Amateur photography

Just for fun

There is nothing wrong about being an amateur photographer. It simply means you are doing this for fun, and not for the money.

As an amateur you are free to explore, you can choose the time, and place to take your pictures, decide what you want to carry where and when. As a professional, you may not have as much freedom. Of course there are many people that have managed to merge their passion with a steady income, so there is always hope.

Differences between Professionals and Amateurs

If you are doing professional photographic work, you have an interest in getting the equipment needed for your work. If you earn money with photography, it is clear that you could afford to spend some of that money on buying equipment that makes your work better/easier. But your buying habits will also be different due to:

Specialization: a professional may need more specific equipment for the field she works. If you are a professional wildlife photographer, you will own some of the longest and most expensive lenses produced. If you are a sports photographer, fast focus, and a high frame rate will be the thing that you pay for.
Backups: professionals often carry two sets of similar/identical equipment as spares. Having two identical cameras does not make much sense for an amateur. As an amateur if you have two cameras, make sure they are different and for example consider to combine APS-C and full frame cameras .
Increased use: professionals will be taking much more pictures per day/outing than someone who does it for fun. This also means more wear and tear, sometimes 10x more. So durability of equipment becomes more of an issue.

These pages are for Amateur Photographers and not really for seasoned photographers and professionals. I have no affiliation or commercial interest with any brand/make. I write from my own experience. I ended up using mainly Nikon, so I am more familiar with this brand than others. See price for notes on pricing as well as photography related links.