Michael's Digital Resources
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Here's the gear that I currently use for my professional assignments and for family occasions. The comments are purely my personal opinions and are not authorized by any of the manufacturers. Affiliate income earned on this site is donated to charity.

Cameras: D3S- My primary camera, used for the majority of my professional assignments. Unbelievable image quality with well-designed controls. D700- My secondary camera, used for the majority of my professional assignments. Unbelievable image quality with well-designed controls. D300S with MB-D10 grip- Used as backup to D3 and D700 or when DX crop or small size (with lenses) is advantageous. (see D300 settings). D90- with the 16-55mm VR and 70-300 VR comprise my family camera kit.   Lenses: These 4 lenses are used for 90% of my professional assignment work: 14-24mm f/2.8 24-70mm f/2.8 70-200mm f/2.8 17-35mm f/2.8 For me, these lenses are specialty lenses that are used when needed but not always carried in my main bag: 300mm f/2.8- Awesome sports lens 85mm f/1.4-, 50mm f/1.4- great for low-light shooting 18-200mm VR- My primary travel lens. 85mm PC Macro 100mm VR Macro 70-300mm VR 200-400mm VR 12-24mm wide angle for DX cameras Computers: Apple MacBook Pro Lenovo ThinkPad W510 Apple iPad 5-Bay eSATA Hard Drive Enclosure from MacGurus Iomega StorCenter, UltraMax Pro Adobe Photoshop CS4 Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 Nikon Capture NX 2 Nikon ViewNX2 Apple Aperture 2 Apple iTunes Apple iDVD Apple iMovie Apple iPhoto FotoMagico Photo Mechanic Roxio Toast Fetch DreamWeaver OmniFocus FileMaker Pro SoundSlides ShowIt Windows 7 Nik Filters: Color Efex Pro, Sharpener Pro and Silver Efex Pro.

Flash: SB-900 (3), SB-800 (5), with NiMH batteries- Great, especially when using the wireless TTL feature. Using the 5th battery will speed your recycle times. Portable Lighting Kit to go with the SBs- Bogen 3373 Lightstand (discontinued) Bogen Manfrotto 001B Nano Lightstand Lastolite TriFlash Bracket Westcott 43" Collapsible Umbrella FourSquare SoftBox Manfrotto Umbrella Adapter Stroboframe Bracket Shoe Mount Bogen Clamp with Flash Shoe Lumedynes- Battery powered, high output strobes that I use when the SB-800s aren't powerful enough. My set goes up to 800 watt-secs.Using these less and less, being replaced by the SB800s. Dynalites- Man, I used to use these much more in the film days. PocketWizards- Radio-controlled triggering system used to fire strobes from a distance. Alien Bees- Zeus 2500 Pack, 2500 Head and Vagabond II Portable Power System.- Great battery Powered-Setup. I've used the Vagabond to power my laptop in power outtages as well.   Bags and Cases: LowePro Stealth Reporter 650 AW- My everyday bag. Holds two bodies, 6 lenses, 2 flashes, a laptop and a bunch of accessories. LowePro Rover AWII- My vacation/travel/hiking bag. Backpack that holds a body, flash, 3 lenses in the bottom section and a bunch of other stuff in the top section. Attach a tripod to the outside, a bottle of water and snack jar and your good-to-go. LowePro CompuRover-a larger version of the Rover with a slot for a laptop. Think Tank Urban Disguise 50- Great Laptop combo bag. Think Tank Airport Security- Great Roller bag. Think Tank Belly Dancer- Interesting "suspenders" based system. Think Tank Retrospective 20 Think Tank Airport Antidode Think Tank Airport Addicted Think Tank Airport Acceleration Think Tank ShapeShifter Think Tank Photo has a special offer for people attending my workshops. Go to this page to see the great deal. My code WS-119 is pre-entered for you.   Tripod: Gitzo G1126- I wish it extended bigger, but it's small compacted size makes it easy for me to carry on hikes. Archatech Ball Head- Looks cool, is cool. For the really heavy lenses you might try the Really Right Stuff heads. They're a little more heavy duty. Bogen Manfrotto 3218 Monopod- If you need something to stabilize your camera when shooting slow shutter speeds, get a tripod. Monopods are useful for supporting very large lenses that are too heavy to handhold for any length of time. When you look at the sidelines of sporting events and see all the pro photographers using monopods, they are most likely using them to support backbreaking 600 f4's, 400 f2.8's and 300 f2.8's. Misc: Geomet'r GPS Receiver for Nikon Cameras with 10-pin connectors. Blower bulb, lenspens, visibledust.com brushes, Robin Meyers Digital Gray Card, GretagMacbeth ColorChecker, qpCard.- Blower bulb and brush for clearing dust off the sensor. Don't ever use any compressed or canned air to clean your sensor. The cards are for doing custom white balances.Lenspen products work well for cleaning lens, eyepieces, eyeglasses and lcd screens.