My Gear
I’m often asked what gear I use in my photography and travels. What brands of camera/cameras I use, which lenses, backpacks, memory cards and various outdoors/traveling gear. I also get asked about what type of laptop I recommend, or what type of introductory camera I recommend.
Well, of course I like to recommend camera gear or adventure gear that I trust and love, so I’ve created this page to share equipment I’ve found to be my personal favorite. I’m not paid by any of these companies to share their stuff, so you know I’m being honest here. I do however get a small commission from Amazon for every purchase made through these links. This helps keep the blog up and running without ads all over it.
So here it is! My entire (or most of it) list of photography/editing/adventure gear that I use.
An up-to-date list of my gear in 2023:
You can read my thoughts about some of the gear below
Click images to see more info about the product
My Camera (Sony a7riii) – Incredible dynamic range to handle light and color much better than the a7rii that came before it. Long battery life and much larger and more sturdy feeling body than the a7rii as well. 42.4 megapixels for super high res images. Read more here – https://amzn.to/2AFtzQv
Alternative Cheaper Camera – A great option for those just starting out in photography but who also want serious quality from a camera for the money they spend. The Sony a6000 is a crop sensor mirrorless camera. It handles dynamic range for light and color very well for the price point, with a great selection of lenses available. It’s a fast and light 24.3 megapixel camera, using the same batteries as the Sony a7s and a7rii. – https://amzn.to/2VHjR9h
Theta 360 Camera – https://amzn.to/2CaRwzm
Sandisk Memory Cards – https://amzn.to/2SN5sX6
Zeiss Sony 16-35 4.0 – The lens I shoot most of my abandoned work with. I have found this lens to be much sharper and nicer all around than its much more pricey neighbor, the Sony 16-35 2.8 GM. Of course this comes down to personal preference, but I’d personally choose the Zeiss Sony 16-35 4.0 any time.
Sample photo from this lens (also most of my work):
If you’d like to read more about this lens, you can do so here – https://amzn.to/2HgLFhN
Zeiss 55 1.8 – A super sharp, super small and light lens. Probably one of my most used lenses for night time and even daytime street photography. Paired with an a7s, or a7r you can shoot at fairly high ISO ranges without any damaging noise to your photos, and get great shots hand held at night. Example photo below:
Read more about the Zeiss 55mm 1.8 lens here – https://amzn.to/2SK4Dys
Zeiss 85 1.8 Batis – A wonderful lens for portraits. Nice and fast with great, creamy looking bokeh. Many including myself prefer this lens over its almost $2,000 neighbor–the Sony 85mm 1.4 GM. They’re both great lenses, and each has their own unique look to it, so it’s really just down to personal preference at that point. You could also go a bit lower in cost and grab the Sony 85mm 1.8 for under $600. I personally just found the Zeiss Batis to be best optically, with faster auto focus than the Sony 1.8. Plus, the Zeiss Batis has a cool little OLED display on it for focus distance and depth of field. The Zeiss Batis also has built in stabilization. If auto focus, a little bit of extra stabilization, or a fancy little OLED are not the biggest concerns for you here, go with the Sony.
Sample photo from this lens:
If you’d like to read more about the Zeiss, you can click here – https://amzn.to/2SNRQLm
Laowa 12mm 2.8 Zero-D – A lens that holds up to its name in the best way possible. Practically zero distortion on all edges from this lens, which is pretty wild when you’re talking about a 12mm lens. Lenses this wide normally show some kind of warping, but not the Laowa 12mm. It is a manual focus lens, but at the price point, the deal cannot be beat. Plus, there’s not a whole lot of use for auto focus on a 12mm anyway. Plus if you do own a camera that contains focus peaking, that will help a LOT. I use focus peaking when using manual lenses from the 60s, 70s and 80s.
Sample photo from this lens:
Read more about this lens here – https://amzn.to/2AESLXD
Sony 50mm 2.8 Macro – An incredible full frame macro lens for $500. Great optical quality all around, and quite fast when needed at 2.8.
Sample photo from this lens, shot on the Sony a6000 and cropped to a square (I’ll include a photo of my finger next to the spider as well for size comparison.
Read more about this lens here – https://amzn.to/34XVDwg
My Favorite Backpack – The Streetwalker Pro or any of Think Tank’s backpacks for that matter are of amazing build quality with an incredible amount of space fit into such a portable, and very light bag. In mine, I currently carry 2 camera bodies, my Sony 50mm 2.8 macro, Laowa 12mm 2.8, Sony 16-35 4.0, Sony 55mm 1.8, Sony E mount to Minolta MD adapter with Sigma 70-300mm 4-5.6, Minolta 100mm 2.5, Minolta 35mm 2.8, Minolta 58mm 1.4, extra chargers, extra pairs of socks for adventures, rain guard, dust blower, various filters that change from time to time, Theta 360 camera, wipes and batteries, memory card case, extra lens caps and body caps. This is not even counting the side, front and back pockets, which I am constantly switching around what I carry in them. The back pocket is almost always used for my tablet though. I actually need to reorganize this backpack quite a bit, because crazy enough, I can actually make even more use of the space to hold even more things. Read more about this specific backpack here – https://amzn.to/2RKTi44
Tripod 1 – The Benro Angel Series tripods are beautifully built, easy to extend and collapse, and have so much functionality with different ways you’re able to angle your shots. You can even pull the legs out to get super low to the ground angles. They’re very sturdy, yet remain light enough that they’re not a pain to carry around with you. It can also take quite a beating through numerous adventures. Read more about this tripod here – https://amzn.to/2SKxxON
Tripod 2 – A generally decent tripod that can be picked up quite inexpensively. Build quality is okay, and it’s great for a tripod that you can toss around and not worry too much about. Most of us run into the problem of leaving a tripod behind from time to time, and it’s much better to have that end up being this one VS the Benro. However, TRY not to leave one behind at all! I know, it’s difficult sometimes. Read more about this tripod here – https://amzn.to/2M2gUM6
MSI Laptop (great for editing, & much more) – https://amzn.to/2shGfZn
My e-books – https://amzn.to/2Bumcwo
Hardcover books and prints available at – www.oddworldstudio.com
NOTE: Yes, those product links above (other than my e-books and my Odd World Studio shop) are all affiliate links to Amazon, so yes I do get a very small percentage if you make a purchase through one of them. This helps me keep this blog up and running with as little use of other ads as I can.