Which Camera To Buy - Part 1

Since I am a world renown a professional photographer, at least in my own mind, I earn most of my living from photography and I know everything, somebody from a local camera club asked me:

I want to start becoming a professional photographer, part-time, to supplement my income. I want to “do children”. Which camera should I get? I don’t want to spend too much money!

Then she went on explaining why Olympus is so much better than anything else. I guess she must already have an Olympus 4:3 camera. I tried to explain, as nicely and politely as I could, that she should be looking either at a Nikon D700/D300/D300s or a Canon 5DMk2/5D or a 7D. What? $2,000 to $3,500? I must be joking! She didn’t want to spend that much money plus there would be the lenses…

So I tried to explain to her, that these cameras are not cameras, but business tools. Children move very fast in dark areas and only these have near-perfect auto-focus, and are fast enough. The most important is that you can get rentals for whatever you need. What? I must have been joking! Did I already mentioned that she didn’t want to spend that much plus there would be the lenses…

I tried to explain to her that:

1. You will need these big cameras to sell these occasional extra/super-duper large prints that will make your profit for the next couple of month. In the end, if you “stick to it”, you will need the full frame camera and will have wasted a lot of money on your Olympus system.
2. You need to have a bigger camera than your customers or they won’t respect you. You compete with Uncle Bob!
3. You can buy a used Canon 5Dmk2 or a used Nikon D300 or a used D3 to save money.

What? I must have been joking! Did I already mentioned that she didn’t want to spend that much plus there would be the lenses…

So in the end, I finally asked her why she asked for my advice if she wasn’t interested in even considering it. She didn’t really answer, my guess is that she wanted to have a camera choice validated by a “professional photographer”.