My Gear

Let me preface this post with a little caveat; I took these photos with my phone…and they kind of suck.  Hard to take a picture of your camera, with your camera.  So, I did what I could. Anyways, on to the info!

Many of you, I am sure, want to know what all of my main equipment is for my photography!  Well, here you go.  A blog post to help satisfy your curiosity!  With this gear I do all of my main photography.  Macro, landscape, moon shots, portraits, nature, etc.  Some of it great, some of it, not so much, but I make it work.  For I am a photographer on a budget.  I’ll go over each item quickly and what I use it for, as well as link to it on Amazon (All links are affiliate links for Amazon that help support this site and my photography!).

Starting on the bottom right, we have my Canon EF-S 10-18mm f/4.5-5.6 IS STM Lens.  The newest lens to my kit, and the least used.  Plenty of reason for a wide angle lens, I just haven’t done those reasons yet.
Next is the Canon EF-S 18-55mm IS STM Lens.  Kit lens that came bundled with the camera.  Quite a good lens for being a kit lens.  My second most used lens and quite good at what it does.
Third is the Canon EF 75-300mm F/4-5.6 Telephoto Lens. (New version linked).  I like using this lens for the telephoto reasons, but it’s not a quality lens and don’t use it much because of that.  However, it came with the kit, so I have it.
Bottom Left is my favorite lens and used most often for obvious reasons.  The Tokina AT-X 100mm f/2.8 Pro D Macro Lens for Canon.  Can produce 1:1 Macro images and is crystal clear with the barest hints of chromatic aberration on really bright subjects.  This is my go to lens for most of my images.
Top Left are my Neewer AF Macro Extension Tubes.(Newer product linked).  I used these when I didn’t have a macro lens and they worked quite well.  You use these to turn your current lens into a macro lens, at the sacrifice of focus distance.
Top Middle is my Yongnuo 50mm f/1.8 Prime lens.  A very awesome lens for what it is, a few issues but not enough to disqualify it as a go to “Nifty Fifty” for the price.
Now for the Meat with my potatoes, the Camera.  Canon T5i Rebel DSLR.  This is a great camera.  It’s a crop sensor camera with great video capabilities.  There are newer, better versions out now, but considering you can get this camera with a kit lens for $600 bucks (at time of writing), it’s not a bad choice to start off with.
Attached to the camera is the Neewer Pro Battery Grip.  It has some fun extra features, like redundant buttons and shutter button for when shooting in Portrait layout.
Not pictured is my Raynox DCR-250 macro lens filter.  It attaches to the front of the lens and turns my macro lens from 1:1 into a ~2.7:1 macro.  Very awesome little filter.

Here is my typical camera combo.  Body with battery grip and 100mm Macro lens.  You can see a lot of the photos I've done with this setup over in the Gallery or on my Flickr!

This is my Tripod.  A Zomei Z818 Tripod/Monopod combo.  A decently strong and stable tripod with ball head.  One of it’s legs can unscrew from the body and you can attack the main tripod shaft to it in order to convert it to a Monopod.  Very handy.

A few other items I use quite a bit.  The Manfrotto Macro rail slider. Used to help fine tune my focusing on macro shots.  My Yongnuo RF-603 II Flash triggers.  Wireless flash triggers so I can get my flash off the camera. Two Neewer NW-610II Mini Flashes.  This is where my budget shows.  They work well enough and help with the weight of my gear.  Last, my two Mini Diffusers for use on the flashes.  While not that great, they help a bit.  Had to sew their openings smaller however to fit the mini flashes.

And last, my bags (and worst of my pictures).  On the left is my main travel bag that can hold all of my gear, the Amazon Basics DSLR and Laptop Backpack.  A decent bag with decent space and a great price.  Works well for travel and carrying gear.  The one on the right is my Day Bag for photography.  The Lowepro Slingshot Edge 150 AW.  Great little bag with enough room for my flashes, camera with battery grip, 100mm lens, one other lens, my iPad Air 2 , tripod, wallet, keys, camera manual, flashlight, headlamp, diffusers, flash mount, snaplight, epipen, ink pen, batteries, sd cards, battery backup and a couple small odds and ends. 
Now, I didn’t picture my studio lights or light stands, table, props, etc.…but I can always talk about them if you want me to!  I find that with this kit of gear above, I can do most of the things I want to do with little workarounds.  My biggest weakness at the moment is telephoto, with the kit lens I have not really giving me the quality I need for superb photography.  Let me know through comments or live at my stream on Twitch if you have any questions or want advice on something. 
Thanks for taking the time to read through and I hope to put out more content for your enjoyment!

First!

I Love the Little Things

I LOVE PHOTOGRAPHY. Even if I can't go out as often as I'd like. (read, almost never) So I generally focus on the things I find right around and outside of my home. Like the above image in this post. A tiny, spiderling, Jumping Spider. Over the years, taking photos of small critters, I've learned to notice small movements or abnormalities in the peripheral of my vision. This particular subject was about 2mm in size. Absolutely tiny! Yet, I spotted it in the corner of my eye at the top of my bookshelf.

Finding a subject like this is a pretty chance encounter. One I have to capitalize on when it happens. So I carefully capture, then set up my equipment to take photos of the subject. This happens infrequently, but enough to keep me on my toes. Sometimes, if I don't have the time to immediately photograph a subject, I'll capture it and set it up with some food or a home for a while until I do have the time.

So, while this blog post was mainly just to put something here until I can make more informative posts, here's the moral of this story; Keep your eyes open! You never know when you will have your next photo opportunity.