The first page is full of the camera equipment that I would recommend for YOU. You being the mom who wants to take fabulous pictures of their family, may or may not have lots of money to spend on camera equipment, but either way really doesn’t need the top of the top of the line professional gear. You just need something great to take great, creative pictures on manual (or auto now and then while you’re learning). Right?  :)  Well, this this page is for you (hobbyist, mom, dad, person who loves photography)! Check it out. And yes, all of my recommendations are all Canon gear. My reason for that is…Canon is what I use and love and so that’s what I know best and can best recommend. :)

So check out the equipment link on the top bar of this blog or click on the hobbyist page here.

And if you’re intending on pursuing photography at a higher level, either making a profession of it, or you’re just a really intense person who likes to do everything the best ever then you may want some of the professional grade camera equipment. I have the equipment that I personally own and use on my camera bag page. Though there is much more in the way of professional equipment this may be a start for you to see what I prefer to use.

What’s in it? What equipment do I prefer to use? I’ve been asked this quite a bit lately. I’ve also been asked a lot of “what do you recommend that I buy in this area or that area?” So, I’m doing some work to answer your questions on these goodies and my goal is to make it SUPER easy for you to find some fabulous camera equipment that fits your particular needs and kind of fits your budget. I say kind of fits your budget because really, come on, camera equipment isn’t real cheap. Good camera equipment costs some moolah. BUT…how can you resist? Amazing memories of the people you love in your life? Totally worth it. Right?  :)

First, for this blog post, I’m focusing on what’s in my camera bag. Of course that’s the easiest for me to answer since it’s right there and since I love it all and I chose it all. So here it is.

My camera bodies. Love them. Not as much as my family or my friends…but on certain days they can make me quite happy. I’m a Canon girl. All my gear is Canon. It’s just great stuff. Period. So my camera bodies are Canon’s 5D Mark II. They’re really good at having clean high ISO capabilities. They’re fast. They’ve got great color. They’re fabulous!

My second favorite item would have to be Canon’s 50mm 1.2L Lens. I use it all the time for the kind of photography I do. It’s great paired with my full frame camera. I love the color, the 1.2 amazing bokeh (though I hardly am shooting open quite that wide), the sharpness. Fantastic high quality glass! Love it. It’s a prime lens so of course my feet are my zoom as it’s at a fixed distance.

All of the rest of the details of my camera bag are written out to help you on my new equipment page! Click on over! I’d love to show you my new page. I wrote so much more all about my other lenses and accessories:

My 85mm 1.2, my 35mm 1.4, flashes, camera bags, memory cards…oh my!! :)

This picture below is off of Picky Sticky’s website…

Why a 50mm?

• On a full frame camera (like my 5D mark II) a 50mm lens is similar to what your eye sees. It’s not more zoomed in or out. If your camera isn’t full frame (like a canon rebel) then the 50mm will be a tad more zoomed in than what your eye naturally sees.
• The 50mm is a very practical focal length. Can be used on kids, families, regular life stuff. Not the best for zooming in from the bleachers on tball games (because it doesn’t zoom), but for the rest, it’s great.
• Any of these 50mm lenses allow you to learn manual settings on your camera without limiting you. Suddenly you can shoot much better in low light settings. Suddenly you can get that blurry background, shallow depth of field look that you’ve always wanted. Where as, the difference is, with your kit lenses (which usually only open up to the aperture of f4) you’re very limited in learning about aperture and what it can do for you.
• It’s what I learned on and what was recommended to me early on.
• It’s relatively cheap for a good lens. (at least the 50mm 1.8 is)

There are a few differences in the 50mm lenses:

Canon 50mm 1.8 is about $125

I used to own this lens, great lens for a very low cost, allows a wide open aperture, fantastic to learn on because you are not limited in your manual functions, lightweight, made of plastic but still great.

Canon 50mm 1.4 is about $450

I haven’t actually used this lens, seems similar to the 50mm 1.8, so I would probably recommend the 1.8 since it’s cheaper unless I had tried this and noticed a big difference.

Canon 50mm 1.2L is about $1500

I own this lens and I love it! Professional lens, fabulous color, sharp images, heavy duty high quality construction.

Does this lens zoom in and out?
No. It is a prime lens, a fixed length. Your zoom is your feet. I think you get more for your money with prime lenses and that’s why I use them. That and they’re fabulous!

What if I use Nikon or another camera other than canon?
There are 50mm lenses out there by other manufacturers as well. Check out Nikon 50mm lenses on B&H Photo. I know canon equipment and so I feel I’m able to recommend what I know. I have noticed that Nikon has a different focusing system so you’ll have to check that out to make sure you can use auto focus.

Question: “If you were going to by some camera equipment, what would you buy first? What’s most important to you to purchase?”

Answer: Assuming you have a good camera body, I would buy these things, in this order:

1. Canon’s 50mm 1.8 lens (or nikon, etc, but research to make sure it’s the right one) – approx $100 and well worth the moolah.
2. A second memory card. I don’t think it’s smart to only have one memory card. Life isn’t always perfectly planned ahead and memory cards are not cleared off and ready to go…realistically. (8 GB from costco is great)
3. A second camera battery. I also don’t think it’s smart to have only one camera battery. Again, life (especially if you’re a busy mom like me) isn’t always prepared and perfectly ready to go.
4. A UV lens filter, to protect your lens. It’s not to distort or make your images funky. It’s simply to protect your lens in case your camera is dropped or your lens gets scratched. ($20ish from amazon.com)
5. A custom white balance target. It usually runs about $40 and perfects the color tones of your image.

And… because every blog post is SO much better with a picture. Here’s a picture, just one cause I don’t have time for more, from today. This is Hailey, our little morning model. She took modeling really quite serious. :)

(picture from www.modismodern.com, not by me)

Well… did you know that you could rent lenses and camera bodies at stores and online? Yep, I agree pretty cool. Why not play around with a new toy before purchasing or have some fun and just be tempted to make a new purchase. Yes! Well, if you’re in the Fresno/Clovis, California area I would recommend checking out Horn Photo’s rentals first. They’re the most affordable and quite fabulous.  If you go into their shop you can look around at all your rental options and select a lens for the day or for the weekend. Don’t quote me because it’s possible that their prices have changed…but when I last rented a lens from them they were quite affordable in my opinion ($20-$50 for a day and $45 to $75 for a weekend). You should check ‘em out.

If you’re not in California or the central valley then you can check out an online option. www.LensProToGo.com is pretty fantastic as well. Check them out. They’ll ship you the lens and give you the goods to ship it back to them when your time is up. Sounds pretty great to me! :)

Here’s a pic of my two sweet little boys taken with my Canon 5D Mark II camera body and my 50mm 1.2L lens. I’ll post the manual settings right under the image. Check it out.

Settings:
ISO: 2000
Aperture: 2.8
Shutter Speed: 1/160 sec

Update: See the current list on my equipment page.

Canon 5D Mark II camera body (my main fabulous camera)
Canon 5D camera body (my back up fabulous camera)
Canon 50mm 1.2L lens (by far my favorite)
70-200mm 2.8L IS lens
85mm 1.8 lens
a couple of 580 ex II flashes
pocket wizards
a white balance target
many memory cards and extras of everything
batteries and such