Table of Contents
recursive toc v1.4

My photography gear

All hardware and software accessories I'm currently using for the photography hobby. My kit.
Canon EOS 40D + Sigma EX DG 24-70mm f/2.8 MACRO
Canon EOS 40D
Sigma EX DG 24-70mm f/2.8
Canon Speedlite 580EX II
Canon Speedlite 580EX II
Wacom Graphire4 Tablet Pen
Wacom Graphire4 Tablet Pen
Vivitar V2400GX tripod
Vivitar V2400GX tripod
GlobalSat DG-100<br />GPS data logger
GlobalSat DG-100
GPS data logger

Hardware

Camera Canon EOS 40D Now I grabbed the bull by the horns. By replacing the entry-level 350D by this semi-professional / serious-amateur / ethusiast level EOS 40D, I am assuming a serious role as an enthusiast photographer. And it's great!
Flashgun Canon Speedlite 580EX II After some extensive research, I came to the conclusion that if I didn't go for the top-of-the-range Speedlite flashgun, I would eventually have to go back and buy it anyway. This is due to its power and wireless capabilities when compared with its little brother the 430EX / 430EX II. Whole new learning curve now...
Lens Sigma EX DG 24-70mm f/2.8 MACRO I love this lens. I'm using it exclusively now. Way more expensive than the 18-125mm and less flexible as well, but so much better.
Sigma DC 18-125mm f3.5-5.6 Basic, low range and cheap lens but flexible enough to learn and experiment.
Filter Hama SuperHMC Pro1 UV(0) 82mm A protector for the Sigma EX 24-70mm f/2.8. Oh, the pain of having a 82mm lens barrel - filters are so much more expensive!!!
Hama UV 62mm Just a lens protector, really. For the 18-125mm.
White Balance Setup WhiBal pocket edition White balance gray reference card. It's a spectrally flat true gray rugged card. Correct color temperature (or white balance) is obtained from a picture of this card at the target environment lighting.
Tripod Vivitar V2600 One of the cheapest I found.
GPS Data Logger Globalsat DG-100 For automatic geotagging of my photos. I should have a blogpost somewhere about my workflow for assisted geotagging, but it's probably not done yet.
Holux M-241 There wasn't a lot of choice for GPS data loggers when I bought the Globalsat DG-100. At least not on a similar budget.
But now there is. And I've bought another data logger - the Holux M-241. Here are the pros and cons that I've gathered against the Globalsat DG-100:
  • Better, more sensitive GPS tracker chip;
  • More configurable and much more storage space for data points;
  • Directly configurable via two buttons and a small LCD screen;
  • Nice to have lots of info from the LCD: current location, time, speed, heading, storage space left (in number of data points);
  • Wireless transfer of data file via bluetooth;
  • Smaller than the Globalsat DG-100;
And now the cons:
  • Battery hog. It eats roughly one AA battery per travelling day (not 24h);
  • Harder to start/stop - by switch rather than by pressure button;
  • Harder to quickly see its status - no bright or blinking LEDs, so it's necessary to read the LCD display, which requires some favourable light;

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Post-production

geotagging

Data acquisition gpsbabel GPSBabel retrieves GPS data from recognised GPS receivers and manipulates it between a multitude of supported formats.
I use it to read track/waypoint data directly from the data logger into GPX and/or KML format.
LoadMyTracks Alternatively to gpsbabel, LoadMyTracks also pulls data from the GPS device. It supports a number of devices, including the Globalsat DG-100. It seems to support batch tagging to some degree but I haven't tested it. This is, perhaps, a more friendly tool than gpsbabel.
Batch tagging GPSPhotoLinker This little Java tool matches (implicitly timed) GPS track data against photo timestamps, obtained from their EXIF metadata. Works very well, and injects some location tags in IPTC fields.

RAW development

RAW conversion Bibble Pro 4.10.1 After starting to shoot in RAW, post processing became overwhelming, so I had to bite the bullet and go for a commercial solution. After a bit of research, I decided to go for Bibble Pro. I am so satisfied with the results and the times it saves me, when comparing with ufraw.
Pixel-level editing GIMP 2.4 The almighty GIMP; This has got to be one of the best software packages for its purpose EVER. Just look at its price and portability!!
Tablet pen Wacom Graphire 4 A very decent pen tablet for image editing. Not that I'm a hardcore image expert or anything, but there weren't many tablets to choose from.

Panorama production

Panorama creation and perspective correction hugin 0.7 SVN This is becoming more than a GUI for autopano-sift. It now performs vignetting and optic distortion correction, exposure calibration across all panorama parts, etc. Unfortunately it still a little unstable and only the svn trunk has the exposure correction code, so some serious compilation is required. But is pays!

HDR production

Panorama creation and perspective correction qtpfsgui QT based GUI for the pfs tools. This toolset implements a number of algorithms for tone mapping images.
enfuse A simpler alternative to pfs tools for tone mapping is implemented by enfuse through a different algorithm. It's simpler to use and generally better for less artistic / more realistic HDRs.