Anyone, YouTuber or otherwise, that says that the photographer must specialize in one specific niche is an idiot. I mean that’s like saying that in order to be a good mechanic you have to only work on one brand of car. I mean just like in that case, specializing in one narrow area might make you a little bit better at all of the subtle nuances involved in that area, but it’s not like having that knowledge mean that you can’t also have knowledge in other areas.
It really depends on what you want to be able to do with them. If you want to make high quality prints then having them professionally scanned is pretty much a requirement. If you just want to be able to view them on the computer for memories, then a cheap film scanner or a flatbed scanner with transparency capabilities would do fine.
Anywhere between whatever it costs to charge the camera batteries on up to several million.
Even knowing what sort of final photo you are aiming for is not helpful since any given line item can be either very expensive or free depending on how it’s done.
The only problem with what the boss wants is that as the OP said, customers complained about that level of quality.
I completely agree that the boss doesn’t seem to understand the relationship between time and effort put into the final product and final quality. Based on the fact that customers have complained it does seem like the boss is definitely pushing to be too much towards the get it done and get it out the door, okay is good enough end of the scale.
This is definitely a case where the old good fast cheap pick two saying comes into play.
and studying photography next year.
In what sort of program? Studying photography from an art perspective is really only useful if you are planning on trying to be a fine art photographer or it also has some useful application for fashion photography.
If your goal is to be a professional photographer your best use of educational resources will be to study small business management and do how to photography courses in the area(s) you are looking to get into. Doesn’t need to be college courses either. Very few people who are looking to hire you to work as a photographer will care about where/how you learned,they will be much more interested in what your images look like and to a degree your personality.
Personal feelings on the phone versus camera thing. Using a camera is what puts my brain into “photography mode” where I’m actually thinking about framing and composition and light whereas with my phone it’s more of a quick document the moment thing. Totally agree with the idea that the best one is whichever is available in any given moment though. While a thoughtfully composed image will be better than a quick grab,the quick grab is infinitely better than nothing at all.