£5,000 budget to spend on..........

[GatoAzul1968]

I will be starting FdA course this September in Photography with Digital Filmmaking & Creative Media. I will have a budget of £5,000 to spend on for the 2-3 years course. What do you suggest that I should spend my £5,000 on. Please include a laptop or a tablet as well as camera, lenses.

In the 2 yeara FdA course, 1st year I will be focusing on both photography and digital filmmaking with some minor projects. In the 2nd year, I will be doing 5 major projects for real 'clients' (unpaid, of course), and I will be choosing to focus on either Photography or digital filmmaking. I am pretty sure that photography will be my chosen route unless I am better the other route!

As for the photography route, they had asked me to choose between fashion and wildlife, but they are happy to do fashion with wildlife animals (for example fashion and a lion). At present, I couldn't decide between fashion and wildlife (not birds or insects), but I won't need to decide until mid-1st year. I could focus on horses.

Anyway if you were me:

1) What laptop or tablet would you buy?
2) Which lenses do you use recommend mostly for both fashion and wildlife (not birds, or insects)
3) Which lenses, other than No 2, do you recommend for fashion photography? Both indoors and outdoors
4) Which lenses, other than No 2, do you recommend for wildlife (animals, horses)?

Bear in mind, I was told that I can borrow "any" equipment from the University, and therefore, any expensive lenses, you believe I ought to borrow for the time being, can be borrowed.

 

[ukaskew]

Bear in mind, I was told that I can borrow "any" equipment from the University, and therefore, any expensive lenses, you believe I ought to borrow for the time being, can be borrowed.

I'll leave the main questions to somebody better qualified, other than to say a laptop will be easier to work with and longer lasting than a tablet, and your student status will qualify you for a discount somewhere so maybe work backwards from that, I just bought a Dell XPS laptop with a nice student discount. But I thought the bit I quoted above was key...

What kit do the University have? If they have shelves of Canon glass it makes little sense to buy Nikon gear, but Canon (or Sony) would be fine. I work at a Uni and they have a big collection of Micro 4/3 gear for filmmaking, so something like one of the Panasonic GH bodies would make sense there for example.

 

[troutfisher]

At the moment buy nothing.Wait until you get to Uni and see what is recommended and what they have.
Certainly buy a laptop rather than a tablet but your biggest and most important decision is are you going Windows or Mac , like cameras you are buying into a system and it gets expensive if you make the wrong ( for you ) decision and want to change later.
Again wait and see particularly where student discounts are concerned.

 

[IntenseJason]

Some great advice there, definitely wait to see what is available for you to borrow, I went through something similar in the early 90s, spent my money on a new F4 and used glass for about 2K, which was massive for me at the time.

In the end I spent most of my time using a college loaned Bronica and ended up selling the Nikon at a £500 loss to fund a used Bronica kit of my own and £400 of film and paper.

I would also suggest that when you make the decision you look at used pro spec bodies - the camera will be a tool, so will see harder use than you might expect, toughness will be more important than bells and whistles.

 

[redhed17]

What do you already have?

As above, I'd wait to see what the University has in terms of equipment. Also wait to see what the other students have too. If you are into photography not video, or vice versa, and someone is the opposite, then collaboration could ensue. You may get Student discount on computers and software once you are a student.

As for specifics of the types of gear, probably a FF camera. If you want a one camera does all system, then look for good video features, most new cameras would be OK, but you may go used for VFM..

For portraits possibly an 85mm. A 70-200mm could potentially do portraits and wildlife, add a converter for extra reach. Depends on the wildlife whether you would need something longer. Memory cards, if SD, at least Class 10 for 1080p, maybe faster cards for 4k. Larger capacities for video, especially for 4k. A tripod and head. A bag to carry it all.

That's just what I would be thinking of to start off with, but again, start the course first.