Digital Photography
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Cameras
My current camera is a Canon 7D, and I highly recommend it.
When you buy an SLR you are not buying a camera; you are buying a lens system. If you are remotely serious, you will quickly spend more on lenses than you did on the camera. New technologies will make you want to upgrade your camera every 2-5 years, but your "glass" (lenses) will continue to work well for many years.
Here are the lenses I have (all Canon):
| Lens | Comments |
| EF-S 17-85MM | A good general purpose lens -- I use this lens the most. Comes in a "kit" with the body. Image stabilized. Cons: somewhat slow, and not for full frame sensors. |
| EF 15mm f/2.8 | Fisheye. |
| EF 50mm f/1.4 | The second lens I bought. With the 20D's low light (ISO 1600) performance, this fast lens can shoot nice pictures in very low light. |
| EF 100m f/2.8 | Macro lens. |
| EF 70-200mm f/2.8 IS | This is my favorite lens. Relatively fast, image stablized, and incredible optics (Canon's L series). Not small, not lightweight, and not cheap. |
The two major SLR choices are: Canon and Nikon. I would not recommend investing in any other system; these two have the critical mass in the market, and the largest selection of lenses.
My previous camera was a Canon 20D digital SLR. Note that the 20D is no longer the "latest model". Instead, I'd recommend looking at:
- Canon 60D. This is the latest successor to the 20D.
- Canon T1i. The latest in the Digital Rebel line.
Software
I use Adobe Lightroom 3 for all of my photo "developing" and management. It's expensive, but works very well when you have to process a batch of photos. I'd strongly recommend watching the tutorial videos and learning the keyboard shortcuts.
I use Photoshop Elements when I need to do something more sophisticated.
Tripods & Heads
I highly recommend the CT-3301N carbon fiber tripod from FEISOL.
I'm quite happy with FIESOL. The "trim" isn't quite as fancy as the brand-name tripods, but it's quite functional at a fraction of the price ($170 when I bought, low $200s now). I ordered mine direct from Taiwan, and for about $33 shipping it arrived in about a week.
My only complaint is about the center column; you have to torque it down very tightly to prevent the column from rotating in the tripod mount.
Note that you still need a head on the tripod to mount the camera.
I initially got the Bogen/Manfrotto BO 3047 3-way pan/tilt head. It was about $90 from B&H, but that model no longer appears available. Later, I got the BH-55 ballhead from Really Right Stuff [1]. The BH-55 is a beautiful piece of metal and is widely considered to be the best ballhead available. It costs ~20% more than comparable ballheads from other companies, but it is worth every penny!
Printing
Over the years, I've oscillated through several printing options. First, I started with a photo printer (low end -- nice prints, but not durable). Then, I used photo labs as on-line photo submission became widely available.
Now I'm back to owning a photo printer, an Epson 3880. This is an amazing printer; I highly recommend it.
A few things have changed in the past year or two:
- Print quality has crossed over traditional lab processing (just like digital crossed over film years ago). Modern photo printers can make very high quality, durable, fade-resistant, archival quality prints.
- There's a huge selection of fine art papers available now, which open up new creative options.
- For this printer line in particular, the B/Q output quality is stunning, far better than you can get from a photo lab (using a color process). It really helps to have all those black inks.