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MY EQUIPMENT
As a Press Photographer, people regularly approach me, look at my camera and ask which version it is/what the focal-length of the lens is/whether they should buy a flashgun like mine etc etc... I don't mind at all, it's great to meet people. There are some though, who appear to believe that they won't ever take a good shot because they don't have the same numbers or letters printed somewhere on their equipment. I use whatever suits the job in hand and try not to get bogged-down with the technical details. Sure, I want to use the best available to me, but I will use whatever I have, in the correct way, to create the picture I want. It's the photographer who makes the photograph, not the equipment he/she's holding.
My Press equipment is very good for a number of essential reasons. The main camera, a Canon 1D II, has excellent weather proofing. The job doesn't stop just because it may be teeming with rain, or the sea decides to attack it! It regularly receives a soaking that consumer-level cameras just wouldn't stand up to. It has a very high frame-rate which is a great help for fast-paced sports, action and breaking news shots. Its' sensor resolution is only mediocre by todays standards, but far exceeds that required for newspaper print. Although superceded by a newer version, it still does what it did before the new model appeared just as well. I have a range of lenses from wide to telephoto, all Canon's 'L' series models. Again, these are essential for their superior weather-proofing. They have a fast aperture; essential for low-light shooting and contain the best glass that company produces.
For my personal work, the requirements are sometimes a little different. I first began using 35mm Pentax SLR equipment. During the first few years I slowly upgraded my lens collection; quality of lens is by far the most important consideration when buying camera equipment. When digital capture became affordable and close-enough in image quality to a 35mm film frame, I crossed over. That equipment is all long-gone and I now use Canon kit exclusively. It wasn't however, quite the end of film for me. I invested in Large-Format equipment (see image above) for a while. This approach uses large single sheets of film and the sharpest lenses I've ever seen to produce an image with a quality as-yet unsurpassed. LF photography is as traditional as it gets, no batteries, no fancy computer systems - all entirely manual. Whilst it was a great way to advance my knowledge and practice, it was heavy, cumbersome and slow and just didn't suit my style perfectly. I amire the few still left in the world who attempt to, or have mastered this very challenging method of photography.
Having sold the LF gear, I recently made a rather large investment in digital camera equipment. I am now the proud owner of a Canon 1Ds Mark III camera, packing some superb features and a 21 mega-pixels full-frame sensor! This camera, though frighteningly expensive, is the first I've used that obviously exceeds the resolution of 35mm film, and rivals that of medium format. In short, it gives me the power to make top-quality enlargements at sizes I could previously only dream of. Early results look very nice indeed, some of which may be viewed on the gallery page. Added to this, a Canon 16-35 2.8L II wide angle zoom lens, and I've got a damn good setup for landscape photography! I'd forgotten how much true wide-angle photography meant to me, but now with the 16mm on a full-frame sensor, I miss nothing from my 35mm days at all!
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