My Camera Gear

I'm a digital photographer,

• So, all my work is processed in a lightroom rather than a darkroom.


• To create the best results, my "camera film" is always set to record images in a RAW file format (*.CR3).


• Then, behind-the-scenes, my RAW work is artistically converted into a better file format (*.jpg) for your compression and colour-calibration needs.   If you require me to work within a specific colour space (like AdobeRGB or sRGB), or output files to another image format (like *.TIFF, *.PNG, or *.PSD), then I can certainly accommodate you.

I'm primarily a location photographer,

• By design, most of my equipment is portable.   This allows me to be nimble and mobile with my photography, so that I can better serve you with greater flexibility and convenience. 


• We can easily create professional portraits outdoors because all my flashes operate on batteries and are wirelessly triggered by radio signals.   


• Depending on your needs, I can set-up my portable studio — with or without a backdrop — in less than 20-minutes to begin creating professional onsite photos for you.   

Yet, I also have a home studio,

• For a more cozy setting and greater environmental control, with access to my larger/heavier light shaping equipment.    

Canon R3

An awesome camera built for extraordinary events!

• As of January 2022, my primary camera is the newly released Canon EOS R3. 


• With this $8000 dollar flagship camera, I can (silently) photograph you in any environment with stealth and speed.   


• For example, I can now photograph you and your event without the (historical) distraction of “click” noises filling the room, so the focus rightfully remains on you and not the sounds of my camera. 


• On the topic of speed, precision and other technological wonders, this camera can detect the movement of my eyeball, and then use that movement to help me set my focus on you.   My camera can also track the movement of your eyes, which helps me to better control one of the many factors involved in creating the best possible photos.  

Canon RF 50mm f/1.2 L USM

Standard prime

• With this $3000 lens, I can take silky-soft portraits of you with your eyes remaining tack sharp — even in challenging low light situations — thanks in part to its f/1.2 aperture. 


• A 50mm lens offers a classic look-and-feel perspective, and its use is often found in wedding photography. 


• This is my newest lens, and my first go-to lens for mission critical wedding and portraiture work.

Canon EF 35mm f/1.4 L II USM

Wide angle prime.

• With this $2,400 lens, I can take wonderful group portraits or best buddy shots - even in challenging low light situations — thanks in part to its f/1.4 aperture.


• A 35mm format is among my most favourite perspectives to work in, and I often use this lens in my event photography work to capture human interaction and the ambiance of a room.   I also like using this format for full body portraits.  

Canon EF 70-200 f/2.8 L II USM

Telephoto zoom

• This is my all-time favorite telephoto zoom lens:  I never leave home without it. 


• This $2,800 lens allows me to photograph any event with the greatest of versatility.   


• If I could only use one camera lens to photograph an event, then this would be the one!

Canon RF 24-70 f/2.8 L USM

Standard zoom

• This is my general-purpose zoom lens:  It allows me to do 80% of anything really well, and really fast. 


• This $3,200 lens is most often used during dynamic events, where I need to quickly zoom out for groups shots, and zoom in for podium shots.    I also use it heavily in my travel photography, when I need to keep the weight of my backpack down, and my options as open as possible.   


• The viewing angle of a human eye is roughly equivalent to the focal length of a 50mm lens, so this lens offers us a wonderful balance around the periphery of our natural viewing centre.  

Canon EF 11-24 f/4 L USM

Ultra-wide zoom

• With this $4,000 lens, I can take ultra-wide-angle rectilinear images (straight lines), which differs greatly from the fish-eye perspective (curved lines) that is often associated with lenses in this focal range. 


• This lens always pushes my creativity to another level of excitement.   While it's not the easiest lens to use, due to its bulbous shape and ultra-wide perspective, I can fully polarize it with the aid of Format Hitech filters.  

Canon TS-E 17 f/4 L II USM

Ultra-wide tilt-shift prime

• With this $3,000 lens, I can work in very tight corners (like a kitchen or bathroom) to take highly detailed and ultra-wide-angle rectilinear photos. 


• What makes this lens so special is that I can use it to perform complex in-camera shifting, tilting, and rotating techniques to create, control, or correct various types of optical distortions.  Bottom line:  if the need to have straight lines in your images matters, then this is one of the best lenses on the market for accomplishing that job. 


• I consider this lens mandatory when it comes to my architecture & design photography.

Canon TS-E 24mm f/4 L II USM

Tilt-shift prime

• With this $2,500 lens, I can work in tight spaces to take wide-angle rectilinear photos. 


• What makes this lens so special is that I can use it to perform complex in-camera shifting, tilting, and rotating techniques to create, control, or correct various types of optical distortions. 


• I consider this lens mandatory when it comes to my architecture & design photography. It also plays an important role when I need to perform large, multi-row, group photos (20+ people) where everyone naturally needs to be in focus (and especially the guy hiding in the back corner).

Canon 600EX-RT

Speedlite

• While I admittedly use these $600 dollar speedlites less and less in my work flow today than before, they remain the backbone and work horse for all my "on camera" flash needs.     


• When speed and mobility are of the upmost importance, you'll find me using these incredible light sources to never miss a beat while on the move.    With one affixed to the top of my camera, and the other tucked away in a corner or boomed overhead, we can easily create well exposed images in no time flat.  

Godox AD1200 Pro 

Power Pack & Head

• With this $2,200 dollar power pack and strobe, I can pump out a massive 1,200 watt/second of light at maximum output, which means I can manage just about any outdoor lighting situation to create perfectly exposed images.   


• With this beast I can easily "use flash to overpower the sun", and in the process photograph your smile in comfort, as your back faces the sun and your eyes avoid squinting.   


