I wanted to take this time to talk a little about my camera equipment and software that I stick to when photographing but not first without acknowledging some sage words from Ernst Hass in that “the camera doesn’t make a bit of difference. All of them can record what you are seeing. But,
you have to see.”
The Gear
I own two cameras – a primary and a secondary. The secondary is an outmoded 4MP (Canon A80) point-and-shoot camera which marked my inception to the digital world. It’s compact and versatile enough to justify keeping it around. Whether I have intentions to use it or not, this camera remains in my glove compartment at all times for those unexpected moments. Michael Kenna believes”nothing is ever the same twice because everything is always gone forever,” and as a photographer, a chance to capture a moment is something you encounter and turn into an opportunity. This handy camera does what it’s referred to as: it points and shoots.
Having recently upgraded, the Nikon D90 now serves as my primary camera. In terms of price, technical attributes and capabilities, the D90 is up there. There’s new aspects of it that I learn each day through experimentation and it’s the type of camera that requires for you to learn it backwards and forward in order to develop control and confidence in the equipment. Among one of its many coveted qualities is it’s ability to capture beautiful 720p HD video which is suffice to get you back interested in shooting video in case you ever lost appeal for it.
My constant companion is a Nikkor 50mm – shooting mainly in Aperture Priority Mode because it offers me more creative control on how the images look - specifically over depth of field. The 18-105mm that came with the D90 kit I use sporadically and hope to one day get my hands on the Nikkor 20mm to replace it.
Other camera accessory includes a Multi-Power Battery Pack which takes away having to worry about battery drain. Also, the vertical grip and extra shutter button adds versatility to the shooting experience.
The Software
For photo management software I use Lightroom and have been for the past 2 years. It’s an exceptional image editing and processing application. Lightroom 2.0 integrates seamlessly into PhotoShop CS4, which eliminates having to pass images over by exporting as TIFF or PSD files.
I started off with iPhoto which did a great job with image handling but it was Lightroom’s internal catalog which corresponds directly to the Finder’s folder/file structure that made me a user. You can edit the name of a file, move it elsewhere and all within Lightroom. That plus much more sophisticated development tools is what makes this software rewarding for me.
Despite all this, I still hold strongly to the views of Edward Weston when approaching the craft I have grown to love:
The photographer’s most important and likewise most difficult task is not learning to manage his camera, or to develop, or to print. It is learning to see photographically – that is, learning to see his subject matter in terms of the capacities of his tools and processes, so that he can instantaneously translate the elements and values in a scene before him into the photograph he wants to make.
