Equipment - Updated March 10, 2007
Canon D30, upgraded February 2003 to Canon 1D . Sold the 1D and upgraded again to the Canon 1D MK II July 2004 - 8 mpx!
Canon A75 a small 3 mpx point and shoot to always have in my bag. December 2005, upgraded to the Sony DSC-R1. This 11 mpx camera has the same size sensor as most of the digital SLRs which means that the noise performance is similar. Where the Cannon was useable up to ISO 100, the Sony is fine up to 800 and with noise reduction post processing can be pushed to ISO 3200. It is the first camera with that size sensor to have a live histogram display in either the Electronic Viewfinder (which accurately shows what is being framed as opposed to the Canon's optical view finder which was only a very rough approximation of what was being captured) or the LCD screen, which seems more useable in bright light than the Canon . March 07 - I have to say that a year later, I still think the R1 is a great camera. It's not small, but the quality and articulated LCD screen makes it great for unobtrusive street photography.
Canon 28-135mm IS, upgraded January 2003 to the Canon 24-70L 2.8 and 70-200L 2.8 IS
Canon 50mm 1.4
Canon 100-400 IS L March 07 - over the life of this lens, it's been into the Canon repair shop twice. If there was an alternative - same range, and IS I'd go for it...
Sigma 14mm
Sigma 17-35mm, upgraded January 2003 to the Canon 16-35L
Arsat 80mm Tilt/Shift
December 2005- Canon 24-105mm f 4.0 IS L. Much lighter than the 24-70 2.8 L and includes image stabilization. This will be my standard lens.
Canon 1.4 and 2II teleconverters
Singh Ray Vari ND I shoot a lot of waterfalls and this will make the exposure brackets a lot easier by being able to keep the same f stop and shutter speed for all shots - just turn the filter to make it progressively darker and darker (ie reduce the over exposed areas with each shot).
550ex flash
March 07 - In June, prior to the Toronto Molson Indy I bit the bullet and got the Canon 300mm 2.8 IS. The 2.8 is important since it will take a stacked 1.4 and 2x tc for an effective focal length on the 1DII (1.3 conversion) of 1092mm - and still have auto focus (centre point only). The is great for zoo shots, but don't really use it that often - big and heavy.
Lens Baby v3 I go blind trying to compose using this gimmick. Here is an example of what it does.
2 IBM 1 GIG Microdrives. June 2003, one of the 1GB Microdrives bites the dust. Relpaced with a 512 solid state Lexar. Holds about 90 shots on the 1D but a bit slower than the Microdrive. Subsequently added a Hitachi 2 gig drive and a 512 SD card for slot #2 in the 1D MkII - so 4 gig altogether now. Now have 1GB Microdrive, 2GB Hatachi MD, and a 2GB Kingston solid state MD. The 512 Lexar is in the Sony. Update: March 07 - lots of miscellaneous cards now, up to 4 gig - including SD since the Canon 1DII holds 1 CF and 1 SD at the same time. During my Pennsylvania trip (fortunately on the last day) I couldn't download the 4 gig card to the Hyperdrive. Worked fine at home into the PC, but highlights the needs for redundancy in the field.
Started with a Manfrotto 190D for travel and the larger Manfrotto 055. In December 2002 upgraded to the Gitzo 1228 carbon fibre tripod which collapses to to the size of the 190 but has the extended size and stability close to that of the 055. Novoflex Magic Ball and Acratech Ultimate Ball Head. with Kirk QR plates. "L" mounting bracket from Kirk - just rotate the camera on the tripod without flopping the head over to get portrait shots. Panorama mount; this allows you to rotate the camera around the entrance pupil to the lens whch elimates the parallax which makes stitching the shots difficult. February 2005 switched to the Markins M10. This has an excellent tension adjustment (which the Acratech did not) and less creep. Not significantly heavier than the Acratech. Update: March 07 - got a leveling base from Acratech; and Pano rail from Kirk. The leveling base and rail allow you to stitch panoramic shots by making sure the camera is level as it pans, and that the lens entrance pupil is over the point of rotation, which eliminates the parallax distortion.
