Biggest expense style of photography

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been thinking about this and this is my thoughts,i would be interested in others.
1.most expensive would seem to be wildlife because of the cost of the long reach Lens.
2.sports and action(motor racing etc.)
3.Portraits and wedding events etc.
4.Landscape.
5.Street

what do you think?

thanks
 
Wildlife, see Canon EF 200-400mm f/4L IS USM Extender 1.4x. Sports and motorsport are expensive too with big heavy telephoto primes and zooms.
 
Longer reach more cost

My not even proper wildlife sigma cost as much as a cheap used car!

If I could pick perfect cost no object lens for this it would be the longest prime lens with a manageable weight with IS
These cost as much as a decent used car or cheap new car!
Basically unjustifiable for a hobby
 
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It is a tossup between wildlife and sports. Both need long lens, highly performant sensors, great auto focus and reasonable speed. Wildlife often needs the longest lenses, sports need the fastest bodies. Indoor sports can be very tough because you need to maintain high shutter speeds in dim light with long lenses - territory of the 200mm f/2.0 and Nikon D4s or Canon 1DX bodies.


landscape can be very cheap because typically the lenses are stopped down a lot do cheaper lenses can be sufficient, you don't really care about speed, high ISO, focussing. However, at the high end it can be expensive. You often want the best possible sensor and detail, this may push you to medium format cameras, or at least a high end DSLR with great glass, TS lenses etc.

There are other costs. E.g. professional wildlife and landscape photographers typically need to travel to their subject, and might have to send months in places like Patagonia, Greenland, Borneo to get the desired shots. For rare animals the pros for national geographic can spend years and years of trekking through the Himalayas to find suitable subject and conditions.

Conversely street is easy if you live in or near a big city. Wedding work you get people asking to be photographed and they even pay you to do it, while a wildlife pro will have to fund their own trips and then try to sell the photos afterwards (unless they are very lucky NG togs etc.).
 
It is a tossup between wildlife and sports. Both need long lens, highly performant sensors, great auto focus and reasonable speed. Wildlife often needs the longest lenses, sports need the fastest bodies. Indoor sports can be very tough because you need to maintain high shutter speeds in dim light with long lenses - territory of the 200mm f/2.0 and Nikon D4s or Canon 1DX bodies.


landscape can be very cheap because typically the lenses are stopped down a lot do cheaper lenses can be sufficient, you don't really care about speed, high ISO, focussing. However, at the high end it can be expensive. You often want the best possible sensor and detail, this may push you to medium format cameras, or at least a high end DSLR with great glass, TS lenses etc.

There are other costs. E.g. professional wildlife and landscape photographers typically need to travel to their subject, and might have to send months in places like Patagonia, Greenland, Borneo to get the desired shots. For rare animals the pros for national geographic can spend years and years of trekking through the Himalayas to find suitable subject and conditions.

Conversely street is easy if you live in or near a big city. Wedding work you get people asking to be photographed and they even pay you to do it, while a wildlife pro will have to fund their own trips and then try to sell the photos afterwards (unless they are very lucky NG togs etc.).

Didn't think of travel.
I don't live near too much scenery wise. Flat fields and no big cities. I'm really having to think about this.
 
A 1200/5.6 costs about £90,000. Made to order and rumoured only around a dozen in the world.

So big lenses photography costs the most. A 85L is cheap on the grand scheme of things.
 
1.Astrophotography

Build a space rocket and shuttle type spacecraft.
Travel to the Hubble telescope, try to connect your camera to it.
Realise you've forgotten to take the correct adapter, fly back to Earth.

Fly to the telescope again and connect and take some shots.
Fly back to Earth and load 'em on your computer and you're disappointed they are all underexposed, as you forgot to check the Histogram.

Take off again and land back to Earth again.
This time with with great shots.

Post the photos on OverClockers with your watermark.
Your photos then get removed and you are banned from OC for life. Maybe the next life too.

The End ;)





Or was it just a dream you haven't had yet ?
 
Fashion photography can get pretty expensive, and you're often doing quite a lot for very little when you're starting out. Then as you move up, production costs get even higher:

1. Model hire
2. Building a team (hair, make up, stylist, assistant, retoucher, digital tech)
3. Equipment hire/Buying gear outright (medium format, lights, other bits and bobs)
4. Location scouting/hire
 
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great response guys thanks very much and by all means keep it coming,glad I'm not into birds(feathered sort ):) or sports,my goodness £90,000 pounds for a lens :).
 
Currently trying to get back into wildlife again, the cost of super-telephoto lenses has gone up so much since I last got one (2008)

There used to be a whole load of people importing lenses from the USA and you could skip the duty and basically pay the dollar price - but it looks far less popular now, presumably customers have tightened up.

Looking at getting a 500 or 600mm before the end of the year, I was going to get my friend in Oregon to buy one - but I'm too paranoid about bringing it back and getting stung for £2.5ks worth of import duty and tax, I'll probably just end up coughing up the best part of £8k for one rofl.. ;_;
 
A 1200/5.6 costs about £90,000. Made to order and rumoured only around a dozen in the world.

I work with a lot of very serious bird watchers. One of them owns a Canon EF 800mm f/5.6L worth around £10,000.

Very well built but incredibly heavy with it. We tried taking some photos with it without a tripod but they didn't turn out sowell. :D
 
High end/fashion has to be up there. MF digital ain't cheap? 5k for a body, 20k+ for the back? Then the lenses and studio lights... and studio rental!
 
Yes Medium Format. That is just one application, it's just a tool so can be used for any application. You can drop a lot of money on MF gear, not to mention high end lighting gear and studio rental costs on top.
 
High end/fashion has to be up there. MF digital ain't cheap? 5k for a body, 20k+ for the back? Then the lenses and studio lights... and studio rental!

I had the impression that a lot of high end fashion stuff was done by agencies with the equipment belonging to the agency and photographers contracted or salaried by the agency? Could be totally wring and undoubtedly many people would own their own equipment.
 
The other thing is video work, if you think still photography is expensive then look at the costs of high end video equipment and lenses. typically you can add another zero to your still photography prices, sometimes 2 but that is only half the story - all the supporting equipment also adds up.
 
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