A Photographers Palette: Gear That I Use

As with any artist, a photographer has their own collection of gear that they use. Instead of canvas’ brushes, paint and water, we use cameras, lenses and lighting to create our art and our canvas’ is the scene in front of our camera.

Photography is so much more than taking photos, if it was that simple everyone would be a photographer taking pictures on their iPhone or Samsung smartphones, because it takes a lot of work, dedication and creativity there are specialty equipment we need to ensure all of our photos are produced our images

Cameras and Lenses

While I don’t have the most expensive, or the latest in camera technology, I have a camera system that has served me well over the years and is one I’ll continue to use for the time being

Canon EOS 77D/Canon EOS 9000D

The Canon EOS 77D was released in 2018, and I also purchased it that years. Over the last 8 years this camera has been my primary camera for all my graduation sessions, parades, speed skating events, community events and even have captured dozens of portraits as well. It’s a great camera; not to basic, but also not to advanced. It’s a nice balance between extra features that a professional grade DSLR should have but also not to many basic features from the basic models (Canon’s Rebel series)

Kit Lens: 18-55mm

I think every modern day photographer started out with this lens, and still may even have it buried in their bag of equipment. It’s a great lens for general photography, travel, some portraits and landscape photography. It’s small size makes it easy to carry in a smaller camera bag (shoulder bag)

Prime Lens: 50mm

My 50mm is a dedicate portrait lens that I use primarily for head shots and couple photos, while it is the smallest of all my lenses, it is the most versatile from close up portraits to nature photography and many more macro images

Telephoto Lens: 75-300mm

My telephoto lens is my most used for portraits, sports, events and much more. This lens can zoom in to capture amazing sports images, has the settings to create beautiful portraits and much more

Cameras and Lenses: Accessories

K&F Concepts Camera backpack

I’ve tried a number of camera backpacks over the past few years, and my new favorite is my K&F Concepts camera backpack. It’s lightweight, easy to carry and ease of access of all my gear from my camera bodies, lenses and all related accessories such as memory cards, extra batteries and much more

K&F CONCEPT 75″ Lightweight Tripod

This lightweight tripod makes shooting events easier with ease of set up to showcase a level filming scenario. This tripod comes with attachments for both my DSLR and my phone so I’m able to film parades, events and so much more

Artman LP-E17 Battery

Any photographer knows, having extra batteries are a must for shooting long events and sporting situations. I learned this in 2018, when my camera battery died mid-way through a competition. Thankfully a parent who was also capturing images lent me a spare battery to finish the competition. I then after bought extra batteries. My batteries are always charged before an event.

PIXEL RC-201/E3 Remote Switch3

While I seldom use it, it’s a nice accessory to have to be able to connect to my camera and shoot without having to be behind it. I may upgrade it to a wireless release

NEEWER TT560 Flash Speedlite

Another one of those items that I seldom use, nice to have when the situations arrives and is needed. This flash creates beautiful lighting for certain scenarios that need it

Home Office

My home office is where I spend most of my time from editing photos, creating blog posts or watching content. While I don’t have a dedicated room in my home, I turned a

Custom built PC

My custom built PC was purchased in 2020, to keep up to the demands of that time. Now 6 years later it’s still running strong and doing everything I need it to do. While it lacks a dedicated graphics card I am currently working on a new PC build (I need to buy everything first) to eventually upgrade my current system. My current system houses an Intel Core i7-6700 processor, 16 GB DDR4 RAM, a 500GB SSD with a 2GB Integrated graphics adapter.

My new future system I plan to have double the RAM (up to 32 GB), a 500 GB SSD for booting and running programs off, along with a 2TB (or more HDD) to store files on. My graphics card would be upgrades to have at least 12 GB of VRAM to run my editing programs flawlessly. It would be powered by an AMD Ryzen 7 edition processor, and a Wi-Fi enabled motherboard. Finally I would upgrade my monitor to create the best editing experience. This is a work in progress as I’m purchasing parts separately and keeping them in storage until I have the entire set up to make it more affordable over time compared to paying for an entire set up all at once.

Thinkpad T440

My Lenovo ThinkPad T440 is a great laptop and has served well, it will also eventually be replaced as time goes on. It has been a great to use for video editing, photo editing and other uses on the road.

Desk Area

My office desk is a Shawburn Desk from Ashley Furniture, it’s a spacious desk with plenty of space to do all my work and has 3 deep drawers for storage of business essentials from notebooks to a drawer for awards and plaques

Executive office chair

Having a proper office chair is essential when you’re spending countless hours sitting and working, I got my office chair off of Amazon and it has been a great asset to my office space