Photography : What's in MY bag?

Anyone who is going to take pictures with a DSLR or System Camera will be faced with the choice ... Which lens / lenses do I need? There are so many lenses that it is a very difficult choice. Because yes, of course, each lens has its advantages and disadvantages. Yes, there are certainly disadvantages for some lenses. Consider, for example, the weight of some lenses. The price is also a pretty stumbling block for many of us. But one thing is for sure. To take a picture, we need a lens anyway!

And then you end up in the 'jungle' of lenses and you can hardly see your camera because of the many different lenses. And do you now use that wide-angle only for landscapes, or can you also take other photos with it? And do you only use the telephoto lens if you want to bring a subject closer? Do you only use a macro lens for macro photography? Or can you throw all that aside and completely out of the box ... take an sports photo with a macro lens, maybe make a macro photo with a wide-angle lens and a landscape with a telephoto lens? Yes it is all possible, and it often produces very surprising images!

There is everywhere around you, wherever you look, a beautiful world to capture. And usually your eye will fall on the landscapes. You will probably watch the sunrise, or if you are more of a night person, the sunset. Do you remember those romantic dreams that you had of a beach walk at sunset?

We dream of these sunsets to capture. But with which lens do you do this best?

Very simple, with the lens that is currently on your camera! And whether that is a telephoto lens, a wide-angle lens, a macro lens or even no expensive camera, but your phone with a camera. The camera, the lens that you have at that moment, is THE BEST lens you can use. And then it is up to you to make a beautiful, exciting picture of it.

In the ideal picture you will be prepared for a walk, and you could best choose a wide-angle lens. This allows you to capture the expanse of the sea view, and of course that applies in almost all cases of landscape photography where you really want to give an overview of the landscape. But also in landscape photography it can be very exciting to light a small particle with your telephoto lens. Despite the fact that a telephoto lens will not be recommended immediately to take part in landscape photography, you can also make beautiful images with it.

And the so-called walk around zoom lenses are always very useful to have, with this you often have a wide range, and very various possibilities to use the lens. These lenses are often well suited for landscape photography as well as for portrait photography and with a simple closeup conversion lens or with a reversal ring you can also produce fine macro photography.

What do I have in my photo backpack? I am not in possession of the most advanced equipment ... there are a few things on my wish list, ofcourse I do ... I'm only human!

But in my bag now is:

Nikon D300s
18 - 55 kit lens
70 - 300 telephoto zoom
50 mm f1.8
Lensbaby Composer Pro
Close-up filter set and ND filter set for the 50 mm f1.8 and for the kit lens
tripod
wired remote control
Metz flashlight
wide-angle converter for the 18 - 55 kit lens

This is what I have now, and with this I now take all my photos.

Unfortunately I do not have any more macro lenses, in the past I did own, the 150mm f2.8 from Sigma, then for Canon because I had a Canon 5dmkII in my possession. And I must honestly say, I bought a macro lens with the idea that I would discover the wonderful world of macro photography, the scratchy creatures, but the reality turned out differently. I mainly photographed dogs with my macro lens. And despite the fact that these macro lenses usually do not have the fastest autofocus, I have also been able to make nice action photos.

So I made the picture below with the Canon 5dmkII and the Sigma 150mm f2.8 macro lens. Unfortunately now no longer in my possession.

But back to what I have now.

Here I want to show you some possibilities of the simplest, cheapest Nikon 18.0-55.0 mm f / 3.5-5.6 18 - 55. The kit lens that is usually sold with the entry reflex cameras.

With a wide angle converter you have a good opportunity to test landscape photography with this lens! And a wide angle converter is a cheap way to test for yourself or you should invest in a wide-angle lens. In this way you often only find out where your heart is in terms of photography. And maybe that is not at all with landscapes.

But with this lens with a wide angle converter you have a great opportunity to try that.

But when I saw that my dogs were doing something nice, I did not doubt, and with that same wide-angle my dogs also photographed, and that has already given me nice pictures. Although it may not be the most obvious way to photograph your dogs, it was at that moment the lens that was on my camera with wide-angle converter on it, so at that moment obviously THE BEST lens.

This pictures may not be prize winners, but for me they are very nice snapshots, just the memories that I want to keep as a dog boss of my four-legged friends. And that is also an essential part of photography for me. Capture the memories and preserve them forever.

I also discovered that it is fun to do macrophotography with that wide-angle converter! That is something you might not expect. But I thought it was a great effect.

With the telephoto lens, I have to admit that I usually use it to do what it is meant for, to take the subject to you if you can not go to the subject yourself. But sometimes I also shoot a small 'landscape' with the telephoto lens.

And of course it is also easy to take close-up photos with a telephoto lens.

But usually I use the telephoto lens to bring the subject to me, ... and the most amazing application of the telephoto lens ... the delicious blurry backgrounds. As soon as you have enough distance from your subject to the background and in my case have zoomed in sufficiently, then you get those delicious blurry backgrounds where you really bring the subject to the forefront. This is for me the most amazing of the telephoto lens. So I use it a lot and often, especially when I photograph dogs.

The lens baby is a different kind of lens. It can not be compared with anything, and is really a lens that I have bought to 'play'. I will not discuss it in this blog either. I will write a separate blog about that.

But this is what is in my bag ... and I have discovered many possibilities. Maybe I'll discover more possibilities ... who knows? For now I have not finished experimenting and discover new possibilities that my equipment offers me. And I especially enjoy photographing itself.

The conclusion you can get from this blog is that you do not always need to have the most advanced equipment to be able to take beautiful pictures, for example a kit lens offers very nice possibilities. But especially to experience FUN of photography.

A nice statement and fact remains that the best camera and lens are the camera and lens that you have with you at that moment.

Now I am really curious ... What is in your photo bag right now? Where do you take your photos with? And what would you like to know more about as we're talking about photography? I look forward to your reactions!

Greetz Hetty
Paw from Rowan & the other dogs.