I have talked photography before (here, here, and here), but today we are going to continue my ‘Photography Tips‘ series. It’s been too long! I’m planning on posting more photography tips on the reg, so hopefully I can cover everything you will need here soon. One of the questions I get the most is “what camera and lens do you use?” Hopefully this photography tips post can help you get more informed or help you decide on what camera and lens you might want to commit to.

Photography Tips: What Camera and Lens to get

so what camera body should you get?
Heres what I started with 6 years ago: a Canon Rebel with a kit lense.
Heres what I use now (literally just bought it last year): a Canon 5D Mark iii with the 24-70mm and 50mm lens.
If you are a beginner, I would highly recommend not going out and getting the most expensive pro equipment out there. Start with something more affordable that you can learn on first. If blogging/photography thing turns out to be just a hobby that you get over, you will be out thousands of dollars. It’s insane how much camera equipment costs! OUCH! It took me forever to save up on my latest camera. Being that I now make money on the blog and my photography business is growing, I finally decided to invest on a pro camera. I didn’t invest on it until I knew for certain I needed a good camera in my life. The Canon Rebel was affordable and a great start to understanding photography. It also allowed me to spend that extra money renting new lenses to see which ones I liked the most. Keep in mind I’m a Canon girl btw. Which basically is just preference. Just like you could be Mac or PC. Ehem MAC DUH.
So what lens should you get?
These are the three lenses I use now:
Canon EF 85 mm f1.2 – This small light lens is awesome. You get the best bokeh (that blurry background effect) with this little guy. If you open the aperature wide (1.2f-1.8f… I will go over this in more detail on another post) you can get a very dreamy soft look with the background out of focus. I love this one for close detail shots like earrings or head to waist shots. Beautiful for portraits.
Canon EF 50mm f1.4– I love this lens because 1: It is waaaaaay cheaper than the 85mm lens. 2. You can do pretty much the same as the 85 but you can stand closer to your subject. I have found that this lens is not as sharp as the 85 but it gets pretty damn close. I feel the 50 is a better every day lens. However I have noticed that whenever i talk to my photographer friends, they seem to always fight with wanting what they don’t have. If they have the 50 they want the 85 and if they have the 85 they want the 50. Goes to show that there is a difference between these two lenses but not so much that one stands out drastically from the other.
Canon EF 24-70 mm f2.8– I’m going to share a little secret with you, I absolutely love using a wide angle lens. In my humble opinion, It makes for a more interesting shot. A unique take of your everyday extra blurred background, flat image you see on most streetstyle blogs. This lens is a zoom lens so you can bring it in close for detail shots or zoom it out to get the whole environment. I personally like to use this when I shoot my blog photos because it makes me look extra tall and I can get a sort of trippy effect. While the 24-70mm is a great lens, it can also be a challenge to work with if you do not know how to use it correctly. Things may distort and it’s a different vibe then some people are used to. Again, it’s all preference. This lens is a lot heavier than the other two being that it is a zoom but you can do a lot more with it.
btw… in case you were wondering the lens in the photo is a ‘petzval’. It’s a special fixed lens that gives a very dreamy blurry background effect. I would not recommend this to beginners. It’s pretty but hard to use. I use this when I have one certain shot I want to get.
Below you can see the difference of the three different lenses I like to use.
I have been blogging for 6 years now and have learned so much along the way! I learned enough to start a successful photography business where we shoot everything from commercial campaigns to weddings. I would love to share everything I have learned with you guys. I want to bring more of these posts to the blog so let me know in the comments below if you find this useful and what other photography tips you would like to know more about.
xx F