Digital Photography Equipment: What’s in my bag?

About my digital photography equipment...

Besides information on shooting digital infrared photography, what I’m asked most often is what equipment I use.

While it’s true I love gear and gadgets, the most valuable piece of photographic equipment you can own is your your brain – because you can seriously take a fine photograph with a shoebox and a page of film! But without a thought, or a creative idea there will be no photograph.

But having said that, right now my digital photography equipment in the bag consists of a couple of digital SLR bodies, a digital point & shoot, several filters and lenses, 2 tripods, a waterproof camera bag, several compact flash cards, an infrared remote control, a cable release for long shutter exposures, a flashlight, a few handmade odds and ends.

In the studio – my digital darkroom – my photography equipment is a computer, a portable DVD burner, lots of software and a slide scanner.

Here’s the detailed list of my digital photography equipment. The full details and why I have this equipment are coming soon.

Nikon d70 kit

Nikon D2X (yes!)

Olympus 5050 Zoom

CAMERA LENSES

Nikkor DX 18-70 f 3.5-4.5 ED

Sigma 70-300 f5-5.6 APO macro super

Nikkor AF DX 10.5 mm f2.8 ED fisheye

Sigma 105 mm macro

Lensbaby

CAMERA FILTERS

Cokin P153 Neutral Density

Cokin P121 Gradual Neutral Density

Cokin P700 (equivalent to Wratten 89B infrared)

Cokin P 173 Blue to yellow polarizer

Hoya Circular Polarizer

Hoya 1B (skylight) filters for all lenses (except the fisheye, which has a rear slot for filters)

OTHER STUFF in MY CAMERA BAG

A home made sun reflector from some copper foil and duct tape

Mini Mag lite

2 Nikon EN-EL3 batteries for the D70

2 Nikon EN-EL4 batteries for the D2X

2 1 GB Lexar CF cards (80x)

1 256 MB Lexar CF card

Lens paper

Lens cleaner

Giottos Rocker Blower

Nikon infrared remote control for the D70.

TRIPODS and stuff

Uniloc Minor tripod and quick release ball head

An ancient Manfrotto tripod with a pan head

2 large beanbags (homemade) for stabilizing my camera when a tripod won’t do, or isn’t available.

And finally…

MY BAG

Crumpler “Company Embarrassment” waterproof camera bag (love the name!)

And if you’re wondering, none of the images on this site or any of my other gallery site were taken with the NIKON D2X (yet)!

In fact, when I made my submission to the Professional Photographers of Canada to become accredited, most of the photographs were made with wither an old Minolta XG7 (film) or the Olympus 5050. Only 3 of the 10 were taken with the Nikon D70 – and all were accepted and I received high marks for every one of them.

Now, I’m not intending to brag about my photography here, but I mention it only to underline the point that it is NOT the digital photography equipment that makes the photographer.

So if you don’t have the latest and greatest gear; or think that your camera is not able to make winning photographs, don’t buy into the marketing hype. And especially don’t let that false insecurity stop you from going out everywhere with your camera and taking shots. Just get out and do it – the more you shoot the better you’ll get. It's really not your digital photography equipment that will make the big difference.

Recommendations on where to get your digital photography equipment.