Opinion: You need the right camera, and lenses, and cases, and memory cards, and card readers, and monitor and …Digital photography brings with it a whole new toolkit. Today's cameras are best described as computers with lenses.
Here is a (somewhat-naive) summary of what I've learned about photo hardware and accessories over the last two years. My perspective is biased by my own interests as a fashion photographer.
Camera: The camera and its lenses ultimately determine the quality of the images you get. The top-of-the-line Nikon D2X (12MP) and Canon 1DsII (16MP) models are remarkable for their build quality as much as for their resolution, which yields results equivalent to medium-format film kit.
Prosumer models like the Nikon D70s and Canon Digital Rebel give results roughly equivalent to 35mm film, but may break under intensive field use.
Eye Adjustments: All modern SLRs have diopter settings on the eyepiece. These should be adjusted when you get the camera and gaffer-taped to stick in place. Trust me, if your diopter adjustment is not good, you will have focus issues with the camera.
Focus: Digital cameras have some irritating focus issues, the most common of which is back-focus: You know you have it when your model's ears look sharp instead of her eyes.
Some camera samples are obstinate contrarians and front-focus instead. Cameras that display such focus shifts should imperatively be sent back to the manufacturer for calibration, together with their lenses.
Often such strange behavior is only observed with one or two lenses, but it can still be corrected. Your camera is an expensive piece of equipment, and you should expect good autofocus.
ACR 3.0 ushers In Raw as a full-fledged format.Click here to read more.
Batteries: At least one spare is a necessity, so you can charge while you shoot. Purchase it immediately with the camera. It is often hard to find your specific model battery later when you need it in a hurry. There are after-market clone batteries available which provide superb value for money when using an aging camera.
Lenses: Digital stresses the lenses more than film. The kit lenses that come with the prosumer digitals such as the Canon Digital Rebel 850 or Nikon D70s are excellent, and pros always own one or two standard zooms.
However, a nice complement to the zoom may be a prime or two— such as a cheap and fast 50 or 85mm—providing low-light ability, low depth of field for portraits, and superior resolution with less distortion.
Many pros use primes as much as possible. I fall in that category and mostly use a 135mm or 200mm lens when I can.
Shift-tilt lenses: Canon, Nikon and Schneider Kreuznach make shift-tilt lenses that are increasingly being used by architecture shooters, replacing view camera setups with 35mm digital SLRs.
Stitching: An interesting software-only variant to wide-angle lenses is stitching images with the aid of Photoshop or special purpose software such as RealViz makes. Such software allows the shooter to use a normal lens and pivot the camera, although this is feasible only for landscapes and not for indoors shots.
Flat stitching: Some shooters combine both above techniques and take two or three images with a shift lens and then stitch them, a method known as flat-stitching because no distortion or perspective correction is needed if the lens is good.
Next Page: Protect your cameras and the images you shoot.
Camera Case: Vibration and dust will damage this finicky equipment as much as shocks, so it needs to be protected. You need a case, choose it well, and make sure it doesn't shout "CAMERA!" and turn you into a mugger's ATM.
Note that pro camera models have expensive metal bodies and weather sealing. These can be carried exposed if you don't mind cosmetic damage. However, long lenses should never be left mounted during transport, as they act as huge levers in case of shock.
Hard Case: A hard case is a must-have if you are a catwalk shooter. It protects your equipment, but its real purpose is to serve as a footstool to raise you above the TV cameras in the front row so you can actually get the shot.
Memory Cards: You never have enough film! Always have some spare cards with you! Larger cards are essential in an action situation, because the camera buffer spooling delay prevents you from swapping cards—the camera needs to write the shots to memory, and you cannot swap cards until the buffer is empty.
In static shooting this problem does not exist, and two small cards are as good as a large one, if not better. (See below.)
Profiles help manage digital color workflow. Click here to read more.
