My Gear
Like many people, I bought my gear a bit at a time. While I certainly don't have as much gear as the average pro, I've amassed what I consider to be a fair bit for the average amateur. I haven't always made the best purchasing decisions, but I haven't had any seriously unpleasant outcomes from my purchases. The above shot shows most of my gear. Obviously I needed to actually take the above shot, so my small digital camera, an Olympus C3020, isn't shown. I've actually got about four or five more camera bags, but that's the only one with a Nikon logo on it. 8-) The rest are Lowe Pro and Tamrac. Also not shown are several tripods.
Primary Body
My primary body is a Nikon D100 digital SLR, in this shot shown mounted with the Tamron 28-300mm XR. At the time of purchase It was a toss-up between the D100 and the Canon 10D. I chose the Nikon because I liked the idea of being able to use legacy lenses.... the backward-compatibility of the Nikon F-mount is far superior to the Canon EOS mount used on the 10D . Additionally Nikon has worked a lot harder to create a full imaging system, rather than just handing you a great camera and setting you loose with it they have all of the software and such to do a lot of your digital workflow. Canon may well have improved by now in this area. Had I known then what I know now then I would have included the Fuji bodies in my decision-making process.
Backup Camera
This is my long-suffering Olympus C3020, now relegated to tasks where the D100 can't be used, such as taking pictures of the D100, or in situations where I don't want the D100 to be risked, like out in the shed when I'm building something.
Lenses for D100
The first lens I bought for my D100 was a Tamron AF28-300mm Ultra Zoom XR f/3.5-6.3 LD Aspherical (IF) MACRO lens, model A06. Quite a mouthful. It's a great lens and particularly well suited to the D100 because it covers so many bases that you don't need to change lenses too often, and changing lenses means the possibility of dust getting into the body and settling on the CCD, necessitating cleaning said CCD.
After getting the camera I noticed that the shots just weren't as sharp as I had expected, and I agonized over the purchase of the Tamron... I had done research and pro nature photographers who need that kind of range seem to really like this lens for its size, weight, and low cost, whereas many other people who haven't actually *used* one of these lenses seem to have an automatic hatred of long zoomers. For months I thought my lens must be crap because I wasn't getting sharp shots. Then I bought that off-brand 70-200mm AIS lens so I could compare, and I found the Tamron was sharper than the off-brand. It must be that the off-brand was just *particularly* nasty, right? So eventually I bought the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D, which is legendary for sharpness. I compared it against the Tamron at 50mm and I found very little difference. So apparently I had been anguished for no reason. As it turns out, shooting digital with a Bayer-type CCD like the Nikons (and most other digital cameras) have just works against sharpness. You get a soft shot, then you sharpen it after the fact. That's just the way it is.
Main Tripod
My primary tripod is a Manfrotto 55CL Pro Black with optional tripads and spike-feet. Wonderful tripod. I had gone through several tripods with variously unimpressive results until I found this one. Most tripods can't be used by a reasonably-sized person (I'm only six feet tall) without raising the center column or stooping a lot. Raising the center column is not optimal for rigidity, and stooping is not optimal for comfort. You should only use the column when you *have* to. Well, this tripod is a fair bit taller than average. It's based on a very common tripod - the Manfrotto 55CL, which I think the folks down south call a Bogen 3022, but it's the pro version which can have the center column mounted horizontally which can really save the day for macros of flowers and whatnot. Being as it's based on the 55CL it has legs that are adjustable in angle as well as length. I like that.
Tripod Head
Months after I bought the 55CL I bought a Manfrotto joystick head. I was leery of it for a couple of reasons, but in the end I bought it anyway, and for the money it's pretty good. It takes up a hand, which is its primary drawback. With a serious ball-head you can aim while both hands are on the camera, so you can manually-focus and trip the shutter. With the joystick you have to have one hand on the joystick to move it. It's also annoying that you lose so much height when you switch to portrait mode. Actually, the height of it is frustrating in general... after spending all that money for a tripod that was tall enough I then added a head that was 8" tall, so now the tripod is *too* tall with the legs fully extended, so I have to back them off a bit. I know... I'm just never satisfied. 8-)
Macro Bellows
One of the less common bits of kit that I have is this Nikon PB-6 macro bellows, here shown with the D100 mounted to it. Its purpose is to allow you to use regular lenses to take images at quite high magnifications. With the 50mm prime lens that's on it in this picture, I can take up to 4X macro images. Keep in mind that that is four times more enlargement than an auto-focus Micro Nikkor will give at its maximum (1X). With a 20mm lens on it I can get to 11X reproduction. That's awfully big. The bellows are made to be tripod-mounted... holding it by hand would be pretty nasty, indeed.