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My Photographic Equipment

I love this camera.  It fits just right in my hand, and with the weight of the lenses that is important when I have to get into tight places.  The other thing it does is cleans itself from any dust specks which might have gotten on the lens.  The features are just right for me.  Being able to change out the lenses really helps when I photograph my paintings because I can get some decent light control if I can gain some additional distance and zoom in on the work.  I can even get some decent document shots…which is helpful when trying to to explain something I have seen in a book.

As you can see, when I grab this camera, my thumb can get a good feel for the control panel, yet my left hand can easily access additional controls.  I have small hands so this is really important for kinesthetic me.

With this heavier camera (I sure couldn’t handle it with one hand), it was important for me to use a tripod.  Some tripods are not strong enough to handle the weight of a digital SLR, so if you are choosing be aware of that.  This is the one I use.

The adjustment features on this tripod are quite detailed and I can rely on it’s strength for my needs.  It is the Slik SPRINT PRO Travel Tripod.

Being able to manage these photographs and getting the watermark on them has become very important to me.  I am still in my infancy in learning this software, but I do find it very useful.  Clearly I am not using professional software, however this is suitable for my needs:

Now all of these photos need to be stored and I use my computer mostly for that purpose because it is easy to just access them from there.  I also use an external hard drive as a back up space for my computer photos and important documents.  This is the one I have:

I like this because it is compact and travels with me easily.  It connects through the USB port and is ready to go.  I also have this case for it:

All of this equipment needs to be carried around and gotten through airline security (sometimes a challenge), so I use the following bag for storage and travel:

This bag has enough room for me to get my equipment (the tripod fits under the bag) along with my laptop, all the cables and even room for a few personal items, too.  I find it is well padded and the pads adjust easily to suit my needs.  While it is large, it still fits in the overhead in economy class on most airlines (okay, you might have issues if you fly small regional planes, but it also fits under the seat).  I have to put my tripod in another bag for plane travel, however.

So there you have it.  There are some items I probably need to invest in like an appropriate flash attachment and some studio lights, but for now this gets me some pretty decent photos.   I have a smaller camera I used for years, however the software is not longer available for me to use with the computer I currently have, so maybe a small accessory camera might come in handy sometime, but for now this is more than great for me.

What is your favorite photographic equipment?  Is there something I am missing here?  I have a lot to learn about photography, but that is part of the fun, don’t you think?

Thank you to Amazon and Olympus for the photos used in this piece.