Yes, we are going to talk about Gear here :)
The point of this thread is simply to explain what each piece of gear does. We will start with the basics, and we will go from there. Feel free to add any piece of gear you would like.
Camera
I must start here because it is the basis for everything. As a gear head, having more than one camera is typical. They come in all shapes and sizes, just like discus do ;). Being that this is your main gear, we can go on forever discussing what camera does what. Here, we will simply state what gear IS.
Lens
A lens is an elaborate piece of gear but at the same time has a simple role, to get light to the camera sensor/film. This is achieved by the aperture diaphram. The larger a lens aperture can open, the more light it lets in; simple. You have 2 types of lenses, zoom lenses, and fixed focal lenses. A fixed focal length is a lens that can not be zoomed. It is also referred to as a "prime". A zoom lens allows you to go through a designated zoom range, for example, a 24-70 lens will allow you to zoom from a wider perspective, 24, to a tele-zoom perspective, 70. Again, a prime lens, say a 24mm will only allow you to shoot at 24mm. You "zoom" by moving your feet back and forth lol.
A designation that many people do not understand about a lens is its aperture number. If you are looking at a lens, it will tell you the zoom range, e.g. 24-70mm and then it will tell you its aperture, e.g. 4-5.6. The aperture info simply tells you how wide its aperture can open. For instance, if we have a 70-300 4-5.6 lens. This means that the widest this lens can shoot at is at 70mm. At 70mm, the widest you can go with your aperture is f/4. As you start zooming, the aperture can no longer stay wide open at f/4. This means that as you zoom, your exposure will get darker because you are not letting in the same amount of light as you did when you were at 70mm. At 300mm, the widest you can achieve with this lens would be f/5.6. Keep this in mind when purchasing lenses.
A prime lens will have a set aperture value. There are many zoom lenses that have a steady aperture through out its zoom range. They would look like this: 24-70 2.8. The 2.8 is indicating the aperture value and the fact that it is constant. These lenses go for more money :)
Flash
A flash is a cool piece of gear that I believe every photographer should own at some point. On board flashes are some of the worst flashes most of the time. However, it is a lesser of two evils sometimes when you do not have enough light to shoot without one. A flash is a crucial part of photography in that it simply provides light for you when there is a lack of it.
Tripod
A tripod is simply a piece of gear that holds your camera and accessories in a stationary position. Typically, the more you pay, the better the tripod. If you have money to burn, the carbon fiber ones are much lighter and very durable.
Remote Trigger
This piece of gear allows you to remotely press the shutter of your camera. Very handy when you are shooting from a tripod. It allows you to eliminate the introduction of vibrations caused by handling the camera.
Neutral Density Filters
ND filters come in a wide variety of flavors. You will typically use these on a tripod but I have used very light ones to lower the exposure on a scene. There are circular ND filters that simply screw on to your lens, or you have some that come with filter holders and are square. The point of this piece of gear is to reduce your shutter speed. If on a tripod, you can screw in one of these and it will lower your exposure, allowing you to lower your shutter speed, and in turn, "freezing" subjects that are moving within the frame. The more powerful the ND is, the more expensive it is. You want to spend a good amount of money on these as the cheap ones are very cheap. YGWYPF is very prominent with this piece of gear.
Vertical Grip
A vertical grip is an often overlooked piece of gear. A VG allows you to have a place to place your hand on the body so that you do not have to move your hand away from your regular shooting axis to shoot portrait orientation. Many have additional setting buttons that can also be very handy. Additionally, VG's typically offer an area to add more batteries, increasing the overall battery life of your whole setup. Personally, I have 3 batteries in my a99 and they last me well beyond a typical long shooting session.
Quote:
Originally Posted by dagray
Softbox
A box with inner lining that is reflective and intensifies the inner box but then gets diffused via front panel before it hits your main subject. The amount of softboxes or "modifiers" are infinite.
-Extension tubes
For Macro photography. This allows you to make a makeshift macro lens out of a regular lens. There are super cheap ones, without the pin connections, and there are the expensive ones with the pin connections. In macro photography I always encourage people to manually focus so pins in extension tubes aren't a big deal to me.
-Bellows
Here is a quote that better describes Bellows. (From google search) "a bellows is the accordion-like, pleated expandable part of a camera, usually a large or medium format camera, to allow the lens to be moved with respect to the focal plane for focusing"
This item is also used mainly for macro photography.
https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7584/...dc991c40c0.jpgbellows by al_sabetta, on Flickr
I have a lot more, but will stop for now and edit later to add more :)
