Starting Photography? Buy the Lens Before the Camera

If you're starting photography and trying to figure out what to buy first, here's the order that actually holds up: there are five decisions, and the camera is only the third one. I shoot around a full-time job, and I still got the order wrong when I started. I bought a body first, then went hunting for a lens fast enough to justify it, then bought a flash because it was new and used it maybe twice. This post is the order I wish I'd had before any of that.

Step 1: Decide What You're Actually Shooting (This One's Free)

The camera you end up needing changes completely depending on what you're photographing. Wildlife photography wants a completely different kit than taking pictures of your kids, and street photography wants something else again. Most people, myself included, fall into the same trap: you want the latest and greatest camera, and a camera like that solves a dozen problems you don't actually have. So you start inventing problems just to justify owning it.

I wasn't sure if I wanted an APS-C camera at all. When I decided I did, I went with the Sony a6700, which is what I'm shooting this on right now. Looking back, I could have gone a different way. I tend to shoot in low light more than I'd like to admit, and an older full-frame body might have served me better there. I compensate with a light now, but the real issue is that I started from the camera instead of from the shooting. I wanted the newest thing, and then I built justifications backward from it, the same pattern I see beginners fall into constantly when they're just starting photography.

Before you spend a cent starting photography, sit with what you actually want to shoot. Not what you might shoot one day. What you're actually pointing a camera at this month.

Step 2: Buy the Lens, Not the Body

This is the first real purchase, and it's the one most beginner photography guides skip straight past. In terms of gear, I'd start from the lens, because a good lens will outlast every camera body you ever buy.

Read: Sigma 17-40mm f/1.8 Review — Can One Lens Simplify Our Workflow?

If you already know you'll eventually move to full-frame, it can make sense to buy full-frame-compatible lenses from the start, depending on what you're shooting. Here's why: if you move to full-frame later while holding onto APS-C lenses, the camera will still turn on and take pictures, but you'll be misusing them. The sensor won't be used to its full potential, and you'll effectively be shooting in crop mode the whole time.

I used to think that was fine, since it would just behave like my current APS-C camera anyway. That's not quite how it works. When you put an APS-C lens on a full-frame body, you're not just cropping down to an APS-C-equivalent image. You're also throwing away megapixels the sensor actually has, which measurably lowers the quality of what you get out of the camera.

On top of that, I've been in the position of having to sell lenses before, and it's a hassle: listing them, meeting a stranger somewhere, the whole process is a pain. Buying toward where you're eventually headed avoids that entirely.

Read: Full Frame vs APS-C — I Almost Sold My A6700 to Upgrade. Here's What Stopped Me.

There's a second reason to start from the lens: it decides your mount. If you're just starting photography and have no idea which brand you want, the type of pictures you want to take will point you toward a specific lens, and that lens will point you toward a mount. Here's a concrete version of that: I own a 7.5mm TTArtisan lens, a cheap fisheye that's actually good. I'd have bought that lens specifically if I'd wanted to shoot skateboarding, chasing that fisheye, early-2000s skate-video look. If I'd started from "I want to shoot that," I'd have ended up on a Sony mount to run it, the same mount I'm on now, but for a completely different reason than the one that actually got me here. The mount falls out of the lens decision. Decide the lens first and the camera brand mostly picks itself.

Step 3: The Cheapest Body That Runs That Lens

Once you know your mount, my advice is to buy the cheapest body available that runs it well. You're going to outgrow this body as you learn more, but the mount you picked is much stickier. A good lens holds its value for a long time, and swapping bodies later is cheap. Swapping mounts is not.

In my day job as a product manager, I spend a lot of time thinking about which decisions are cheap to undo and which aren't. That's exactly the framing that applies here. Selling a camera body and buying a different one is annoying, but it's survivable; you lose some money and a weekend. Picking the wrong lens system, and by extension the wrong mount, is expensive to undo, because it drags every lens you own along with it. If you're working with real uncertainty about where your photography is headed, buy into the decision that's cheapest to reverse, and treat the expensive-to-reverse one with more care.

