The Gear Behind the Guides

Thanks for stopping by! We've received a lot of questions regarding what cameras we use to take our photos and what software we use to post-process them, so we've created this page as a reference for those of you curious about the tools of our trade.

Here's a short video showcasing our gear -

Capturing the Shot -

Nikon D90

Matthew and Kevin both use Nikon D90s. The Nikon D90 is a great camera, though it has been replaced by the Nikon D7000. Most of the photos on this blog came from this faithful workhorse.

Nikon D7000

Michaela uses a Nikon D7000 which features some snazzy upgrades from the D90, including higher resolution, full hi-definition video capabilities, faster shutter speeds and an intervalometer, which came in very handy to capture the fireworks portion of our Christmas Tour time lapse.

Canon 20D

That's right... Canon. When we first started out, Matthew and Michaela shared a Canon 20D on loan from Matthew's dad. A few of those shots are hanging around our gallery. Thanks dad!

Lenses

The majority of our shots are taken with our kit lenses, the AF-S DX NIKKOR 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G ED VR. We call it the 18-105 for short... We also have a Nikkor 50mm f/1.8G and a Sigma 10-20mm /4-5.6. On occasion we've had the opportunity to borrow lenses from friends. Here is a quick rundown of other lenses we've used:

- Nikkor 12-24mm f/4
- Nikkor 17-35mm f/2.8
- Nikkor 28-70mm f/2.8
- Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8

Software -

Photomatix Pro

Photomatix is one of the most important programs in your HDR arsenal. It's sort of a photographer's bread and butter really. This is the program that combines multiple exposures, blending the best bits of each to create a HDR image. We love Photomatix because of the artistic freedom it offers. It takes us about 90% of the way to our finished product.

Adobe Lightroom 3

Lightroom is a great program to organize and quickly edit photos. There's even a Photomatix plugin that allows for easy exporting.

Adobe Photoshop CS6

Photoshop is where we fine tune our images. Sometimes they require a technique called "masking" when there has been movement between the different exposures blended by Photomatix, a common problem known as "ghosting".

Topaz Plug-In Suite

The Photoshop plugins from Topaz are a great way to get creative with details and sharpening an image. Topaz also has a great noise-reduction plugin, which is really handy because HDR images tend to get a little noisy.