You Don't Have to Spend Thousands
To Have Great Equipment

Ask 10 diferent photographers what equipment they have in their bag and you'll probably get 10 different answers. Why is that? Because Professional Photographers will have only the gear they need for the shoot. They have more camera bodies, lenses, filters, tripods and other gear than we could list here, and it would be very unrealistic to try to haul all of that stuff where ever they went! So they choose wisely. But remember the Law of Probability! The one thing you don't have with you will probably be the one you need. It's happened to me more than once.

Your Camera Bag

Before you can put something in your camera bag, you have to have a camera bag! Choose one that is right for your situation. It should be well padded to protect your gear and comfortable to carry. If you get a really large bag, the law of averages says you will fill it up. I have a backpack by LOWPRO, just big enough to hold two camera bodies, two or three lenses, a flash unit, my chosen filters, a teleconverter and my support supplies. It also has straps on the side for my tripod.

What Equipment Goes In It?

Now we can talk about what to put in your bag! If you have a point and shoot camera, the one piece of equipment I would choose would be a good Tripod and Ball Head. I know this is not a real "high tech" piece of equipment and carrying it around isn't always easy but it can be extremely valuable. Use it when you want to take group pictures and YOU want to be in the picture. Or when you want to take a a panorama shot. (When taking panorama shots, remember to level the head of the tripod!) How about a long exposure of a city skyline at night?

And you don't have to spend a fortune to get a good one. The carbon fiber, super high tech professional models look and work great, but they will also separate you from a good portion of your kids college money! Again, choose one that fits your needs. Any good camera equipment store (Stacy and I use Keeble and Shuchat and San Jose Camera ) should have many on the floor. If you are planning to get a larger single lens reflex in the future, like the Canon Digital Rebel or Nikon D80, let them know and they will be happy to help you make the proper selection.

Now, if you already have an SLR, the equipment list will get a little longer! We will assume that you already have a good tripod, now lets talk lenses. If you like taking pictures of everything, from portraits to animals in the distance, I would select a 28-135mm zoom f/4 / 5.6 IS for wide angle and portrait work and a 70-300mm f4 / 5.6 IS as a medium to long telephoto. This gives you great coverage from 28mm up to 300mm. These lenses are called consumer lenses. They are lighter, smaller and less expensive than Professional Lenses, but yield excellent image quality.

Now, want to get a little closer? You don't need to purchase one of those "super expensive, super long" telephoto lenses. Let me introduce you to the Teleconverter. This little guy goes between your camera and lens. Depending on the magnification, 1.4 or 2.0, it will turn a 300mm lens into a 420mm or a whopping 600mm lens!

WOW! What a Great Piece of Equipment!

There is a saying in thermodynamics, you can't get something for nothing and in fact, you can't even break even! The teleconverter is something like that. The 1.4 converter costs you one stop of light and the 2.0 raises that to two stops of light. What this means is your 300mm f/5.6 lens with the 1.4 is now a 420mm lens at f/8, or with the 2.0, a 600mm lens at f11! This would be considered a fair trade if you were shooting in the middle of the day, but would rule out low light conditions. Your in camera light meter will calculate the proper exposure. I carry a 1.4 teleconverter in my camera bag. The choice is yours.

Lets talk about Filters

You can do much to your image in Digital Darkroom, but the more you can take care of in the field the better. I carry a circular polarizing filter. By rotating the polarizing filter, you can darken a light sky or remove glare from the surface of water. This filter works best when you are shooting at a 90 degree angle to the sun. It also costs you one stop of light but your light meter will adjust the exposure to compensate.

I also have 1, 2 and 3 stop neutral density filters. A neutral density filter will affect the amount of light entering the lens, making the image darker by 1, 2 or 3 stops without altering the color of the image. So why would you want to do this? Have you ever seen those beautiful "Calender Photographs " of rushing, tumbling water that seem so silky and soft? You need a really slow shutter speed to get that effect. What would you use? Neutral density filters allow you to control the amount of light, in stops, entering the lens so you can achieve the slow shutter speed needed for that soft, silky effect.

Last, but not least, you'll find 1, 2 and 3 stop graduated neutral density filters. A graduated neutral density filter is a neutral density filter that starts out dark at the top and gradually turns clear at the bottom. These filters would be used when photographing a landscape where the sky is much lighter than say, the mountains. You would adjust the filter so that the darkest area is covering the sky and the transition is located somewhere near the tops of the mountains. This adjustment can be made while looking through the viewfinder.

The Speed Light

The last piece of equipment I would like to recommend is an after-market flash unit and off-camera extension cable. I use a Canon Flash Unit because it integrates well with my cameras. Your camera store can recommend a unit that best fits your needs. The extension cable attachs to your camera's hot shoe and to the flash unit to allow you to move the unit away from the camera to eliminate red eye and for better flash photographs.

You will also find my Camera Manual, a lens cleaning kit, small squeeze bulb, extra batteries, cable release and four or five 2 GIG compact flash cards.

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