Digital camera and lens equipment

I have been a Canon shooter for as many years as I care to remember. Bodies like the T90 in the days of FD manual focus lenses to EOS 1vHS in my last days of film photography.

I moved over to digital photography in 2004 when I changed one of my EOS 1vHS bodies for an EOS 1D Mark II – still one of the best digital bodies I have used. During 2004 I used both film and digital and then towards the end of 2004 I replaced my other 1vHS with an EOS 1Ds Mark II which is a full frame digital body that I still use today together with an EOS 1D Mark III which is lightning fast in frame taking . I probably take about 70 per cent of my images with the 1D Mark III but love the 1Ds Mark II for landscapes.

As bird photography is my first love I have a range of long lenses  - 600mm f/4 IS, 500mm f/4 IS and a 300mm f2.8 IS together with a 70-200mm f/2.8 IS and a 24-

70mm f/2.8. I got the 500 as the 600 was getting pretty heavy to carry around, especially when travelling by air into Africa. However I still love the reach of the 600 and just adore the 300 for most mammal and bird flight photography.
Most of the time I have a 1.4 x extender on either the 500 or 600 and also use the 2 x extender – more often with the 500.
Tripods, flash and support.

Given the weight of the 600 I use a Gitzo 1548 which is rock solid but heavy! I top this with a Wimberley gimbal type head which I still find the best. I do occasionally use a large Cullman ballhead. My rig is complemented with a Canon 580EX flash mounted on Wimberley brackets on my gimbal head with a better beamer flash extender. The flash is powered by a Turbo 2 x 2 power pack .
When not on a tripod I use Art Morris’ BLUB bean bag which is outstanding. In fact on photo safari I use the bean bag exclusively – even on top of the vehicle.
Other accessories

I naturally use extension tubes, a 12mm and 25mm or both together, for those close up bird shots. I also always carry circular polarizer filters – even for the 500, 600 and 300, which use the drop-in type.
Digital Workflow

I use various software in my digital workflow. I capture images from my CF cards onto either my laptop, external hard-drives or PC using Downloader Pro from Breeze Systems. Images are edited using BreezeBrowser Pro, also from Breeze Systems.
I ALWAYS shoot in RAW mode so first convert the image and do some initial optimizing using Camera RAW in Adobe Photoshop CS4. Photoshop CS4 (64 bit) is then used to further optimize images. I use Photoshop to print on either my Epson Pro 7880 or Epson R2400. If I do a digital image presentation I use ProShow Producer from Photodex Corp. Lately I have been using Adobe Lightroom to do much of this workflow.
     

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