Well, here's my 2 cents.
First of all I would say there's not enough info to answer this question. After all we don't know what sort of subject matter is planned to be photographed. People do make tens of thousands of dollars a year selling stuff on ebay aided with good photos. Start up cost could be anything from $300 to $30,000 for equipment.
A business can be a lot of things. It can be a website or a store front or a PO Box and an ad on craigslist or ebay. Photos can be taken in your neighborhood bar to advertise a local band, or at a school graduation to sell portraits, or at a wedding to sell albums and video, or in your living room to sell ebay items for clients. The start up cost would vary greatly depending on the business model.
In terms of equipment to take quality photos, here's what I recently did to get started in the world of DSLR cameras and removable lenses, but I would do the same if I wanted to sell photos, and so this would be my recommendation to the person with the $900 budget.
The following items were bought used on ebay in the last month or so.
Nikon D3100 14MP - $160
6 prime and one zoom used film lenses as follows (manual focus and aperture controls .. shutter speed, iso, set on the Nikon D3100):
Vivitar 19mm f3.8 $93
Nikkor 28mm f3.5 $77
Nikkor 50mm f1.4 $88
Nikkor 43-88mm f3.5 zoom $30
Nikkor 100mm f2.8 $69
Nikkor Q 135mm f2.8 $22
Nikkor Q 200mm telephoto f4.0 $40
The following were bought new:
Canvas camera bag on Amazon $28.
Pinnacle P920 Tripod on Amazon $70.
Battery charger and 2 spare batteries on Amazon $40
Total cost for equipment ... $717
I may have gone overboard on lenses but the quality of the glass at these prices was too much for me to resist. As I was shooting manually already on a Lumix LX5 I didn't think the manual focus and exposure would be a problem, and so far I haven't minded having to take a few test shots to get the right shutter speed and aperture, or using the 6x zoom on the D3100 lcd to focus with manually.
Bob
Hello Apache,
I thought the film was hilarious, and well done for a 10 year old. My 11 year old grandson also uses his computer to make this type of animated film, although without the salty language, but with all the violence. It's what they see in violent cartoons on the cartoon network. I believe that kids that age know all the curse words and use them among themselves. We used that language in the school yard in kindergarten in the early 1950's.
I guess there are people who object to language and have theories of childhood. It's not the childhood I remember, and I would be surprised if it's the childhood kids have today when parents and teachers are not around.
As a new uglyhedgehog member I just saw this post and dslr vdeo section. I am also interested in making videos and have posted 15 of them over the past 4 years on my youtube channel bobspez.
I enjoy still and video photography but think video is much more interesting than still photography because of the added elements of time, motion, sound and editing. I hope some more activity will be generated in this section by those who are willing to post.
Regarding your video, Scoutman, I thought it was quite captivating. But it was basically just a clip rather than a finished video. As you mentioned in your youtube comments it needs editing.
If you are interested in pursuing video you can make a copy of your clip and see what can be done with editing. I use Adobe CS6 Pro with Windows7 - 64 bit for editing and amazing things can be done with changing the zoom and lighting, creating slow motion, disolves, placing two clips side by side, adding titles, stills, etc., all in editing, just using a single clip as a source.
The soundtrack can also be edited as well. I use Adobe Audition CS6 for sound editing to add tracks, change the volume, add narration, etc. It has the added advantage of working as a standalone audio editor or being called up from the video sound track in the CS6 video editor.
I generally spend 8 to 10 hours editing a 3 to 5 minute video.
Bob
Wow, these fast cuts just make me dizzy. My brain isn't wired for hand held or cuts faster than about 6 seconds.
Bob
You are right about the amazing photos at aerographs.com. Of course $30 K for the 80MP Leaf back is fine if photography is your business or you have lots of money to spare. I'd love to see technology advances make these available to the hobbyist!
Bob
346pak wrote:
I agree, if money is no object, the Leaf back is the way to go. If I could justify the expense I would put one on my 645. A friend, who is a professional photographer recently bought one and the color and clarity are just incredible. The detail at high magnification is amazingly sharp and detailed, nothing like a DSLR. You can see some of his work at Aerographs.com if your interested.
Sounds like a great choice, and you can use all your Nikon film lenses if you don't mind setting the f-stop and focus manually. Light metering may not work on the lenses, but with nature photography that shouldn't be a problem as I imagine you will have the time to take and view a few test shots to get the aperture and shutter speed you need. Ken Rockwell gives the D600 and D610 top marks in his review.
Bob
Since the OP posted in another thread he is a 59 year old rookie looking to do more than shoot in automatic mode, why not go all the way like I did a few months ago with my first DSLR, which was a used Nikon D3100 body I got on ebay for $170. It's beat up and the flash doesn't work but takes beautiful pics with the right lenses. When I say the right lenses I am talking about 30 year old Nikkor film lenses. So far I have bought 7 of them, 6 of them primes for between $23 and $89 each on ebay. Focus and f-stop is manual (just like in the olden film days). ISO and shutter speed is set on the camera. Although you can't meter with the camera you can take a couple of test shots and view them instantly to adjust your f-stop or shutter speed. It just takes a few seconds. And although the camera doesn't have a split viewfinder for focusing, it does have live view with 6x magnification on the lcd that let's you focus perfectly.
That's my recommendation. It worked great for me and after having used a Sony S-85 3MP for many years and a Lumix LX5 10MP for a couple of years, this 14 MP D3100 with prime lenses pretty much blows them away.
Plus it takes great HD 24p video as well, although you will need a separate recorder to get really decent audio if video is your thing. The D3100 audio track is basically good for syncing your separately recorded track in editing.