Johnathan D. Chen

Playlist of vids my friend made from my recommendations over the years here

Other Talks

There are some great deals right now. For a long term camera (since you’re about to become a dad) I’d recommend going for a used Canon 6D or 5Dmk2. You can usually get these used for 500 bucks on eBay and they’re really well-built. For a lens, I’d go for the Canon 50mm 1.4 or 1.8 – you’ll absolutely fall in love with every image you take, because it draws your attention solely to the focal point. Unfortunately, there’s no zoom on this lens (that’s the give and take of camera gear), so for more general purpose stuff, I’d recommend any zoom lens that fits your need. Usually, you’ll want the 24mm-105mm range, but some of these are expensive. My recommendation to most my friends who are primarily focused on portraits is to get the 50mm. It’s almost exactly what the “zoom” of your eye is, and you start to train your perspective as a photographer without any zoom capabilities