Camera Equipment
My current camera system consists of the following system:
- Canon EOS 7D 18 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera with 3-Inch LCD (Body Only)
*
- Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens for Canon EOS SLR Cameras WHITE RETAIL BOX
* This is my primary lens.
- Canon EF-S 10-22mm f/3.5-4.5 USM SLR Lens for EOS Digital SLRs
* This is my real estate photography lens.
- Canon EF 50mm f/1.8 II Camera Lens
* For low light photography.
- Sigma 17-70mm f/2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM Lens for Canon Mount Digital SLR Cameras*
(I have the non-OS version of this lens and use it for macros and closeup shots)
For photographing food, I haven’t decided between the 50mm f1.8 and the Sigma 17-70. The sigma is a very sharp lens and I loved it until I realized its limitations. That’s when I purchased the Canon 24-105L lens, which I love even more. But the 24-105 doesn’t do macros and has a minimum focusing distance of a smart car 18 inches. This sometimes is a problem if I’m at a restaurant sitting down at a table, shooting a plate of food right in front of me. But I love the sharpness of this lens, and it is usually on my camera anyway, so I put up with the MFD.
I shoot a number of homes for other real estate agents and for that I depend on my Canon 10-22mm lens. It’s practically the only lens I need for that particular type of shooting. With that, I use my 2 studio strobes as well.
Why DSLR?
If you are looking for a digital camera, I would suggest a DSLR of some sort. The quality of the photos is mostly determined by 2 things: the quality of the lens, and the size of the sensor. Obviously a $300 point and shoot with a built-in lens, can’t compete with a $300 lens on a $700+ camera body. That’s mostly because size matters. I’ve always told people, the larger the lens, the better quality, usually.
The second part of that equation is the size of the sensor. Most point and shoot cameras have a 1/4″ or 1/3″ sensor (something like 6.2mm x 4.5mm). This is compared to a dslr at 22mm x 15mm. (28mm2 vs 330mm2) A DSLR has a sensor 11 times the size of a typical point and shoot! There is one notable exception to the point and shoot sensor size, and that’s the Canon G1 X *
. It has 18.7mm x 14mm sensor size for an area of 261mm2. That’s almost the size of a DSLR sensor!
What this really means for you is that the larger the sensor, the less digital noise. larger pixels have more area to absorb light. Digital noise is the equivalent of death.
I squarely hang out in the Canon camp, but I do know that Nikon builds great cameras as well. They seem more professionally built than the equivalent Canon models, but I like things clockwise instead of counterclockwise. To each their own.
| Photography Resources | ||
|---|---|---|
| Part 1 – Camera Equipment | Part 2 – Lighting Equipment | Part 3 – Software |
| Part 4 – Why shoot raw? | Part 5 – Where to buy? |
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