Our Photography Gear (May 2022)
6 Minute Read | Written by The Way To Wherever
Here we’ll keep an up-to-date breakdown of the gear we’re currently using, and some recommendations based on our own personal experience.
We are by no means expert photographers, we got our first real camera in January 2020 and in that time we’ve learnt a lot about the art of photography. Compositions, colours and the gear involved. A fair chunk of what we know was learnt by doing, taking thousands of photos along our journeys through Australia, Europe, and now here in Asia, and we’ve created this post to answer the common question of what we use to create our images. The information, examples and recommendations you’ll find are based on our own experience and do not cover all possible uses for the equipment we use.
Below you’ll also find some examples of shots that we’ve used particular equipment to create.
So let’s start off with…
The Cameras
Nikon D3500, we purchased this new as our first DSLR camera from Jessops in Edinburgh.
We used this camera for most of our adventures in Scotland the first time as well as our first North Queensland roadtrip, and found the body to be great to learn the basics of photography and get used to using a large DSLR camera. At the moment, we only use the D3500 as a backup body because some of the features of our primary camera are better suited to our purposes. It’s still a great camera to play around with manual settings and takes awesome photos (and video) with RAW shooting options, and we would absolutely recommend it for someone just starting out that wants a DSLR.
Nikon D5500, this is currently the primary camera we use for all of our photos you see on Instagram, as well as on our website. We bought this second hand in February 2021.
The sensor (what takes the actual photo), is exactly the same as in the D3500, but with a few different features such as the built-in interval shooting mode. This camera suits our needs and lets us take photos in our style a bit easier on the road. Talking about spec differences, the D5500 is actually years older than the D3500. The D5500 has a few more focus points, is a bit heavier, doesn't quite have as long battery-life and has a slightly larger screen. While this is also a great camera and we use it as our primary body, the D3500 is more cost-effective, modern, has better battery life and is simple to use. The two reasons we use the D5500 as our primary are that it has a mappable function button so we can adjust each of the three shooting settings (ISO, shutter speed and aperture) without having to go into the menu, and that interval timer shooting mode. For almost every scenario other than self-portraits we’d recommend the D3500 for a beginner. It’s important to mention that both of these bodies have been replaced within their respective lineups by Nikon, but are great starting points and reasonably affordable second hand.
GoPro Hero 5 Black
It’s definitely getting a bit ancient these days, but it works great in a pinch. We almost exclusively use it for underwater content. It got great use while we were in North Queensland, exploring the Great Barrier Reef and getting some shots from the water that wouldn’t have been possible with our absolutely not-waterproof DSLR cameras. However this is definitely our least used piece of gear, we don’t spend quite as much time filming and shooting in environments that require an action cam and for general video recording our iPhone’s, DSLR cameras and drone are more than enough for us at this stage. Worth noting that it can record up to 120fps in 1080p, which none of our other recording equipment can, but we rarely need to slow footage down that much.
DJI Mavic Mini One
The drone we currently use for all of our aerial photo and video. We have a strong love/hate relationship with this thing, and while it’s taken some of the most unbelievable shots and provided insane aerial perspectives, it is extremely unreliable and the sensor isn’t quite as crisp as we’d like when we crop the content for portrait orientation, which 99% of our published images and videos are. When it does work, it provides beautiful perspectives that are just not possible to achieve with conventional cameras and we love using it for interesting videos and photos, especially over gorgeous landscapes and environments.
The reason it is so unreliable, we believe, is that the Mavic Mini One uses WiFi connectivity from the handheld controller to the aircraft. This is easily interfered and in some cases has prevented us from connecting the remote to the drone at all in some places that we had drone content planned specifically. These issues are reportedly solved in the newer Mavic Mini 2, as it uses DJI’s OcuSync 2.0 transmission instead of basic WiFi. Also worth mentioning is the lack of much wind resistance. We nearly lost it over the ocean at a windy beach, and wouldn't recommend flying it in strong winds.
iPhones
We have an Apple iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 12 that we use in addition to the cameras above. It’s no joke that phone camera technology has become absolutely insane, and in many cases can produce professional high-quality (and even RAW format on some) images and videos. We use our phones for almost all of our short-form video content on Instagram/TikTok, as the video recording quality is great straight from the camera. They lack manual shooting functionality and don’t have the same focal-length options that DSLR and mirrorless cameras provide (although every new phone has more and more zoom lenses these days), but are more than enough for those just wanting to take photos that turn out great, or experiment with more professional photography avenues.
Our Lenses
We currently have three DX-format lenses that work with both of our camera bodies, these are:
18-55mm f/3.5-5.6
This is the kit lens that came with our Nikon D3500 when we purchased it in January 2020. We use it for the majority of our photos on Instagram as well as our portfolio. It’s nothing special amongst camera lenses and can be picked up for under $100. It’s a bit of a jack-of-all-trades and master-of-none lens, covering the 18-55mm focal length (the amount of zoom), which ranges from slightly wide-angle to a nice simple zoom, but the aperture of f/3.5-5.6 doesn’t provide much option for soft/blurry backgrounds at closer ranges. So, for portrait photographers or more advanced situations it can be a bit more difficult to get the shot you want. As we take a lot of travel shots we can get away with not getting much blur and with such a natural focal-length it works for us just fine, but we would like to upgrade to something with a fixed aperture and slightly wider focal range soon!
