Christmas is a fun time to let your loved ones to explore their long term dream. When you say enough is enough with those mobile photography and you obviously see a need to upgrade to a professional or semi-professional photographic kit to go to the next level in photography, you definitely need to consider Christmas to be the best excuse to spend on the right kit. There are a zillion options. Where to start and what will be the ideal start-up kit to get started with.

With options ranging from DLSR to mirror-less, Canon to Nikon, 18 – 55mm to 70-200 mm, the first kit purchase can be a bit daunting.

Here are few quick tips. I hope these points will help you decide wise before you make that all-important decision to make that purchase.

• Megapixels is not everything. Unless you are planning anything beyond sharing online or a medium size print, any standard photographic kit can hold on, it can be 12 megapixels to high power 50 megapixels. For a digital output or up to a medium size print, all are the same
• Kit lens is a kit lens. You are not going to live till the end with your kit lens. So do not go choose a model that comes with a better kit lens. You can obviously change your camera lens, so do not base your decision on the lens the package comes with
• Body is all that matters. Make sure you invest on the right camera body. Everything in your kit will be around this body. If you are planning for outdoor and wet condition shooting, make sure you get a good weather protected camera body. These can be a little high on cost, but you are paying for what you get.
• UV filter. Get one. You will definitely need a UV filter along with any of your lens. This protects your lens front element from any scratch. You will not realise its importance until you find out what happens without it.