Inside Out: My Gear of Choice

During a recent Mentor Series trek, a participant asked me to blog on items that contribute to my workflow, both in the field and digital darkroom. His comment was that this would be a time and money saver for enthusiast level photographers who are constantly in search of “best” solutions. I couldn’t fault his logic but do make this disclaimer up front: What works for me may not necessarily work for you.

Cameras, Lenses, Support, Accessories, Hardware, Software

Cameras I own:  Nikon D3s, Nikon D300, Nikon D7000

Camera I’m currently shooting the most: Nikon D7000

This came as a complete surprise to me because the D3s had been IMHO one of the greatest cameras ever made. But the reality is that the sensor in the D7000 was as good as the D3s at low ISO and the increased resolution of the additional megapixels (16 vs 12) just couldn’t be ignored. Of course for high ISO or high speed capture the D3s trumped the D7000, but for still life and travel the small form factor and several new functional control imporvements make the D7000 a real winner. And the price point for this is simply incredible. Of course as I write this there is a Nikon press release about a week away that may change everything, but that’s to be expected.

Nikon lenses I recommend for any serious shooter: 10.5 f 2.8 (DX) fisheye, 14-24 f2.8, 24-70 f2.8, 70-200 f2.8 VR, 50 f 1.4, 18-200 (DX) or 28-300, 200-400 f 4, 60 f 2.8 micro OR 105 f 2.8 AF-S VR micro, 300 f2.8, Teleconverters TC-14E II / TC-17E II / TC-20E III

Lens I’m currently shooting the most: 28-300

Unless I’m shooting critical images (of a superlative subject) I find that the 28-300 is a surprisingly good compromise of productive focal range, quality, and portability. As a 42-450 on my D7000 I think it rocks. If I toss in something really wide with two lenses I can cover a lot of bases. When I go to Kenya next month on photo safari I’ll be renting a 500 f 4 to shoot along side my 200-400 and 70-200. I think renting long exotic glass is the smartest solution for almost anyone who is not a nature or sports professional. A frequent question I get is, “If you had to travel with a single camera and lens…?” The answer today would be the D7000 and either 18-200 or 28-300 depending on weight and your preference for wide angle coverage vs extra telephoto.

Support

I own about 5 tripods because there is nothing like having the right size when you need it, and nothing as bad as trying to use the wrong size when it’s all you’ve got. I think most people should initially invest in a good set of lightweight travel legs (if you’re not spending at least $250 on just legs you’re buying flimsy crap) and buy a high quality ball head appropriate for the legs. For me this means a BH-40 from Really Right Stuff coupled with quick release plates and/or L brackets. Sharp images come from high shutter speeds, impeccable hand held technique, or a good tripod system. More often than not the first two alternatives are tough to come by. A quality tripod and ball head make controlled capture a joy. An economy support solution will just frustrate you and in the long run cost more money as you eventually upgrade to what you should have bought the first time around.

Accessories

Nikon teleconverters are really good investments. All three I’ve listed are good with certain qualifications. For example, the TC14E II works beautifully on the 200-400 lens. The TC17E II does not. OTOH the TC17E II works beautifully on the 70-200 f 2.8 VR. In the past the TC20E II was bad and could not be recommended. The new TC20E III is superb and truly can give outstanding results.

Hoodman Pro 3″ Loupe

When I’m shooting Nikon Coolpix assignments, I’ve found a good loupe to be invaluable in the field. When you don’t have an optical viewfinder, the Hoodman loupe turns the LCD into a thing of beauty even in bright sunlight. I use some elastic straps to literally hold in on the compact camera body as I’m shooting. Owning one gives you the added bonus of using it on your DSLR to evaluate the LCD after capture. I’m now a believer.

NRD Firefly

When it comes to getting dust out of a DSLR body, nothing I’ve ever used comes close to the results from the Firefly. In my experience it has made solutions/swabs and sensor brushes obsolete. I haven’t used anything except the ion charged airstream this device produces in almost three years. It’s travel friendly and can be used to get stubborn dust off filters and nooks and crannies of camera bodies too.

SanDisk CF and SD cards

As memory prices have dropped and quality / reliability has soared, I’ve moved to larger and faster cards. Since learning of SanDisk’s key role in the storage industry, I’ve moved to their products and never looked back. I pay the premium for large and fast cards not simply for improved writing speed and space at capture, but for the ease of download when you can just plug in one card and walk away or go to sleep! Money well spent.

Spiderholster Pro and Black Widow

I HATE camera straps. I’ve tried many and while they have improved over the years (such as the Black Rapid line), they still leave weight around the neck or on a shoulder. Enter Spiderholster. I can’t tell you how much I enjoy using this product. It is a well made system for carrying cameras on your waist, suspended from a belt. When you want the camera it’s available instantly without ANY strap attached. Love it! The Pro version supports big, heavy equipment while the Black Widow does the same with compact cameras and lighter weight DSLRs. The waist belt market niche includes other competitors, but I much prefer the Spiderholster design.

