My Camera's I have been taking photo’s for many years starting in the 60’s taking photo’s with my Mom’s Kodak Brownie.  Through the years I have used manual SLR (Single Lens Reflex) 35mm film cameras using film and slide film.  Currently I am using 2 different systems a DSLR system and a Mirrorless Camera system that I use while backpacking and everyday travel.  Both systems have advantages and disadvantages.  Always pick the right tool for the job that your doing.  I love using both of them.  So let me explain my systems to you.

The first system that I use is what I call my “Big Boy Camera”  Is a DSLR (Digital Single Lens Reflex) Camera System.  This type of system is the “Industry Standard” for modern professional photography.  My main camera is the Nikon D800 a 36mp full frame sensor professional camera  body.  My backup “Big Boy Camera” is Nikon D7000 a 16mp cropped sensor camera body.  Both Camera body’s are awesome cameras and I love to use them.  I have good “glass” or lenses that I can interchange between both body’s.  My favorite all around lens is the Nikon 24-70mm f2.8 lens.  It falls mostly in the focal range that I shoot in and is on my camera 99.9 % of the time.  I have a Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 which is a great lens for portraits and all around photography.  Its a big heavy lens so toting it around for long peroids of time is a chore but a fantastic lens.  I have a Nikon 18-35mm f3.5-4.5 lens that I don’t use a lot but is a fairly good lens and is inexpensive. I have a Rokinon 14mm f2.8 for fisheye shots nightscapes etc… This is a very sharp lens its manual focus and inexpensive.  For macro photography I have a Nikon 60mm f2.8 macro lens that was inexpensive but very good lens.  

This “Big Boy Camera” System is the system that I take to Portrait photo shoots, Landscapes that I’m going directly to like waterfalls , sunrises , sunsets.  I also use this to do shoot events like birthday parties, retirement parties and the such.  I use it for studio work when I do product or still life work.  

The other system that I use is a Mirrorless system.  One of the major advantage of this type of system is that its smaller , lighter but still has great quality.  It has more bells and whistles than my “Big Boy Camera” and is a real fun camera to shoot with.  The system I use is a Sony A6000 a 24mp Crop sensor camera body.  I have a Sony18-105mm F4 Lens this is a great walk around lens.  I also have the Sony 10-18mm f4 wide angel lens.  This is a super lens sharp and gives a great wide perspective and great for Landscapes.  I have a kit lens that came with the camera a 16-55mm which is a 35mm equivalent to 25-75mm in my favorite focal range.  Another cool thing about this camera is that I can use some of my old film camera lenses and 

some of my nikon lenses like the macro on this body.  When I use these lenses the camera is in full manual mode for some this might be a big deal but I grew up on fully manual cameras so this is really kind of fun.

The mirrorless Camera system is what I use when I do my backpacking because it is lightweight and so versatile .  My “Big Boy Camera” with the 24-70mm lens weighs 7 lbs.  My Mirrorless camera with the 10-18mm and the 18-105mm Filters  and Bag wight 5 lbs.   So Hiking I get more bang for my buck.  This is a fun camera and fits well in my hand and is my carry around with me everywhere camera.  Maybe in a later blog I’ll go over the pro’s and cons between DSLR and Mirrorless systems.  Well that about covers my camera systems of course I didn’t talk about strobes or lighting at all and Tripods !   You know I can do a whole blog on just tripods.  Maybe later.

I have a couple of other camera’s that I use from time to time.  The first one is a point and shoot camera (Lumix) that was converted into a infra-red camera.  Infra-red gives a new perspective or should I say look.  I’ve but an example of what this little camera can do in this post. Notice how all the greens turn white giving a snowy look.  I don’t use this much but when I do Its a real stunning change to a dull scene.

The last camera that I use mainly when Im backpacking is a waterproof point and shoot camera (Fugi XP) that can give a real cool perspective of a waterfall from underwater or very close to the water surface without worrying about the camera getting wet.  Well thats about it maybe Ill do some blogs on these unique camera’s.

Keep Shooting!

Somerset Plantation House

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