What's in the bag? - Sébastien D'Amour

Hi everyone, 

Hope you are having a marvelous morning on this December morning. It's a cold morning in Ottawa with a -23 degree celsius temperature. I had some fun shooting in the studio yesterday and then going for a hot chocolate with a friend and some shopping since I had ripped my pants while shooting in the day...hahahahahaha

Anyway, I will be making some "What's in the Bag?" posts since I get a lot of question about equipment, what I carry for portrait and wedding session and more.

I will start with my bag. I will explain why I have each piece of equipment also!

I use a Lowepro mini trekker AW. I love this bag. Perfect size for all my gear and price is reasonable. I would have loved to go with Kata bags since they are better design in my eyes and comfort level but they are way more expensive.

I carry:

Canon 5d MarkII

Canon 15mm fisheye 2.8

Canon 85mm 1.8

Canon 24-70mm f2.8L

Canon 70-200mm f2.8L

Canon 580 EXII

1 B&W Circular Polarizer

3 Pocket wizards

30 Sony cybernergy batteries.

1 Canon LP-E6 battery pack.

48 GB of memory. (1-16GB, 3-8GB, 2-4GB) more to come since Raw files form Canon 5d MarkII take lots of memory.

1 Rayflash ringflash.

I chose the Canon 5D MarkII since I need lots of resolution for my stock photography work and I was tired of the heavy weight of the Canon 1Ds MarkII. It has 21.1 MP, High definition video, autoclean sensor, 3 inch 920K pixel screen, same quality build and system that I expect from Canon.

I purchased the Canon 15mm f2.8 fisheye when I went to New York for the Photo EXPO Plus. I wanted a specialty lens to give some of my images a more unique look. 

Sébastien D'Amour, Canon 1Ds MarkII + Canon 15mm f2.8 fisheye.

I have chose to purchase the Canon 85mm 1.8 instead of the 85 1.2LII because of weight and price. Both lens suffer from fringing in high contrast area. I love this focal length for natural looking portraits. I also find the focus to be faster on this lens version of the lens. The optical quality of this lens is superbe and bokeh also. I find that this lens is the best bang for buck portrait lens offered by Canon.

Sébastien D'Amour, Canon 5d MarkII + Canon 85mm f1.2LII(which was rented)

I chose to pack the 24-70 f2.8L lens in my bag because this focal length is very useful for weddings, portraits, landscape or photojournalism work on a Full frame Camera like my Canon 5d MarkII. The lens is big, heavy and fast. Focus is fast and with a maximum aperture of 2.8, control of Depth of field in unbelievably easy. This lens allows me to shoot in low light because of it's maximum aperture value. It suffers some barrel distortion in the short focal length and some Chromatic aberration under certain circumstances. You have to know that when you zoom the 24-70mm f2.8L lens that the barrel extends. 

Sébastien D'Amour Canon 1Ds MarkII + Canon 24-70mm f2.8L

The first  series lens I have purchased is about 2.5 years ago. It his the Canon 70-200 f2.8L lens.

This lens is my baby. I would say that I take about 60% of my images with this lens. This focal length is perfect on any sensor size. I love it since you can take a head shot and a half body shot in 2 seconds. The maximum aperture gives with control over the depth-of-field. You can easily eliminate distracting backgrounds by selecting 2.8 aperture and zooming in all the way to 200 mm. The focus is fast, accurate and quiet. The build and image quality it perfect! I have chose the non IS version since I have found in my testing that this version is faster to focus and sharper. I would maybe chose the IS version today since it would have allowed me to create shots that are not possible without IS. You have to be cautious since this lens is heavy for most users.

Sébastien D'Amour, Canon 1Ds MarkII + Canon 70-200mm f2.8L

I use a Canon 580ExII flash because I find it gives better light, more light and recycles faster then the other Canon flashes. It also sports a Pc connection that allows me to connect it easily with my Pocket wizards.

I use Pocket Wizards because the work above 30 feet in distance. I needed lots of reach since I love to shoot with flashes that are far from my camera. I also find them reliable and easy to use.

My memory cards are either Sandisk Extreme III or Lexar UDMA Professional (300X).

Thank you for reading I hope that the information will be helpful.

Have a marvelous day and got out shooting :D

Sébastien