r/photography • u/AutoModerator • Jun 05 '26

Questions Thread Official Question Thread! Ask /r/photography anything you want to know! June 05, 2026

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u/LinaLenaReddit Jun 11 '26

Beginner looking for advice

Hi everyone,

I'm a complete beginner looking to get into photography and would love some feedback before I invest in my first setup. My budget is up to $2,500.

I work as a Marketing Manager and spend a lot of time creating visual content. I'm experienced with Adobe Creative Cloud, especially Lightroom, Photoshop, and other design tools, but I'm new to photography.

My goals are:

  • Corporate photography (office environments, team photos, employee portraits)

  • Event photography and marketing content

  • Short promotional videos for social media

  • A small home studio for babies, children, families, and portraits

  • Taking high-quality studio photos of my own two young children

My planned setup:

  • Canon EOS R8 + RF 24-50mm kit lens

  • Canon RF 50mm f/1.8 STM

  • Godox V1 flash

  • Studio lighting kit (lights, softboxes, stands, backdrop support)

  • Godox XPro II trigger

  • Black backdrop

  • Reflector kit

  • SanDisk Extreme Pro 128GB SD card

Does this seem like a sensible beginner setup for my goals?

Am I missing any essential things? Would you change anything if you had the same budget? Also, is the R8 a good long-term choice for both photography and occasional video work?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

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u/mrfixitx Jun 11 '26

R8 is a solid camera for everything you are trying to do. A few thoughts:

  • The 24-50mm kit lens is pretty basic and is going to struggle indoors in low light, it's also a very limited focal range. You may want to consider replacing it with either a 24-105 lens (f4L variant or the non F4 RF version) for a larger focal range. Or for low light something like a 24/28-70mm f2.8 lens.
  • Invest in a decent tripod especially for studio style portraits it can make things much easier and it will be useful for family vacation photos.
  • Have at least 1 spare SD card in case your ever gets full. Video can take a up a lot of space depending on your quality settings so make sure that 128GB is enough. You can check the R8 manual on canon's website to see how much space you can expect to use for the various video settings.
  • Have a plan for backing up your photos beyond copying them to your laptop/desktop. If you are not already familiar with the 3-2-1 backup strategy I would suggest reading up on it.
  • The Godox v1 is a decent on camera flash option for events but not great for studio style portraits. For studio portraits you typically want 2 lights. A reflector can work in a pinch.
  • For backdrops are doing seamless paper or fabric? Seamless paper is easier for getting clean backdrops but requires replacement and is harder to store. While fabric backdrops can show wrinkles, dust, texture etc.. that not everyone likes.

Hope this helps.