B a r c l a y

R i c h e y

Camera: Mostly the Sony a7riii (some were from the Sony a7rii before a sand disaster happened). 

42.4 million pixels of twisted steel and sex appeal. Do you really need more mega pixels? I guess if you run into a heavy cropping scenario but for the money, I'm very happy witht the quality and auto focus ability. People gripe about navigating the menu but I don't mind it at all. My first camera was used and came without a menu so maybe that helped me forge my own 'figure-it-out' path. 

Drone: DJI Air 2s. It hasn't let me down in terms of losing connection with my controller (something that always raises my heart rate). The photo quality is good, but not nearly as good as a real camera. But that's to be expected. It can still be printed out on large media. The battery life is fair to middling. I'm always cautious here. If it says it has 8 minutes of battery left, to me that means it's time to bring it home. I've never hit a tree or anything, though I've never really let it have a chance to hit one. I want to use it more but most places you want to use it, you can't. I've been tapped on the shoulders by many "personnel" giving me "the talk".  Anyways, I got the fly more pack and recommend getting that, too, just based on the extra batteries. 

Action Cam: GoPro  Hero 10 Black.  I don't use it that much. I used it at La Tomatina in Spain and for snorkeling. I do like it's smallness and versatility, and the resulting images are pretty editable. 

My wide: Sony G-Master 16-35 F/2.8. Don't get me wrong it's great and has bailed me out of a lot of where I needed more breathing space for the subject, but the edge sharpness and "stretching" I sometimes wonder about. It's my most expensive lens (more than my camera itself) so I was expecting the best of the best. It's great for landscapes and certain urban architecture scenarios. 

My main guy: Tamron 28-75mm f/2.8 Di III VXD G2. This is what I choose most of the time as it captures most scenarios I want to shoot. It's pretty good for portraits, streets and macrophotography. If I don't feel like carrying the whole backpack and the weight within it, I'll usually just carry this attached to my camera. And it's priced well. Can I really tell the difference between this and other comparable focal lengths of more expensive lenses? Not really. Only if I'm really really really looking for it. Then maybe. A great lens. 

My telephoto zoomie: Sigma 100-400MM F5-6.3 DG DN OS | C The more I use this focal length, the more I begin to think this is my favorite focal length. I loooove the compression and the bokeh. I love it for portraits because the detail behind a subject is really removed, to the point where it's just blurred colors really. I loved taking it around the hills of San Francisco, compressing the heights of the hills. Animal photos, obviously you're going to want a zoomie. It is a bit heavy and didn't come with a collar to attach to a tripod. It was essential to buy one, mentioned in the accessories below. 

CaptureOne

This is one of the most important parts of the process for me. I tried Adobe's Lightroom but wanted to throw my computer out a window. I also like being different. I found Lightroom ugly, certainly not intuitive and a giant mess workflow-wise. Perhaps I'm wrong in all these but it wasn't working for me. I love CaptureOne.  I think its usability is better than Lightroom in almost every way. CaptureOne users love it for its precise color editing and finishing, masking and- this is the imporant part- layers. You can toggle on/off layers, make a layer a certain opacity. And they've already debuted some sweet AI masking tools, which will only get better each year.  It's a pinch more expensive but worth it. Try it out for free for thirty days, not seven like Lightroom. Long live CaptureOne!

Tripod: Peak Design Aluminum Travel Tripod. I've gone through a few tripods over the years, always increasing in price paid each time (I can't say I recommend Surui. It broke and their customer service was more of a customer repellant). The photo world has never really completely nailed the tripod. There was always something disoncerting about it. But I really like a lot of things about this Tripod. I wish it were a little higher when fully extended, and that it were easier to use when in "low mode", and that it had more "accurate" panorama capabilities instead of the camera's axis changing with each shot. But this thing is sleek and as compact as can be (just like they advertise!). It's durable and easy to attach the camera and remove.  The question to the consumer is to go with the more expensive carbon-fiber or the slightly heavier aluminum. I didn't see a huge need to save .6 pounds at the cost of $220 extra dollars. But I really recommend Peak Design tripods. Surui can kick rocks. 

Backpack: This is the one thing on the page I can't recommend more highly. NYA-EVO backpacks are pretty killer in every way. The first few months of using it, I often found new pockets and doohickies I didn't know about before. It is the most quality-made thing I own and I mean that. There are no signs of frying or wear despite dragging it up mountains, through planes, on dirt. It is MADE TO LAST. I have the 60-C ECONYLwith the large RCI kit. I often use it as a city backpack without any camera gear and it looks great. If I were ONLY using it for this purpose, I would probably downsize to the 36-C size. I want this company to succeed because it deserves it. I had a Thule backpack for a while but the straps hurt on a long hike. I also thought I would like its side access but dumb me would sometimes not close the side zipper all the way (or at all!) and stuff falls out. 

Memory card: SanDisk 64GB Extreme PRO UHS-II SDXC. It's a memory card, not that exciting but have had no problems with any of them in my two Sony a7riii card slots. It's Extreme and PRO!!!!!

Filters: Neutral Density (ND) and Circular Polar Density (CPL) filters from Urth.  ND filter from KF Concept. Both of these ND filters advertise no vignetting, but believe me it's there. I don't go past about 70% of the max range of these filters because the vignetting is easily noticeable.  The one that really lets me exposure for a long time (a few minutes) is the [pro]master HGX Prime. 

Lens cleaner: Zeiss. It works well but I've had to rebuy because on a hot day, it all evaporated from the bottle. Perhaps it needed to be tighter? I'm no scientist.

External Hard Drives: WD 5TB Elements Portable USB 3.0 External Hard Drive. I dropped this in a parking lot and the internal disk just skipped so I got a new one. Pictures lost. Sadness wafts over us all. The Lacie drives are my preference though since it has a nice bumper that would prevent drops and is a steady state drive. 

Dang this vocation can be expensive.