Solitary figure walking snowy pier at sunrise, frozen Lake Michigan, dramatic golden clouds reflected on water

Gear and education

The best money I have ever spent on photography was not gear.

I still geek out over new gear anyway. Both halves of that are on this page.

What I actually carry

Nothing here is a recommendation.

It is what survived a decade of buying the wrong things first, and what actually came on the last few trips.

9
lenses owned
3
that travel
1
on the camera most of the time

What it is for

Pick a job

Three lenses, and none of them is the expensive one.

Session glass. Not one of these has earned a place in a carry-on.

Photographing my own family, which is its own discipline.

Two bodies, four lenses, and light I brought myself.

One lens does all of it.

Owned, and not used enough.

Bodies
Canon R5 Mark II and R6 Mark III
Two bodies out at once. The second one is not a backup, it is the other lens.
Sony a7 V with the 24mm f/2.8 G
One body, one small prime. Nothing else goes on it.
Lenses
Canon RF 10-20mm f/4L
Interiors, and anywhere the street is narrower than the building on it.
Canon RF 24-105mm f/4
About 70% of a trip lives on this lens. If I could only bring one, this is it.
Canon RF 24mm f/1.8
The one that goes on when the bag has to get smaller.
Canon RF 15-35mm f/2.8L
Fast and wide, indoors and close to people.
Canon RF 70-200mm f/2.8L
Compression and separation.
Canon RF 85mm f/1.2L
If a portrait lens can be worth its weight, it is this one. It is still too heavy to travel with.
Canon RF 100-500mm
Sports. That is the whole job.
Canon RF 100mm f/2.8L Macro
I own it. I should use it more than I do.
Light
MagMod modifiers
MagSphere, MagGrid, MagGels and the light stand. Magnetic, and the reason a flash stops looking like a flash.
Profoto A10, A2 and two B10 Plus
Light I brought with me, for rooms that do not have any.
Profoto Clic softbox on a monopole
Held on a pole instead of parked on a stand.
Support
Platypod
Lighter than a tripod, packs flat, allowed in most places a tripod is not.
Falcam TreeRoot with its ball head
What the Platypod cannot do. Light enough to bring, which is the only test that matters.
Really Right Stuff BH-30 with L-plate
Small enough to travel, stiff enough to trust. Vertical without re-levelling anything.
Filters
Haida M10 system, 6 and 10 stop
Long exposures at first light. The 10-stop is what turns a river to glass at six in the morning.
Also carried
iPhone 16 Pro
Some of the frames on this site came off it. The camera you are carrying wins.
Insta360 Luna Ultra and X6
Neither one makes a still photograph better.

Where the learning came from

If I were starting again, the next thousand dollars would not go to a lens.

Gear got me a sharper file. Teaching got me a better picture. If you can only fund one of them this year, fund the one that changes how you see.

Reviews and guides

What I have written down

Long pieces about things I have used for years, not unboxings.

On YouTube

The same gear, in use

I talk through what I shot and why on YouTube, usually with the camera still in my hand.

Watch on YouTube

Milky Way streaks across starlit sky above calm lake at twilight, forested shoreline silhouetted on right

Everything on this page exists to make one photograph possible.

Prints of the work it made are in the collection.

See the prints

Solitary figure walking snowy pier at sunrise, frozen Lake Michigan, dramatic golden clouds reflected on water

Gear and education

The best money I have ever spent on photography was not gear.

I still geek out over new gear anyway. Both halves of that are on this page.

What I actually carry

Nothing here is a recommendation.

It is what survived a decade of buying the wrong things first.

9
lenses owned
3
that travel
1
on the camera most of the time

What it is for

Pick a job

Three lenses, and none of them is the expensive one.

Session glass. Not one of these has earned a place in a carry-on.

Photographing my own family, which is its own discipline.

Two bodies, four lenses, and light I brought myself.

One lens does all of it.

Owned, and not used enough.

Bodies
Canon R5 Mark II and R6 Mark III
Two bodies out at once. The second one is not a backup, it is the other lens.
Sony a7 V with the 24mm f/2.8 G
One body, one small prime. Nothing else goes on it.
Lenses
Canon RF 10-20mm f/4L
Interiors, and anywhere the street is narrower than the building on it.
Canon RF 24-105mm f/4
About 70% of a trip lives on this lens. If I could only bring one, this is it.
Canon RF 24mm f/1.8
The one that goes on when the bag has to get smaller.
Canon RF 15-35mm f/2.8L
Fast and wide, indoors and close to people.
Canon RF 70-200mm f/2.8L
Compression and separation.
Canon RF 85mm f/1.2L
If a portrait lens can be worth its weight, it is this one. It is still too heavy to travel with.
Canon RF 100-500mm
Sports. That is the whole job.
Canon RF 100mm f/2.8L Macro
I own it. I should use it more than I do.
Light
MagMod modifiers
MagSphere, MagGrid, MagGels and the light stand. Magnetic, and the reason a flash stops looking like a flash.
Profoto A10, A2 and two B10 Plus
Light I brought with me, for rooms that do not have any.
Profoto Clic softbox on a monopole
Held on a pole instead of parked on a stand.
Support
Platypod
Lighter than a tripod, packs flat, allowed in most places a tripod is not.
Falcam TreeRoot with its ball head
What the Platypod cannot do. Light enough to bring, which is the only test that matters.
Really Right Stuff BH-30 with L-plate
Small enough to travel, stiff enough to trust. Vertical without re-levelling anything.
Filters
Haida M10 system, 6 and 10 stop
Long exposures at first light. The 10-stop is what turns a river to glass at six in the morning.
Also carried
iPhone 16 Pro
Some of the frames on this site came off it. The camera you are carrying wins.
Insta360 Luna Ultra and X6
Neither one makes a still photograph better.

Where the learning came from

If I were starting again, the next thousand dollars would not go to a lens.

Gear got me a sharper file. Teaching got me a better picture. If you can only fund one of them this year, fund the one that changes how you see.

On YouTube

The same gear, in use

I talk through what I shot and why on YouTube, usually with the camera still in my hand.

Watch on YouTube

Milky Way streaks across starlit sky above calm lake at twilight, forested shoreline silhouetted on right
Everything on this page exists to make one photograph possible.

Prints of the work it made are in the collection.

See the prints