One of the question that I am asked regularly is what is the camera gear I use for your photography. My answer is Canon gear. Well camera does make a lot of difference to the quality of photographs. However, it is not just a device but it is also the mind that plays an equally important role while shooting an image . As far as cameras are concerned, I started using them at a very tender age. I had cameras with the Kodak roles which used to click 36 to 37 photographs but that was ages ago. These were the days when photography was limited, only to select few and clicking an image was not as easy as clicking a button.
My first digital camera was a point-and-shoot in the year 2007. Extremely simple to use and easy to carry. It was an Olympus point-and-shoot camera with 30X Digital zoom. I was fascinated with the digital zoom and never really understood the difference with optical zoom. After all It was the first device I gifted myself during my first job. I clicked a lot of photographs with it, but most of it was a Portrait and camera remained unused for long times due to committments in corporate world. It was physically damaged in 2012 during an excursion by a family member. I was heartbroken I decided not to buy a expensive camera again.
A few years later after marriage, I took my wife along with me to Melghat Tiger reserve. During this excursion I shared a lot of thought lot of information about flora and fauna, topography and coexistence of humans with nature. Listening to all chatter, my wife insisted that I must document all the natural moments and showcase them to the world.
It was after this excursion that we decided to buy a DSLR and I bought my first DSLR in the year 2015. This is where wildlife photography really started for me. It was a Canon 600 D with two kit lenses. It took me quite a few years to understand the use and limitations so I bought my next DSLR in 2017 which was a 80D which I still use. It’s an amazing piece of equipment. It is a Camera with crop sensor and increases the zoom by a factor of 1.6. That means even at 400mm focal length I get a coverage of 640 MM (400 * 1.6)
So now I was using two cameras for wildlife photography. To understand the device is better. I spend a lot of time attending photography workshops and practising the camera on the field with some of the best wildlife photographers in India. However I always rented lenses to use with these cameras since they were more expensive than the camera body.
I guess I am must have clicked more than 10,000 photographs of wildlife and nature using my first two lenses. As time went by my confidence increased and also a new technology evolved called as mirror less cameras. I have shifted to mirror less camera in the year 2022.
Currently my camera gear consist of a mirror less camera and a DSLR.
I use Canon R6 which is the full frame mirrorless camera paired with 100- 500 RF lens and the world renowned DSLR 80 D which is paired with 300 F2 .8 lens. The canon R6 with hundred 500 gives me sufficient range to shoot Wildlife in action thanks to the eye tracking mechanism. However, when it’s all about low light shooting in the dark shooting a moving subject in lowlight, the 80D with 300 F2 .8 is unmatched the background blur and the foreground blur, is quite impactful. Just in case I want to shoot a habitat, I carry 18-55 standard kit lens, which does the work well with Canon 80D.
Other than this, I carry a lot of stuff to shoot videos, though none of them is a professional equipment. I use my iPhone for shooting videos, by loading it on Osmo Gimble3. This is an amazing self balancing equipment that keeps the videos free from any form of shakes, no matter if the gypsy is moving or I am running. However, since editing & post production of videos takes a lot of time, I have not been able to focus on creating video content. I stick to my skills of still photography with occasional video shoots. I might buy a Hero 11 GoPro gear to shoot videos without much efforts on post production.
I also carry a binocularly which is very helpful for for birdwatching and detecting animals hidden in the bushes. Since this is my hobby, I find these devices sufficient enough for my journey of photography for me. It is all about wildlife photography landscape shoots and bringing the wild to the citizens of the urban jungle.
You can decide your gear depending on your budget & the genre of your photography. One thing is for sure, photography is an expensive hobby. Be ready for it. I will soon publish blog on genres of photography soon till then.. Happy shooting!