55-300mm f/4.5-5.6
We picked this longer zoom lens up with our D5500 body, to experiment with more narrow-scoped shot ideas and wildlife photography. The version we have is quite old now, and the autofocus is super slow and inaccurate but if the subject is still it works fine. With a focal length that ranges all the way up to 300mm, we can get some really shallow depth of field shots even with that f/4.5-5.6 aperture, albeit standing quite a distance from the subject. While we don’t use this lens much for shots we post on Insta, it gets quite a bit of use for our more general photography, product photography and non-invasive shots of wildlife.
10-24mm f/3.5-4.5
This is our ultra-wide angle lens, its intended purpose is wide landscape shots and it is definitely our highest build-quality lens. That said, it is the least used lens in our kit. The potential for landscape photographers with this lens is insane, so if big wide landscape shots are your thing, have a look at lenses around this focal length. We use it for shots we plan for Instagram ranging in the 14-24mm (still quite natural looking) focal length range, as the image quality this lens delivers is better than the 18-55mm kit lens. It is also great for shooting interiors or any other indoor environment due to that slightly wider angle, but when pushed all the way to 10mm, shots can end up quite distorted if not composed well. With a max focal length of 24mm, the f/4.5 aperture doesn’t provide much background blur so we don’t really get this one out for shots where we want that.
Mountains about 10km away shot at 300mm!
35mm focal length on 18-55mm lens
Shot at 12mm, from about one metre in front of us to capture the entire fountain
The Rest
Alongside those key pieces of equipment, there are a whole range of other things that help us get to the final products that we post or deliver to brands we work with. This section will be broken up into photography accessories and the technology we use after we’ve got the shots.
Camera Bag
At the moment we use a Lowepro Fastpack BP 250 AW III to carry all our camera gear with us to shoot. It is the perfect size for the gear we have at the moment, fitting everything listed above as well as having a padded laptop pouch securely located against the wearers back. It definitely gets heavy with both cameras, all the lenses, the drone and a laptop, but the waist strap takes a lot of the weight off our shoulders and balances it on our hips. It came with an all-weather protective cover that we use to keep the bag dry in the rain and snow. It also has a good sized tripod pocket along the side of the bag, and fits into airline carry-on size requirements.
Tripod
The second most important piece of equipment we use behind our cameras and something many photographers suggest investing the most money in early in your career as it should last a lifetime. However, we got ours for about £20. We currently use an Inca IN330G 3-Way tripod, made 100% from plastic and with a max height of roughly 1.3m. We’d be lying if we said it was perfect or even great, with its flimsy legs, unstable extender and difficult to orientate head, but it has gotten the job done for us since we first started. That said, we would definitely recommend a better quality tripod, with more stability so your cameras are at less risk of falling, taller maximum height and lightweight/more durable materials. Tripods get super expensive quickly though so we’ll be looking to upgrade to a much higher quality one when our budget permits.
GoPro Underwater Dome
Still not featured on the Insta since we purchased it in late 2020, this lets us get those cool half-half shots underwater. We’ve experimented with it on the Great Barrier Reef as well as in some beautiful North Queensland swimming holes, but just couldn’t get the quality shots we wanted from the GoPro. We still take it with us on our travels and hopefully it will get some use here in Indonesia!
Computers
We have an Apple M1 MacBook Air and an Apple MacBook Pro 16” that we do all of our post-processing, photo reviewing, content planning and blog writing on. As we both have iPhone’s, using MacBook’s increases our workflow exponentially with the ability to ‘airdrop’ images and videos across all our devices. Both laptops handle all the programs we use to create our content almost flawlessly even under heavy load. In our opinion, the new apple lineups with their Apple Silicon ‘M’ processors are the most cost-efficient working laptops you can get at this time.
Post-Processing
Everyone has different opinions on post-processing/editing photos. The bottom-line is it’s creating art and post-processing allows even more creative control over the photos we get from our kit. We use the desktop Adobe Photography Suite consisting of Lightroom Classic and Photoshop to colour grade, edit and resize our photos to take them from what the camera captures, to what we print, post on Insta and deliver to brands. These are professional and paid tools, and while there’s definitely more simple and free programs/mobile apps out there to edit photos (we still use some for photo and video), the tools that these programs offer are the best of the best. With this, they also have quite steep learning curves and can take hundreds of hours of both photography understanding and editing knowledge to master, and masters we are not! We also use a huge range of apps and programs to cut and edit video, such as InShot, VN and Adobe Premiere Rush.
That’s It!
If you’ve made it down here, thank you so much for reading!
That’s everything we have in our photography kit and some info on how we use it. If you’ve got any questions or recommendations on gear we should have a look at, let us know below!
