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My Equipment |
Cameras get more attention than any other piece of photographic equipment and I am an admitted camera junkie. I have purchased the best quality camera bodies that I could afford. My most recent purchase is the Canon EOS 20D. After waiting for 3 years for the price to drop, I finally made the plunge.
Katz Eye Focusing Screen for Canon 20D If you used to use a traditional SLR camera and like the concept of a split prism for manually focusing or checking the autofocus of an autofocus camera, I highly recommend the Katz Eye focusing screen. I'll add a caveat that installing it is not for the faint of heart -- if you don't have steady hands, a good dose of patience, and a little steely nerve, I would still recommend it but only if you have a camera service center install it for you. The link above shows the screen as it looks through the viewfinder and I can attest that it really does add functionality to my camera that I always felt was lacking before. Lenses are where photography and photographic discussions should really concentrate. The camera, as many others have pointed out, is really only a light-capturing device. The lens affects all other aspects of the process from sharpness, field-of-view, and the ability to capture sufficient light. I have slowly collected the best lenses I could save enough for. These were added one by one over several years. My most recent purchase (although it should have been one of my first) was the 50mm f/1.5 USM, one of the fastest and sharpest lenses I have used.
The Clear Advantages of Digital Photography Immediate Feedback If being able to review the results of pressing the shutter button were the only advantage of digital photography, it would still be worth the extra expense of owning a digital camera. Fortunately, it is only one of many advantages and one that presents a clear advantage of film. Add in the increasingly useful information provided by histograms, in-camera white point balancing, and a host of other features and it becomes a playground of often times confusing, but an amazingly rich shooting experience. RAW Shooting There was confusion when digital cameras were first introduced about the real advantages of RAW shooting. Some photographers sought some sort of magical advantage when comparing their captured images to JPG versions. Once the information about the way RAW information was stored was broadly understood, the majority of photographers began to see the real advantages of digital photography. So, what's there to miss? Are the other advantages to shooting digital? Sure, but they become subjective for me after the two topics mentioned above. I really like the personality of different slide films. I can manufacture those effects with RAW images but it's an artificial step. Aren't RAW images more flexible? Without question. Do they provide great dynamic range, clarity, and technical detail? Yup! Do I still miss slides? Sadly, yes. I hated scanning dozens of frames and hand-spotting every single image to get a usable photo, but hey! it was about the process. You were forced to make really tough decisions about time investment and what you thought the image was capable of. Now you just dump several hundred RAW images into a folder and then open a photo viewing application and start the process of sorting through them. There's a loss of immediacy with the digital versions. Adobe Lightroom has done a lot to change the experience, but there is still a ways to go to make it an enjoyable experience and one that is as exciting as putting your eye to a loupe and seeing that slide pop under the backlighting of a light table (ohhh, my back is killing me). Probably the most significant tool for anyone shooting serious landscape or wildlife photography is a good tripod. It doesn't have to be pretty or expensive -- just sturdy and with you at all times. Tripods become increasingly important when shooting with cropped sensor DSLR's (like the 20D) because cropping telephoto images results in increased blur. A 300mm lens suddenly requires the same shutter speed as a 420mm lens on a film or full frame sensor camera.
I like camera bags that don't look like camera bags. I have two versions of the Domke J-series camera bag and can't recommend them enough. They are made from extremely durable canvas and have a beefy design that can take a lot of punishment. The insides are customizable with a large divided insert that can be moved around to create just the storage space needed. The two end pockets have removable padded inserts that can either be used to store a flash unit, charger, filters, or any other accessory imaginable.
Last Update: December 8, 2007 Copyright © Rich Adams 2005 |
