Camera Equipment

Most of my images were shot using Canon film or digital SLRs.. My current line up includes the Canon 1Ds Mark III (primarily for landscape) and the Canon 1D Mark II N (primarily for wildlife. Before the 1Ds Mark III I used the original 1Ds, I wrote a short review of that camera.

I realize that a lot of folks get passionate about Nikon vs. Canon. I don't. Both companies make exceptional 35mm camera equipment, and while there are differences, I believe them to be small compared to the overall high level of quality each company exhibits. I bought a Canon EOS SLR long before I was a professional photographer, and I've never had reason to switch. But put an high-end Nikon body and some of Nikon's better glass in my hand, and give me some time to acclimate, and I'm sure I'd be happy as well.

When I know beforehand what I'm going to buy, I'll typically buy camera equipment from Adorama or B&H in New York, both of whom I've had very positive experiences with.

Lenses

Canon 24-70L f/2.8: This is one of the two sharper lenses I own, an amazing accomplishment for a zoom lens. Clear, bright and contrasty, this is the lens that is always on my camera by default.

Canon 70-200L f/4. Light enough to carry around, sharp enough to use with a 1.4x telextender.

Canon 100mm f/4 macro: Very sharp, light, and I like the 100mm focal length for providing room (but not too much room) from my subject.

Canon 16-35 f/2.8L II . When 24mm won't do. I do see a bit of fairly correctable chromatic aberration when I look at this lens closely on cameras with full-frame sensors.

Canon 300mm f/4L IS . Light enough to handhold, sharp as a tack, and an excellent IS system.

Canon 400mm f/5.6L. Longer than the 300, still quite handholdable, but I miss the IS.

Canon 500mm f/4L. Handholdable in theory more than practice, when only the longest will do.

Canon 1.4x Teleconverter II, and 2x Teleconverter II .

Canon 24mm f/3.5L T/S: This is an oddity, a 35mm camera lens with the ability to shift and tilt the way one might do with a large-format view camera. A little tricky to use (it's easy to accidentally shift or tilt yourself to the point where you can see distortion in the corners of the image), and not something that I use everyday, but the ability to shift the plane of focus down, or the ability to improve perspective, are irreplacable when they're necessary. Despite the EOS mount, the lens is manual-focus only.

Tripods, Ballheads and Quick-Release Plates

I currently am using two setups, a lightweight setup using a Gitzo 1127 and an Acratech Ultimate Ballhead. It's very light, and quite usable, and a newer midsized Gitzo with a Really Right Stuff BH-55 ballhead for general use.

For the 500, I use a Gitzo 1538 with a Wimberley Head.

I attach my camera securely but quickly to that ballhead with the use of camera and lens QR plates by Really Right Stuff. These great folks carefully craft metal fittings for your camera that can quickly be attached or released from your ballhead while solidly holding the camera to the bracket, and while providing access to all the controls. Their "L" brackets are particularly recommended.

Filters

Singh-Ray is an excellent provider of filters, particularly neutral-density gradient filters in a variety of densities and gradient styles.

Memory Cards

I'm leargely working with Sandisk Extreme IV cards these days.

Storage

On longer shoots, of course two microdirves doesn't provide enough storage for all the images I'll take. For that reason, I have a Dell Insipiron laptop, on road trips critical images are both kept on the hard disk and copied onto a Hyperdrive Colorspace image storage device.

PARTNERS

Calypso Imaging

Joe and Barbara Levine and the other great folks at Calypso have created a remakrable organization that I'm proud to work with, Calypso provides me LightJet prints, drum scans from slides, and E-6 processing.

Calypso's LightJet services are unmatched, they provide a tight, carefully managed, color-calibrated workflow for LightJet prints, a service so exact that more often than not, the first print I ever make of an image is ready for show or inclusion in a portfolio. I'm unaware of any other service that's both willing and truly capable of providing results of that level of quality to artists who wish to make prints from their own, provided, color-managed files.

I'm also very happy with the drum scan services, as well as E-6 processing.

For these reasons, Calypso boasts an unparalleled list of top-name customers. And yet, the first year I worked with them, as a struggling amateur, they went the extra mile to help me started with digital printing even though it looked like I'd never be a big customer. Later, in 1999, I spent a month in the Eastern Sierra, and despite a complex set of instructions about where to ship things when, we were able to coordinate me getting E-6 processed and returned to me by Federal Express without a hitch or a complaint.

Slides.com

For quick slide duplicates from digital, slides.com provides quick response, can work with digital files uploaded directly, and provides good, saturated color, something I've had difficulty with with other providers of digital slide printing.