMonkey every day.

PicMonkey is a simple web-based tool – meaning that you upload a photo to it rather than download the software to your computer – that is self-explanatory enough for even beginners to take advantage of. You can use it to color-correct your photos, resize, or add frames or text overlays.

And the best part? It’s free. There is a premium version that you can use for a yearly fee of $33, which is still super cheap, but I personally used it for two years without paying a dime.