The Equipment!

 Nikon D7000

So this camera is by Baby I love it to death. Before this camera I had the D5000 which was good for what I was doing for school but then I got my hands on this baby at work and fell in love. I love how easy it is to work in manual on this one. Compared to the D5000 the D7000 definitely is better in manual not only because it has a wider ISO range and a higher shutter option but because these are all available without having to access a menu on the lcd screen. This makes for a more fluid shooting for me because I don’t have to take the camera off my eye to make an adjustment if a cloud decides to mess with me and cover the sun causing my lighting to change, damn clouds. I'm not going to go into all the specs of the camera because you probably wont know what I'm talking about and you will probably get bored but I will say if you are wanting a great professional camera that you can easily shoot manual in this one if your baby too. Now recently Nikon has come out with a D7100 which boggles my mind as to why the biggest notable difference I can tell in the megapixels which for most people who are taking pictures for posting on facebook or to print for a photo album it doesn’t matter because the biggest time when megapixels matter now is if you want to print something up huge!

Vello BG-N4 Battery Grip

With my D7000 setup I have the Vello BG-N4 Battery Grip (which you cant see here but its there I promise) which basically adds an extra shutter button so you don’t have to strain your wrist to take a picture vertically. Adding this to your camera actually makes you look a wee bit more professional only because it makes your camera look bigger and therefore everyone thinks you have such a nice camera. Now I'm not saying go out and buy it for that reason because then you become one of those people… But you should buy it for the convenience and love of your wrist.

Nikon SB 700

This was the first ever flash I bought for my camera and I have to say I love it. I have yet to truly find out something I don’t like about this flash it has not once overheated on me and trust me I get shutter happy all my friends and family know…I honestly searched long and hard on what flash to get when I finally decided on this one and I wasn’t disappointed. 

 Nikon SB 910

This flash is a huge improvement on the SB 900. I have never personally owned a 900 but at work we used it all the time and it was horrid to use at weddings because it would over heat all the time! So Nikon realized this and came out with the 910 which was a huge improvement, it has all the power and functions of the 900 without the overheating! This one is more powerful than the 700 so I recommend this if you are needing something super powerful or are constantly shooting in a dark room. 

CowboyStudio NPT-04 4 Channel Wireless Trigger

These little things are the best buy I could have ever made. They are perfect for what I need them for which is using my SBs off camera. They so have a shutter sync speed of 1/250 but unless you are shooting sports or a hyper active child who shakes violently then a 1/250 shutter speed is all you need. To use them you have the one main part that goes on the hot shoe on your camera and the others the flash connects to it like it would in your camera then you set the channel so make sure every one is on the same channel which is easy because there are 2 different switches for channels so you have 4 combinations for the channel options so you just make sure the switches are the same. Then you make sure your flashes are on manual and you are good to go. Now if you don’t know how to run your flash on manual I would recommend not opting for these but if you know how then these are the best way to go especially at the price. What I bought it came with the trigger and two flash mounts and you can get more to use more flashes if you feel so inclined.

Nikon 55-200mm f/4-5.6G ED-IF AF-S DX VR

This lens I gotta say is one of my go to lenses. Especially if I am wanting to stay out of peoples faces but get a close up of them. Now with this lens you can only go as low as a 4 (f-stop) when you are completely unzoomed and as low as a 5.6 when you are completely zoomed which means you either need a slower shutter, a higher ISO, or a SB flash. All that being said it is super rare you are gonna need something over a 1/250 indoors with a SB flash. This lens has never failed me and I recommend this lens plus the 18-55 (which will be posted later) and you have a complete range that is a normal one people need.