Buying the Right Photo Equipment: 70 Tips From the Top

Any photo buff who's honest will tell you that shooting pictures can quickly become an expensive hobby. The dirty little secret, learned soon, is that buying a camera body is probably the cheapest part of the equation. Unless you're independently wealthy, you'll need to shop around. Online storefronts like Adorama, B&H Photo, and KEH do a brisk business in used equipment, and there's always Craigslist or Ebay. But what to buy? How to avoid paying too much or buying the wrong kind of equipment? This appropriately named book, Buying the Right Photo Equipment, walks through an extensive list of cameras, lenses, and all kinds of attachments. It's intended to help new photogs get a grip on what might be a wise investment, with special consideration given to the kind of photos you want to take.

To help decode the somewhat cryptic and math-heavy naming conventions on most camera gear, Buying the Right Photo Equipment focuses on showing you photo examples. Every double-page spread in the book has at least one photo, often taking up a full page, to illustrate the type of photo you might get using a particular piece of equipment. We liked that these are snaps from the book's editors, rather than award-winning photos that most of us won't ever be equipped to take. Whether you're interested in taking snapshots of your new baby or going pro and starting a studio for other people's babies, there's an example for you. Buying the Right Photo Equipment is organized around 70 "tips" that rarely span more than a page. It's an easy book to scan, read from cover to cover, or come back to for insights later as your skill (and budget) increases.

Photo books tend to become dated as the camera market innovates and technologies change, but the market for used equipment is always growing. Rich people are constantly trading up to something bigger and purportedly better, making good/excellent equipment more accessible to those of us on modest budgets. If you're interested in expanding some piece of your camera kit, Buying the Right Photo Equipment is well worth its price. Plus, it's small enough to fit in your camera case, assuming you have one. If you don't, this book can help you with that buying decision as well!