For someone who has some creativity it is possible to make a great income with a camera.The main profitable ventures include weddings, real estate and commercials.
Photographing and filming weddings
Wedding photography and films are a great way to make a living. A normal wedding photography package is $2,000 in Australia. Adding video increases the price significantly. A nice camera is essential along with good quality lenses. Canon captures great images, perhaps a Canon 5diii or Canon R6ii. A telephoto lens would be needed, the canon 85mm 1.8 ($700) or a canon 70 200 2.8 ($2500) being good options. A wide angle lens would also be needed, either a Sigma 35 1.4 ($1000) or a Canon 16 35 2.8 ($2000). A macro lens is helpful for the ring photos, perhaps a Canon 100mm 2.8 ($1000). All lenses and cameras can be bought second hand off ebay, photographers are constantly improving their equipment and they sell their perfectly good old gear at a discount. Photos should be taken in Raw format and edited in Adobe Lightroom before delivery in JPEG format. The exposure, contrast, highlights, midtones and shadows generally need adjusting to make the photo look great.
Getting film of the wedding is significantly more difficult than just photos. Sony cameras take great video. The Sony A7Siii (or a more expensive Sony FX 3) with a 24 70 2.8 lens is a great option. The video will need some post processing in Davinci Resolve (or Premiere Pro if you don’t mind paying the $20 pm subscription fee). If sound is required then you will need as many options as possible. The rode video micro microphone on the camera as well as a rode wireless GO on the subjects works well, fitted with rode lavalier microphones.
Real estate photography and films
Even better than wedding photography is real estate photography and filming. Compared to weddings the real estate market operates all year round and they will pay $200 for photos that shouldn’t take more than one hour to obtain. Again a Canon takes great photos, maybe a canon RP ($2000) with a 16 35 f4 ($1000) and a tripod ($200). The secret to real estate photography is to take 3 photos of different exposure using both natural light and fill light from a flash directed to bounce its light off the ceiling. The 3 photos are then combined so that the correct exposure is used from various parts to make the final image. This is done in Adobe lightroom by selecting the three photos then right clicking and choosing “photo merge” then clicking HDR.
Extra money can be made by getting drone photos of the property and should always be offered as a service as the drones these days are not expensive. In Australia the drone must be registered with CASA if it is being used for a business. The user must also have completed a simple online accreditation.
Commercials
Filming commercials is another profitable way to make money through photography. To enter this market you will have to be able to show a portfolio of work to qualify for the job. Again the camera of choice would be a Sony A7Siii with a wide variety of lenses for all situations. They would include a macro, a wide angle and a telephoto as well as a 24 70 2.8 for a general purpose walk around. A large number of lights, tripods and softboxes would be necessary in order to capture all sorts of situations. A great deal of money can be made on filming commercials for large companies. It is not unreasonable to quote as much a $5000 AUD per day if someone has been in the industry for a few years and has built up a reputation. The jobs are generally given by the digital marketing companies so the ability to be good a networking and building relationships is essential. The only drawback with commercials is that there may not be a steady stream of contracts and you may not know when the next job will come.