This is my honest a6700 story: I picked it for reach and accepted worse low-light performance, betting that a fast lens would close the gap. It mostly did. A fast aperture on a smaller sensor buys back most, though not all, of what you lose against full-frame. That trade only worked because I'd already settled on the lens and mount first. The body was the cheap decision. The mount was the one I needed to get right.

Step 4: Buy Reliability Before Capability

Everything up to this point has been about what to buy and in what order. The next two steps are about whether you're still using any of it a year from now.

This is where I'd start looking at filters and accessories that make your actual shooting experience better. An ND filter, specifically, opens up a lot of options when you're shooting somewhere bright and still want your aperture wide open. I think of these filters as sunglasses for your lens, and I keep one on pretty much permanently when I'm shooting video outside.

Read: ND vs Polarizer vs Diffusion — Filters Made Easy

Filters matter for long exposure photography too, if you're new to that: the silky-smooth water shots, or the never-ending light trails from cars at night. You'll need an ND filter to pull that off in daylight. A cooling fan is the other accessory that's saved me repeatedly, since the camera I ended up buying tends to overheat on longer video takes. If I'd known upfront I wanted to lean more into video, I'd probably have picked the FX30 or FX3 instead. Since I didn't, I compensate. Overheating is worth checking before you commit to a body, because it's happened on nearly every camera I've owned.

A tripod or monopod tends to enter the picture around this stage too, once you know your lenses and have the accessories that make you flexible. Early on, you're most likely going to be shooting handheld most of the time anyway, and a tripod just means more to carry every time you head out. I try to keep my kit light early on, so I hold off on a tripod until I've actually used the camera enough to know I need one, unless you're doing long exposure work specifically, where a tripod earns its place much sooner because you can't trust your hands to hold still enough.

Step 5: Save the Specialty Gear for Last

This is the cherry-on-top stage: things that help with aesthetics rather than the basics. A black mist filter is a good example. If that phrase means nothing to you, it's a filter that gives your footage a soft, memory-like fuzziness. It looks great, but you can fake a version of that look in post-production first, and you should, before spending money confirming you actually like it. A magic arm for unusual video angles falls in the same category: fun, but not something you need while you're still learning the basics.

Read: 5 Photography Gear Regrets and 5 Purchases You Will Never Sell

A flash is the clearest example from my own kit. I bought mine new, and I've used it maybe twice. Some cameras, like the Fujifilm X100VI, already come with a built-in flash, which removes the decision entirely. If you do want a more powerful flash, that's fine, but I'd put it last on the list, since it leans aesthetic unless you're shooting something like weddings, where it earns an earlier spot. Video lights land in the same bucket. Mine helps in situations where I don't have much natural light, which is often on purpose since I black out my windows when I'm filming, but most of the time you'll actually have a window to work with, whether you're shooting video indoors or photos out on the street, so it's not a day-one purchase.

Some of what's sitting unused in my own drawer was just a bad buy. The rest was good gear I bought at the wrong point in the order. Wait until you've actually missed a shot twice before you reach for this category, and you'll avoid most of that drawer entirely.

The Order, One More Time

Starting photography doesn't have to mean guessing at a shopping list. Decide what you're shooting first, since that costs nothing. Buy the lens before the body, since it's the piece that survives every upgrade. Pick the cheapest body that runs that lens, since it's the cheap decision to undo. Then buy reliability, and only then buy the specialty gear once you know you'll actually reach for it.

I go deeper on the full-frame-versus-APS-C question specifically in this video, if you're trying to decide which sensor size is right for your own starting kit.

If you want this order written down so you have it on hand before you're standing in a shop, that's exactly the kind of thing I cover in Still Shooting, my monthly letter about photography, doubt, and showing up anyway. No hype, just one honest letter a month.