New photography equipment

Wow, I haven't written here in almost a month! Between traveling and learning photography, I've been crazy busy. But now I have some down time, expect a flurry of cool posts coming up.

I bought my first digital SLR camera on March 11!!!!! It's a Canon EOS 40D, a semi-pro camera. I got it for the fast frame rate -- 6 frames per second, so I could shoot sports like hockey.


Yeah, so I said I wasn't going to spend money on photography because it was too expensive, but I ended up getting injured and missing two months of the hockey season. Plus, I got talking to my cousin -- the pro photographer. And thus I was swayed into spending ridiculous amounts of money.

Along with the Canon camera, I got a Tamron 17-50mm f/2.8 lens.


Here is the lens with the hood.



The catch is that you don't just buy a camera and lenses. You need tons of accessories. Here is the full list of accessories I got.

Three Sandisk Extreme III 4 GB cards (fast enough for 6 frames per second)
Katz Eye Focusing Screen (for the rule of thirds grid)
Canon BP-511A battery (spare battery, which I've never had to use)
Phottix Cleon II wireless remote shutter (nice cheap device from Hong Kong)
Tiffen UV filter 67mm (for the Tamron lens)
Expodisc 77mm (for white balance in hockey rinks)
Op-tech pro neck strap (much better than the included neck strap)
Op-tech SLR wrist strap (for when I want to shoot vertically without the strap getting in the way)

Epson P-3000 (for viewing photos and backing them up)
Fujitsu 120 GB IDE hard drive (to upgrade from the Epson's 40 GB capacity)

Giotto LCD glass protector (expensive, but much better than putting plastic over your main LCD)
Invisible shield for Canon EOS 40D (to protect the top LCD)
Invisible shield for Epson P-3000
Lens cleaning stuff

Lowepro Fastpack 250 (my heavy duty camera pack)
Kata Sensitivity V (my light camera pack)
Cordura waterproof pack cover (in case of rain)