Camera Gear

Currently we use almost 100% Canon equiment. I now shoot almost exclusively with a Canon 40D and occasionally with my 5D when I want/need a full frame camera. I love the 40D because of it's speed and also think that having the smaller frame with effective 1.6X crop factor is a big plus for telephoto work which is mostly what I am doing these days. For lenses, for the most part I like using the Canon 300mm f/2.8L IS USM lens with a 2x extender giving me 600mm effective lens. Add on the 1.6x crop and you have nearly the effect of a 1000mm lens and I can hand hold it (albeit it's a tad heavy).

We have a wide variety of lenses including many macros, wide-angle lenses and zoom and telephoto's. My equipment includes:

EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM
EF 17-40mm f/4L USM Ultra-Wide Zoom Lens
EF-S 17-85MM f4-5.6 IS USM
EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 USM
EF 24-105mm f/4 IS USM
EF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5 II USM
EF 55-200mm f/4.5-5.6 II USM
EF-S 55-250 f/4-5.6 IS USM
EF 70-200 f/2.8L IS USM
EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 IS USM
EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III
EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L IS USM
EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM
Extender EF 1.4x II
Extender EF 2.0x II
EF 50mm f/2.5 Compact Macro
EF-S 60mm f/2.8 USM Macro
MP-E 65mm f/2.8 1-5x Macro (magnifier)
EF 100mm f/2.8 Macro USM
EF 180mm f/3.5L Macro USM

Speedlite 420EX

Speedlite 550EX

Speedlite 580EX II

Macro Twin Lite MT-24EX

Sigma 50-500mm F4-6.3

Sigma APO 80-400mm F4.5-5.6

My three favorite lenses are of course the 300mm F/2.8 but I also love the Canon EF 100-400 super telephoto zoom and the Canon 17mm-40mm wide angle, my best all-purpose lens for herp photography where I can get much closer to the action is the EF-S 17-85mm.

On my "want list" are the f/2.8 400mm and f/4.0 600mm lens... I'll probably also eventually migrate up to the Canon Mark III or similar body but right now I just don't see much advantage to it for what I do.

I use a wide variety of software for photo processing, I try to make DVD slide shows of extensive trips, mostly for my own edification but we occassionally bore our friends and relatives with a DVD or CD as well. Software includes:

Adobe Photoshop

Paintshop Pro 11

Easy DVD creator

And a variety of other untilities and editing tools.

Last updated: 05-28-2008