How much photography equipments you need?

Photography equipments required for commercial photography depends on how much we are going to invest and how can we recover the investment cost. Considering the commercial part of arts, we will first discuss about professional photographers. If one is planning a studio, and want to work as a commercial photographer, then he will need studio flash lights. He will at least need two high power lights and three medium power lights. High-end studio will have a bank for flash lights. A bank is one unit of capacitors, which is charged with a single electric power supply cord. It has multiple out-put plugs, (six to twelve, depending on the model) which fires different flash lights. Each out-put has its own regulator switch to control the power of out-put of a flash light.



Flash lights can be used with wide angle or narrow metal reflectors, available in different sizes. It can take umbrellas. He will need two white, two silver, one golden and one baby umbrella. For controlling spot light, snoot and honey comb is required. Snoot is a conical hollow tube, which gives a narrow beam of light. Honey comb will give gradual fall of spot light. They are available in various size, giving fall in 8, 16, 24 and 32 degree. Barn doors are needed to cover splash of unwanted light, entering in the lens. Read more about Light attachments.

Lights are to be mounted on stand. One will need two heavy-duty, four light-duty and a boom stand for placing light from top.

A soft box is must, at least for 1 square meter size. Larger size are available and they are costly. They can be square, rectangle or octagon in shape. If we are more in fashion photography, go for rectangle or octagon. Square is good for products.

Reflectors are indispensable. They can be any white board or cloth, approximately 1x2 meters in size. I use polystyrene sheets and foam-core cards. Numerous small reflectors can be made from thick white paper sheets. For controlling contrast, black reflectors are required.

Digital camera offers instant view of the shot, however, if we want to light a subject methodically, then we need to check the out-put of each light we are using. Then only we can control the contrast ratio. To measure the out-put of flash, a flash meter is required.

Go for best, strongest and heaviest camera stand you can afford.

Apart from this, we will need background papers of various colors and heavy-duty stands to support them. Depending on kind of specialty, we may need other kind of background like drapes and wooden panels.

If we are in to photography as a hobby, then we may not need so much photography equipment. We can work without flash lights but get some good reflectors. We can also get collapsible silver and golden reflectors, which are easy to carry for an outdoor shoot. We will get fantastic results, even if we are not using artificial lights. However, do not compromise on camera stand.

Photography equipments are expensive. So buy, what you think is a must for you.

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