Oropa Sanctuary, Italy, view

A nice place near the sanctuary, one of the chapels from the “Sacro Monte” at the top. The typical stone fountain is wrapped by curvy paths and on the left it’s possible to see a glimpse of the monumental cemetery.

Photo equipment:

Someone asked about my photo equipment, camera and in general about the stuff I use, while I was wandering around with my tripod…

Let’s say I focus on the functional, I started my digital photography journey with a Nikon D80 I still use sometimes, the lenses I use are mainly three: a general-purpose zoom (18-70mm), a wide angle (10-20mm) and my personal favourite: a fixed 50mm F1.4 FX format lens.

The last one is a terrific value for your money, even for a small-format DX camera, has extreme DOF capabilities and allows for shooting in condition otherwise impossible without a tripod or flash. The sensor will also get a lot more light than with DX lenses, with obvious advantages.

Just keep in mind that if you’re using it in a smaller sensor camera (DX) it will have the field of a 80mm lens, more or less. If you have some dubts or don’t really grasp the whole sensors/lens relation, a hands-on approach it’s here: http://bit.ly/24wTvIB

It will give you direct control on experimenting cameras and bodies characteristics…. The whole theory is a bit  more complex that that, but we’ll keep that for a specific talk about lenses, where I’ll give some more specific suggestions 

Regarding the camera body I’m using now… we can say I’m still trying to make art my primary source of income, so I couldn’t spend a lot, I opted for a D3200, cheap and somewhat crippled compared to the D80, but the sensor is waaay better in terms of sensitivity and resolution.

The choice comes from reading a lot of photography blogs and asking around, every photographer will tell you that it’s better to spend on lenses than on bodies… lenses last longer and let you use the camera in more ways and wider conditions, generally they have a much larger impact on your creations.

Other equipment I use are some few fast SD cards (if you’re shooting also videos or fast sequences), a remote trigger (IR or cord) for long exposures and multiple shots without vibrations, and some tripods… I have a few but lately I settled for a small low-end Manfrotto that is cheap, light, and small enough to fit in a backpack or hand luggage when flying.

Depending on your needs there are also very small but sturdy tripods that can easily fit in a medium-sized camera bag. Just choose one that is solid enough to not tip over when supporting your camera and lens – this seems banal, but it’s difficult to find such a thing if you really want the freedom to orient your camera as with a “real” tripod (always talking of not-too-long lenses).

Another useful option I have in all my lenses is a neutral filter for protection. In this way you can clean the filter, less sensitive and cheaper than the lens itself, it also offers a barrier against accidental impacts.

I also have a flash and a few other lens addons, we’ll talk about those in the future, when I’ll write about set-photography or taking pictures inside… I’m currently building an automatic turntable for product photography and the results are promising!

I hope to have given some useful infos, if you want some more details just ask in the comments.

If you’ve find this useful or you want to build some good karma and spread happiness, you can help me through my Patreon page (also by sharing it!)

Thank you!

-Francesco