• Yet, with an equally available nine stop power range, I can also dial this power pack down to a 1/256 power setting to safety photograph a baby under a huge soft light modifier.  Or, alternatively juice up the refresh rate so we'll never need to wait for my flashes to freeze your athletic action.   


• Another great benefit of this system is that it allows us to illuminate larger light modifiers, which ultimately allows us to create more wonderfully soft and diffuse lighting conditions if time and space permits. 

Godox AD400 Pro 

Monolight

• With this $800 dollar battery powered strobe, I can photograph you anywhere with speed and convenience.   With my gear, we are not confined to the presence of electrical sockets — I'm fully mobile, and wireless.    


• This strobe also allows us to use relatively larger light modifiers and umbrellas, so that we can crate wonderfully soft, diffuse light if time and space permits.  

Impact Parabolic Umbrellas  

84" (213.4 cm) diameter

• I love using umbrellas in my photography, and the bigger they are the better.    The largest umbrellas I use in my work — space permitting — are 7 feet wide.   


• Some of my umbrellas have a white interior, while others have a silver interior.   I use my white interior umbrellas for creating a more soft and diffused look-and-feel, while I use my silver interior umbrellas to create a more punchy and contrasted look.   


• In addition, sometimes I shoot my lights through translucent umbrellas to diffuse light, while other times I shoot into an opaque umbrella to reflect my light.    

Godox Octa Softbox

36" Octabox with grids

• A simply wonderful tool for creating soft, diffuse light with circular catchlights in your eyes.


• I often use this light modifier with my key light, and boom it directly ninety degrees overhead to create a "butterfly" lighting arrangement.  ​

Godox Snoot

• This is a fun tool to help me funnel my lighting down to a spot, and in turn, better control its spill.    I often use this tool as a hair light, or a focus point to add greater dimension and profile to my product photography.   ​

Lee Filters and Gels

• Simply awesome stuff to help me "colour correct" the light in my photography, or "colour effect" it.   
• My colour correct gels help me to "white balance" different types of light sources — be they natural like a candle flame or artificial like a tungsten bulb.   This allows me to work within very specific kelvin ranges (colour temperatures) to produce clean and crisp whites (and not, for example, bluish whites or reddish whites). 
• Alternatively, my colour effect gels purposefully help me to alter and amp up the creative factor behind the lighting in my photography.          

Angler Boomboxes 

12" x 55" Strip softbox with grids

• This is a critical light modifier that I often use to horizontally rim light the back of your hair and shoulders, or vertically rim light the length of your body.  Regardless of its orientation, this light modifier plays a key role in helping me create wonderful edge lighting to separate foregrounds from backgrounds.  In other instances, I also use these modifiers to evenly light a background, such as a chroma key screen.      ​

Formatt Hitech

Firecrest Neutral Density (ND) filters

• When I need to dial down the intensity of light, or amp up my creativity with long exposure photography, I confidently use neutral density filters manufactured by Formatt Hitech in the United Kingdom. 


• My "Firecrest" filters (measuring 165mm x 165mm) are made with 2mm thick Schott Superwite glass.  Bonded in the middle of this glass is a multicoating derived from a rare earth metal, and not a dyed resin.   This approach provides a greater degree of scratch and water resistance to my filters, and more importantly, fosters the conditions necessary to create a clean, neutral tone across all spectrums:  including UV, visible, and infrared.


• One of the neat things about my filters is that I can use them on my ultra-wide angle lenses, like my Canon EF 11-24mm lens and Canon TS-E 17mm lens, which both include a bulbous front element.  Moreover, with the aid of stepdown rings, I can also apply these filters on smaller filter threads, like 72mm, 77mm, and 82mm.   


• At present, I own a variety of filters that range from an optical density from a low 0.9 to a very high 4.0.  This means I can reduce my f-stops between 3 and 16 stops to achieve more lighting control and creative results.   

SanDisk Extreme Pro

CFexpress Card Type B

• After nearly a decade of using Lexar cards, I have recently switched over to SanDisk.   


• The speed of my current cards can read up to 1700 MB/s and write up to 1200 MB/s, so in practical terms we'll never to worry about latency issues during my photography.    

Ruggard Electronic Dry Cabinet (EDC-125)  

• In the world of automobiles, it is often mused that rust never sleeps, and if left unabated, it will eventually become a silent killer to the underbelly of your car.  While I thankfully do not need to worry about rust in the same way with my camera equipment, I do need to worry about the impacts of humidity.    


• So, to protect my equipment from humidity — and the risks of fungus growth or condensation that humidity can cause to appear within the internal components of my gear — I store all of my sensitive stuff in an electronic dry cabinet made by Ruggard.  


• While my home town city of Ottawa may not be as continuously humid as say, South East Asia or Costa Rica, the amount of humidity in Ottawa can still nevertheless become relatively high and present during different times of the year.    Including winter, when moving back-and-forth between freezing exterior temperatures and warm interior temperatures can create humid conditions for my gear.   

Pelican Storm Cases  

• When I need to securely move thousands of dollars of camera equipment between my place to yours, I trust pelican storm cases to help me get the job done and protect my gear from transit damage. 


• I love the durability of these cases, and I've never had any problems with them keeping my gear dry and secure.         

Batteries and Chargers  

• To help keep my small business ventures green and as eco friendly as possible, I only use rechargeable batteries.  


• To date, my batteries of choice have been PowerEx cells made by Maha Energy.    Over a span of years, I have been able to dependably rely on my PowerEx batteries performing consistently well, and even after recharging them hundreds of times.


• Yet, being open minded, I recently started using rechargeable batteries made by Ikea, which are more accessible to me and are known as "Ladda".   While it's still too early for me to pronounce whether they perform as good as my PowerEx batteries, my preliminary findings suggest they appear to be holding up well.