PhotoShop 7.0, Breeze Browser. Upgraded Oct 2003 to Photoshop CS and it's raw conversion engine. Also Neat Image plug in for great noise removal. Makes 1600 (and 3200) ISO images useable. My album generator is JAlbum , the only problem is that with the new PS CS the "metadata" ie EXIF is now stored in something called XMA format, which JAlbum can't read. As a result the shutter speed, f stop, ISO no longer automatically populate the html pages. July 2004 - J Album works fine now.
Now Photoshop CS2 and Raw Shooter Premium from Pixmantec for Raw conversion. Very efficient workflow and a somewhat sharper conversion than with Photoshop's ACR or Phase One's C1 light. Also Focus Magic for capture sharpening. I like Focus Magic since it objectively tells you how much sharpening is appropriate. With the "L" lenses I routinely get a 1 or 2 Pixel sharpen, and with the Canon P&S it would be 3 or 4 and the Sony 2 to 4. If it's any more than 4 or 5 I don't bother with the shot. March 07 - RSP was bought by Adobe and now they've released Lightroom - a great Raw converter and image manager.
July 2004 - another very interesting piece of software is CombineZ This lets you stack multiple copies of the same image shot with varying focus points to give you unlimited depth of field. March 07 - Combine ZM is the new version and was a bit buggy so bought a copy of Helicon Focus which works quite well. Several of the shots in the Feb 07 Flower Gallery used this.
for monitor calibration and custom profiles for the Epson 1270 printer using Heavy Weight Matte Paper. Upgraded in July 2004 to the Epson 4000. Prints 17 inches wide by as long as you want in roll paper - largest cut sheet is 17x24; Used the same ink cartridges as the other wide carriage Epson's - either 110 or 220 ml, compared to 17ml per color in the 1270. The Epson is experiencing lots of clogs, even during the high humidity Toronto summer. I just downloaded their latest control software (Dec 2005) and will see if that helps. It can cost up to $20 or $30 in ink to clear a bad clog. March 07, actually $20 or $30 understates the magnitude. A power cleaning (which I've fortunately had to do only once) costs about $60. The Epson is really a clog monster - when HP comes out with their 17" version of their new model (24" now) and it fits in my space, I'll consider it. Just did some printing on Epson Velvet Fine Art - very nice paper, but a bit pricey.Nixvue portable Hard Drive with 30 gig storage. April 2003, the HD bites the dust, upgraded to another Nixvue (this one at least has an LCD display - transfer status, not image view) with a 20 gig hard-drive. 20 Gig is probably false economy and I should have gone with 30. On my December 04 USA trip I started to shoot RAW and then realized that 20 gig wouldn't be nearly enough storage so switched to JPG. Unfortunately I was using JPG in Antelope Canyon (see previous link) which seriously impacted my ability to post process. So I need to go back :)
March 07 Hyperdrive HD80 with 100gig hard drive. Very fast, and great battery life.
November 2004 Samsung 193P monitor. Don't really like the software embedded controls for gamma, brightness and contrast. I've had to add another program, Quick Gamma to reset the gamma each time I boot up.
Coming Up:
March 07 - Canon announced the successor to the 1DII in February - the 1DIII - 10 MPX, higher useable ISO, anti dust screen, live preview, 14 bit (up from 12) and 10 frames per second (up from 8). But 10mpx isn't quite enough for max quality when I print 17x25, so I'm waiting to see what the 1DsIII will look like - unfortunately this won't be announced till the late fall, but likely will have 22 mpx. I'll have to rethink my trip storage again. I will also likely have to re-evaluate my wide lenses. The Sigma 14mm performs adequately (barely) on a 1.3 crop camera, but isn't acceptable on a full frame, and the 16-35 although "L" is mediocre as well. Canon has announced a 16-35 v2 so we'll see if that solves the problem.
Photoshop CS3 will ship in a couple of months - in public beta now. When that ships I'll get a new PC - with 64bit Vista Dual Core etc. etc. and a better HD back up configuration - 100 gig internal application drive, 300 internal SATA for file storage and a 300 external SATA for backup. When the internal drive gets full, just get 2 more external SATAs - make a second back up, erase the internal drive, and plug in a new SATA for new backup. I'll also upgrade my monitor to the new NEC 26" LCD widescreen monitor.