Macbook Air

The Macbook Air equipped with SSD (solid state drive) is the greatest laptop I’ve ever used. Boots in less than 20 seconds. Loading programs from the SSD… blazingly fast. Lack of a CD/DVD drive… no biggie. Portability when traveling… FANTASTIC! 4 gigs of ram and everything photographic runs to beat the band.

Camera / lens case for field work: LowePro Inverse 100 / 200

Use any back pack you want to get where you’re going. But when you get there do you really want to always lug around 20, 30, or 40 lbs of gear? Not me. If I’m out to shoot I wear my camera in the Spiderholster so I don’t need a big bag to hold camera and lenses. I choose the LowePro Inversee because as a waist bag it keeps weight off my shoulders and becomes a perfect lens and minor accessory case that I can’t overload. When I carry the 200 (the larger version) I can put in lenses and a rain shell, and slip cable release and granola bar in the outside pockets. It works for me and my neck and shoulders are still happy at the end of the day. This is my go to combination for traveling light.

Photo Software

Adobe Lightroom

While I’m a Lightroom user I dn not discriminate against Aperture users. Both are good programs and essentially serve the same purpose: Storage of your digital files and essential tools for non-destructive editing. I find Lightroom to be a simpler program to learn and use. Apple has designed a fine product which actually has some bells and whistles superior to Lightroom in the curren tversion (v3) but I still favor Lightroom’s design and results. In my mind every photographer should be using one of these two products as their basic processing environment.

Adobe Photoshop CS5

Gold standards in an industry become labeled as such for a reason. CS5 delivers the goods. Yes, there is a lot of horsepower under the hood. But a lot of high performance cars are sold to people who rarely push the car to it’s limits. With CS5 you can drive calmly too, but know that power features are waiting at your beck and call. Sure Elements can deliver a lot for less money, but I rarely hear enthusiast photographers saying, “Isn’t Elements great?” My recommendation? When you’re ready for more than Lightroom have a college age student in the family (or in the family next door) buy you Photoshop at the educational price and you won’t look back.

Nikon Capture NX2

Like Photoshop, Capture NX2 is a more traditional image editing tool. But Capture NX2 is anything but a traditional editing tool. It’s design is unique and some of the features are downright great (it may or may not come as a surprise to learn that the program was written for Nikon by Nik Software). Color control point technology is awesome. Native development of proprietary information within NIkon raw files (NEF) is also a very positive feature. What does this mean? Simply that there is data within the NEF file that Adobe products can’t see or use, and so the advantage of that special data is lost. NX2 can use the data and often the resulting boost in quality is distinct. It is absolutely worth your time to explore NX2 with the trial version. If you’re the analytical type look closely at files developed in parallel with NX2 and Lightroom or CS5. You may be surprised. I think it is a very worthwhile tool to have in your digital toolbox.

Nik Software

I’m a big fan of Nik products. I own Color Efex Pro 3, Dfine, Silver Efex Pro, and Sharpener Pro. The new HDR Efex Pro is also worth considering.

OnOne Software

OnOne has built a stable of useful plugins marketed as a suite. Included are Perfect Resize (formerly Genuine Fractals) for high quality interpolation of image size, PhotoFrame for digital framing effects, FocalPoint which simulates restricted depth of field, and more. Whether you go whole hog and get the suite or pick a couple of single plugins there are some useful ones here. (For example, Perfect Resize is my default tool of choice when I need to enlarge files for bigger prints).

Topaz Labs

Like OnOne, Topaz Labs offers a suite of tools. While I don’t use them all, I have found Topaz Remask to be the best automated masking tool I’ve found. I also have seen good results with Topaz In Focus, a sharpening tool. In this same vein Topaz Detail may be worth a look.

Photomatix Pro HDR Software

There are a number of HDR (High Dynamic Range) products available these days, including an HDR feature within Photoshop. This said, my preference for HDR work is Photomatix. As always I encourage you to download trial versions of competing products and compare results. When it comes to HDR, “different strokes for different folks” never rang truer.

Holy cow! My word counter just snuck past 1650 which is the beginning of a novel, not a blog post. If you’ve gotten this far and ordered everything you are now bankrupt. Sorry. Test, test, test and then buy a little at a time. Slowly you will master particular tools and your workflow of preference will emerge along with higher quality results.

Mark Alberhasky is a Nikon Mentor for the Mentor Series Worldwide Photo Treks.

Join him as he travels and share his enthusiasm for photography and learning.