Gear

Let me be the first to admit it. I’m a complete gearhead.

Yes, I know. It’s not the gear that composes and exposes the shot, but frankly being limited by crap gear is a total pain in the ass. So even though I don’t have that much cash, with a bit of budgeting I’ve managed to get myself a pretty good lineup of toys, all of which I’m extremely proud of.

Bodies

• Canon EOS 350D
  My first SLR body. Has about 15,000 actuations and pretty much every photo on this site so far was taken using it. It’s now being used as a second ultra-wide-angle body.
• Canon EOS 40D
  The most recent purchase to date, it’s simply awesome. Very good AF in AI Servo mode (which tracks bodies as they move around the focus area) and centre-point AF is second to none. Definitely my main body – the 350D feels like a bit of a toy in comparison really.

Current Lenses

• Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
  Seriously UWA lens, equivalent to a 16-35mm on full-frame. I did doubt whether I’d use this much as it’s a bit of a niche lens, but it gets pulled out of the bag almost every shoot and produces cracking pictures. As has been said, if it wasn’t for the EF-S, this thing has the build quality and optics to match an L-series lens.
• Canon EF-S 18-55mm f/4-5.6
  Original kit lens that came with the camera. Build quality plain out sucks, and it’s not great optically when wide open, but perfectly acceptable when stopped down to f/8 or so. The close focusing distance also makes it good as a cheap macro lens, especially when used with a magnifying filter. Most of the initial shots here were taken with it, and for the ultra-low price it isn’t a bad lens.
• Canon EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM
  General purpose lens that covers a very useful focal distance. Bought it in August to replace my kit lens after getting the L-fever and didn’t look back. The one downside is that it’s quite narrow on my 1.6 crop bodies, but apart from that the range is useful, and both the image stabilizer, optical/build quality and saturation are superb. Also has mind-blowingly fast AF. At the time it was a toss-up between the 24-70 f/2.8, but the cheaper price and cashback swayed me in the end.
• Sigma 30mm f/1.4 DC EX HSM

  Cheap and very fast prime lens that I bought for the trip to NYC. Very, very sharp and for the price, an excellent lens – I got some great photos with it that will be posted eventually, I guess. Build quality is awesome, and you can really tell it has some glass in there by the weight of the thing compared to its size. Unfortunately it’s DC, meaning it can’t be used on the full-frame cameras (their equivalent to the EF-S mount). 

• Canon EF 200mm f/2.8L II

• Fantastic lens for the price. Very sharp photos, even wide open, and very fast AF. I’ve shot a couple of low-light events using this and it’s produced a very good lot of keepers with the 40D. Unfortunately a bit too long for portrait work on a crop body though.
• Canon EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
  Insanely good telephoto lens. Not cheap, but worth every penny for its usefulness. There’s heaps of photos on here which have been taken using it and the sharpness when stopped down a little (come on, it’s not a prime) is absolutely brilliant. AF is slower than the 24-105 but is still snappy, especially when restricted for proper telephoto work. It has the old first-generation IS which can’t be used on a tripod, but still it’s incredibly useful.

Accessories

• Canon Speedlite 580EX II & 430EX
  Got the 580EX II a while ago, and works great with the previously bought 430EX as a wireless slave, making for some interesting lighting effects. Stroboscopic mode is also pretty cool.
• Manfrotto 055XPROB Tripod
  This was my main gift for Christmas 2007. Very solid, sturdy tripod. The combination of this tripod and the head below is absolutely perfect for my 6′ height. The only downside is that it’s quite heavy, but considering it can be supporting up to £2k worth of gear, heavy is all good by me.
• Manfrotto 488RC2 Ball-head
  To go along with the above tripod, I got the best non-professional ball-head I could find (i.e. not something crazy like a RRS). This is a great head – very smooth action, with a quick but strong locking mechanism. There is a very small amount of creep when the 100-400 is on there, but besides that it’s pretty near perfect.
• Manfrotto 680B Monopod
  I got this mainly because the 100-400 is heavy enough that it can be difficult to hand-hold for a whole day out. Very good build quality and weight considering the relatively cheap price (~£35). Also have the 234RC2 pan-head to go with it which gives me the extra tilting ability I need and is much less pricey than a ball-head.
• Kata R-103 Rucksack and H-14 Holster
  The R-103 is a very versatile, extremely well-built rucksack and I highly recommend it to anybody that needs a backpack. When I found out that Kata also make bullet-proof armour I went right ahead and ordered one. Gets quite heavy, but fits everything on this list plus a laptop and externally-mounted tripod so you’d really expect it to! The H-14 is the ideal companion and accompanies me on all days out. You can fit a crazy amount of stuff in there without it feeling heavy at all.
• SanDisk Extreme III CF Cards (2x2GB & 2x4GB)
  Best made CompactFlash cards by a mile and very quick. Bit more expensive but I just don’t trust the cheap third party ones. Be very careful when buying these on eBay as there are a lot of fakes out there. The best prices by a mile can be found at play.com.

Old Stuff

• Sigma 70-300mm APO DG Macro
  Ah, the old Sigma – my only real photographic regret. When I first got the 350D, I made the same mistake that every new SLR photographer makes: buying a cheap telephoto lens to get some more reach. I knew before I pulled the trigger that it was a mistake, but having looked at the others out there I just couldn’t justify the cost.    

  To be fair, it wasn’t a bad lens considering the focal length and the money, coming with both a hood and case. The build quality was surprisingly good… but that’s about it. Image quality was pretty terrible wide open, which pretty much forced higher ISO when stopped down unless there was a ton of light. But still, a lot of the shots here were taken with it. Now sold and gone to a good home.