For someone who has some creativity it is possible to make a great income with a camera. It is not the dream job that it may be portrayed as, it is work like any other and photographers who do it for their passion may want to earn money in other ways, after a few years of taking wedding photos you may realize you don’t enjoy the camera as much as you once did. However they are great money makers as long as you stay with they main specializations, weddings, real estate and commercials. I have yet to meet someone who made a lot of money taking portrait photos or filming movies, I am sure they exist but it must be highly competitive requiring a lot of experience and hustling.
Photographing and filming weddings
Wedding photography and films are a great way to make a living. It may burn you out eventually as there is a lot of pressure to get the great photos but you are well paid for the responsibility. A normal wedding photography package is $2,000 in Australia. Adding video increases the price significantly. The correct gear is required, a nice camera is essential along with good quality lenses. I have photographed a couple of weddings and will generally use two cameras, each with different lenses. I believe canon captures great images and would use a Canon 5diii or a mirrorless Canon R6ii as a minimum. One would be used for telephoto, with a cheap canon 85mm 1.8 ($700) or an expensive canon 70 200 2.8 ($2500) to give me more options. The other would be a wide angle lens, either a Sigma 35 1.4 ($1000) or a Canon 16 35 2.8 ($2000), again to give more options. A macro lens would be needed for the ring photos, either a cheap Tamron 90mm 2.8 ($400) or a more expensive Canon 100mm 2.8 ($1000). All lenses and cameras can be bought second hand off ebay as long as the seller is reputable. 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. I also often play with the luminance to get the colors more vibrant.
Getting film of the wedding is significantly more difficult than just photos. If it is being videoed I would recommend using a Sony A7Siii (or a more expensive Sony FX 3)with a 24 70 2.8 lens, either from Sony or Tamron. This is a great option as it is much quieter than the Canon alternative, though 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. I use a rode video micro microphone on the camera as well as a rode wireless GO on the subjects. I will also connect rode lavalier microphones into portable recorders and mobile phones and leave them in various places to record speeches from those I can’t microphone.
With a little advertising and some good reviews a good income can be made from wedding photography.
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 for photos I would use a Canon, 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 with CASA.
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. Film for friends in order to build this portfolio. 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.