Memory Card File Corruption: This will happen to you too, sooner or later. You get home and the images on the card are gone. Having your whole session corrupted on a single card can be a catastrophe, which is why every session should be split over at least two cards.
Lexar pro memory cards come with free rescue software that can often recover the data—you need to own this software or similar. I think Lexar also has a recovery service for its own brand cards.
Card Readers: Get two. Keep a small one with you, so you can use any computer on the road if you must, to view images or burn a CD. The PC world uses USB 2. On the Mac, Firewire is fastest. I recommend the Lexar-brand Firewire reader, since mine survived a fall of six stories.
Memory tanks: These are small hard-disk units that can be used to store and view images while on a trip. Nikon and Epson make branded units. The iPod Photo series can be used for this purpose as well. Make sure a device you purchase is compatible with your camera's raw format.
Cleaning tools: Sensor dust is the worst problem in digital photography. Compressed air gets dust out of the back of lenses and lens covers. These should always be blown clean when changing lenses, or else the crud will end up on your camera's sensor and on your pictures.
Visible Dust makes special brushes for the delicate business of cleaning sensors, word on the street is their solution is the best. If you live near a service center, having professionals clean your camera every few months may be the safest solution.
Next Page: Robust computer equipment is a must.
Laptop: These can be used to flush image cards when in the field and are very convenient to preview images when on location, and to burn CDs for the client or for printing at a lab. A laptop is OK for processing a few images, but isn't sufficient for crunching a few hundred Raws from a fashion session.
Computer CPU: Speed is of the essence if you need to process large batches of Raw images. I prefer Macs. Desktops really crush laptops with respect to performance—my PowerMac with big memory and fast disks feels at least 10 times faster than my laptop, no joke.
I would dump at least 2GB of RAM into a machine today, and make sure it has a separate and fast Photoshop scratch drive.
Hard Drives: Get some extra drives. If you manipulate imagery, drives are where you warehouse your stock. On PowerMacs, I think an external SATA Raid system is faster and may now make as much sense as the standard Firewire disk solutions. I plan to move to external SATA soon.
Monitor: A decent monitor is probably the most important piece of equipment you own apart from the camera because it determines the quality of your retouching. You can only get what you can see! The best LCD monitors are made by Eizo, but they're pricey. Apple monitors are usually quite good. Get a monitor that can be rotated vertically; it'll make retouching portraits easier.
Dell: They have the 2405FPW 24-inch monitor at around $1,000; it looks like a real bargain and includes a card reader. They also sell Canon cameras and lenses at very reasonable prices, I'm told.
Tablet: Graphic tablets are cheap—and often overlooked—accessories that will make retouching much easier for the novice. Wacom tablets are great and start at well under $100. They also make touch sensitive monitors, although their 21" model is a luxury that few of us can afford.
Screen Calibrator: A calibrated screen is essential when working with images. Xrite's Optix and Eyeone Display have the best press as calibrators these days, and I especially like the ColorEyes Display software.
Printer: Epson, Canon or HP make cheap inkjets that all have their place. HP's DesignJet printers have integrated calibration, which makes them immediately suitable for proofing without the need for an expensive external profiling solution.
Dye Sublimation: If you need speedy 8-by-10 or A4 or smaller prints for clients, then you could purchase a dye-sub machine, a type of printer that is also frequently used at events. Kodak and Olympus make these for around $500 at the low end; the prints are fast and come out gorgeous, but consumables are somewhat more pricey than inkjet.
Print Profiling: You need this if you are serious about making proofs or client prints in-house. The X-rite Pulse or Gretag Eyeone Pro systems provide a good way to get into profiling printers. The Pulse system seems more user-friendly; I will review it shortly.
Software: Adobe Photoshop CS2 is very nice and a must-have. It can do most everything a photographer needs, although not always as well as more-specialized programs. I will do a short review of other tools soon in another article.
Good luck!
Edmund Ronald has a Ph.D. in applied mathematics, but he is currently on a sabbatical as a photographer in Paris.
