gear

gear philosophy

"those are very expensive saucepans, you must be an amazing chef"

I have been a Canon SLR man since the early 90s.  I don't subscribe to the whole 'Nikon vs Canon' debate, both are excellent cameras but I find that, personally, canon's operating style suits me down to the ground and I can't get on with Nikon.  I tend to use zooms most of the time for the versatility and have a couple of lenses that you would have to pry from my dead fingers!  Most of my images are handheld, I'm blessed with naturally steady hands and a firm stance and feel that I've managed to capture some great images over the years because of that.  I'm not averse to using a tripod and am looking to make more use of mine as I strive to further develop my photographic style.

current gear

I currently use an EOS 7D DSLR (and would love to upgrade to a Mark II!).  My main 'walking around lens' is now a Sigma 24-105 f4.0 OS DG Art backed up by the beast that is the Sigma 100-300mm f4 DG which is the most amazing sharp lens (even if it is a bit battered these days!) and both have delivered as many great images as any Canon "L" lens. 

I also tend to travel with a Tokina 12-24mm f4 DX II and love my Sigma 150mm f2.8 DG macro which I sometimes use as a walking around travel lens as it's amazingly sharp. I also have Sigma EX 1.4x and 2x teleconverters and a Sigma 28mm f1.8 prime which, frankly I don't use often enough as it makes lovely images.  I carry this all around in either a kata 3N1-20 or recently a thinktank retrospective 30 and it sits on a Feisol 3402 CF tripod with a Benro KS-1 ballhead.

I always aim to have a camera around so when I can't manage the DSLR I have a battered IXUS 100 and more recently have been using a Panasonic TZ-60 which produces very impressive results and can shoot RAW.

I shoot exclusively in RAW on my DSLR and have used Adobe Lightroom ever since it grew from RawShooterEssentials for both cataloguing and processing, currently using LR 6 and getting to grips with face recognition and panoramic merge!  I use several of jfriedl's  invaluable LR plugins.

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gear history

As I mentioned on my about me page, I started with a Zenit manual SLR when I was 10.  Manual exposure and a hand held lightmeter taught me a lot about the basics from the beginning.  From the start I used slide film.  In my late teens I upgraded to a Minolta X300 with a 28-300 superzoom.  After university I bought my first Canon SLR, an EOS 10 and never looked back, with my first Sigma lens, a 28-300 APO. I used to shoot almost exclusively on Fuji Velvia and that experience has conditioned my approach to post-processing in the digital age.  I have recently acquired an Epson v800 and am slowly digitising 25yrs worth of slides!!  I first went digital in 2004 with an EOS 300D then upgraded shortly after to a 30D once the digital bug had fully caught (at the same time I ditched the kit lens and bought a Sigma 24-70) and re-invigorated my interest in photography which continues to grow to this day. Very recently I have reluctantly retired my 24-70 f2.8 as it had finally started to give up the ghost but early thoughts on its 24-105 OS replacement are fantastic.  I used a kata R-103 for many years and that's an indestructible piece of kit!