My Camera Gear

As a cam­era geek (within lim­its), I some­times can spend extended peri­ods of time brows­ing the B&H Photo Video online cat­a­log, read­ing reviews, drool­ing over some of the REALLY high-end lenses, and think­ing about what cam­era body/lens I might get next.  And I often get ques­tions about what gear I do have, both for the office and for home, as well as what the ques­tioner should get next.  There­fore, I’ll pro­vide a brief list of the cam­era gear that I cur­rently use, and what I may be chang­ing or adding soon.

My Den­tal Office Cam­eras, Lenses, and Flashes

At work, I still use 2 Canon XTi bod­ies, as I like to use them until they die, as they still take excel­lent pho­tos.  I do plan on upgrad­ing to new Canon T3i’s, prob­a­bly some­time in the sum­mer of 2011.

I use the Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens on one, and the Canon 60mm f/2.8 macro lens on the other:

And of course I use the Canon MR-14EX ring flash:

At-Home Pho­tog­ra­phy Gear

Given the over­all qual­ity and afford­abil­ity of DSLRs as of 2011, just about any­one can get a good DSLR, and quite frankly, ANY cur­rent or recent DSLR will pro­vide excel­lent dig­i­tal pho­tos.  I went from the orig­i­nal Canon EOS Dig­i­tal Rebel for both home and work, then got a Canon 30D when I wanted a ded­i­cated per­sonal cam­era, and for Christ­mas 2009, I upgraded to a Canon 7D, which is what I cur­rently use for every­thing per­sonal, as well as for office por­trait sessions.

My very favorite lens is the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L zoom tele­photo.  Crys­tal clear images, very fast lens (the fixed f/2.8 is won­der­ful for por­trait bokeh and for low-light shoot­ing, espe­cially indoors when flash is a bad idea), fast and quiet focus­ing.  I am debat­ing whether or not to upgrade to the new Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L IS II zoom tele­photo; it’s a lot more expen­sive, but it has the added advan­tage of Canon’s newest iter­a­tion of its superb Image Sta­bi­liza­tion

My sec­ond favorite lens, for sim­i­lar rea­sons, is the Canon 17-55mm f/2.8 zoom tele­photo. This is a great lens for indoors when shoot­ing the fam­ily — espe­cially for when peo­ple are pretty close and you don’t want to acci­den­tally cut off their heads.

I do use my old Canon 430EX Speedlite a LOT.  The cur­rent ver­sion is the Canon 430EX II Speedlite, and I may just upgrade to it later this year, too, but since the old one works quite well, why change?  If I upgrade, it will prob­a­bly be to the Canon 580EX Speedlite.