Photography Equipment and Supplies Basics

Find out what you need to know about photography equipment and supplies basics
By Nikki Davis The main three photography supplies you need to purchase for your photography studio are your camera, your lighting, and your backdrop. Your camera obviously is the piece of equipment used to capture the image. Your lighting is a necessary component to make sure that your camera can adequately expose the image you are trying to capture. If you don't provide your camera enough light, it will have to overcompensate and leave the shutter open too long. This will give you a blurry image. If you provide adequate lighting, the shutter can open and shut rapidly and quickly capture the image in a fraction of a second without any blur. The last required equipment for a studio are photography equipment backdrops. These can be solids, muslins, scenics or whatever you'd like them to be.

Other photography equipment and supplies that you can purchase but are not required include props, tripods, posers, stools, softboxes, diffusers as well as slaves and syncs.

To make the most of resources available for photography equipment and supplies basics:

1. Look at available camera photography equipment.

2. Consider purchasing lighting photography supplies

3. Add backdrops to your list of photography business supplies.

Purchase your camera photography equipment

Buying your camera should be your number one photography equipment purchase.
Try:  B & H Foto & Electronics is a leading online digital camera source. Find your next digital camera through Ritz Camera. Purchase cameras and digital camera accessories through Porter's Camera Store. Shop for new and used cameras from KEH Camera Brokers. You can also find a number of other supplies there including darkroom supplies and photo lab equipment.

Add lighting to your list of photography supplies

Be sure and include lighting to your photography business supplies.
Try:  Take a look at the variety of professional photography light set-ups that Eos Lighting has available. JENSEN BEST IMPORTS offers full light kits, which helps eliminate the need to piece individual lights together. Steve Kaeser Lighting and Accessories offers a variety of systems including COOL-FLO. Find additional lighting available through Owen's Originals.

Consider backdrops high on your list of photography equipment and supplies

For those who desire to have a studio location, or least set up like one, purchasing a backdrop should be a photography equipment priority.
Try:  Amvona is top choice for photographer backdrops. They offer quality solids, multicolor and scenics. You can't go wrong with Amvona. Chicago Canvas & Supply offers a wide variety of backdrop options for the professional or do-it-yourselfer. The scenic backdrops from Denny Manufacturing are perfect for portrait photographers who excel in indoor photographic work. Those whose medium is indoor studio work will find their products to their liking. PhotographyProps.com is another source for photographer backdrops.

• You can buy backdrops direct from Amvona, but you can often get them cheaper through eBay. They post on eBay, and generally their auctions go below their website retail price. So compare before you buy. The other trick is if you find an Amvona backdrop that you like on eBay, go back and look at the history of the other times it has sold. See what has been paid for it in the past to get a general idea how much it will go for.