my favorite photography gear
One question I get asked a lot is,
What photo gear do you use?
Before becoming a full-time photographer, I’ve been a long-time hobbyist. I’ve rented, borrowed, and had the privilege of testing out many other camera gear brands, but theeeeese are my go-tos and my favorites.
I’ve conveniently compiled them all here for you- Check out my top camera gear picks that I use for either my lifestyle family photography sessions around Chicago, for fine art school portraits with Modern School Portraits, or personally with my family. Hope this helps!
Main camera body
BACK-UP CAMERA BODY
GO-TO LIFESTYLE LENS:
Meet the lens that lives on my camera body 80% of the time, especially indoors!
BUTTERY PORTRAIT LENS
This is the latest lens I’ve added to my bag, and it is BEAUTIFUL. It produces some of the most buttery gorgeous bokeh, and the way it manipulates light is absolutely magical. #worthit
Camera buddy lens accessory
card reader
When you’re importing images at the volume I am, you’ll want images safely copied over at lightning speed. I’ve used other crappy card readers that transferred corrupted files- but not this one. She’s my trusty fail-safe!
SD CARDS
Ever wonder why your new fancy camera seems to be lagging between shutter takes? It might be because your camera card has a slower speed class rating! Be sure to get one with a higher speed class rating (i.e. UHS speed class ‘3’ in the image below; this means it will never write slower than 30 mb/s). These upgraded ‘Pro’ cards are worth every penny so you don’t miss a moment behind the lens!
TRIPOD
ESSENTIAL PORTRAIT LENS
camera backpack
No joke, I get compliments on this bag ALL. THE. TIME. I’ve gotten so many DM’s and I think I helped this company sell at least a dozen! I’m already making plans to replace this the minute it falls apart (which thankfullly, isn’t ANYWHERE close to that)!
PORTABLE SSD EXTERNAL DRIVE
I will never, ever use another external hard drive again. Don’t let the miniature size fool you- she’s tough (hooray for no moving parts!) and SPEEDY. And very unlikely to crash or fail on you. You’re welcome.
ON CAMERA FLASH
Full frame camera bodies tend to not come equipped with an on-camera flash… for good reason. Using a camera on ‘auto’ and having that flash aimed directly at your subject tends to give way to some unflattering light. I use this brand flash (cheaper than Canon) to bounce and help fill in my shadows during my indoor shoots.
For a full gear list of what I use and recommend, visit the link below:
I hope my favorite camera gear list was helpful for you! Please let me know if you want to see more posts like this, or if there’s a camera photography category that I left out. And if you end up getting something and you love it too, please do share and tag me. I’d love to see your mutual love and we can geek out together. Still have questions? Shoot me a note!
