Tools for Blogging and Photography

Here’s a run down of my gear. Note that the links are affiliate links to Amazon — if you buy, I get a little something and there’s no additional cost to you.

Panasonic Lumix: My current model is the DMC-ZS20 and I love it. Mine has a 20x optical zoom, 14.1 megapixels, and it’s almost all I shoot these days. It fits in my pocket, it’s amazing in low light, it’s got great image stabilization, I could go on and on and on about how much I adore it. I got mine at Costco to settle a fight between me and the husband — we were not sharing very well — and I’m ready to get another one for the upgrade. The latest model has a 30x optical zoom (what the what!?!) and well, hell, just get one. Have you not hit add to cart yet? You will not be sorry.

ThinkPad X220: My crappy old IBM workhorse of a machine does everything I need it to do and then some. I have an extended battery, which is nice, but it has zero other fancy features. Here’s the thing — I worry enough about having my camera lifted and I like traveling with an easily replaced piece of hardware that’s both cheap and reliable. I’m not a brand loyalist, go head and whatever with your Mac Air machines. But I’d rather have ugly cheap hardware that’s not attractive to thieves. It’s got a solid state hard drive in it (added by the spouse) so that’s nice for dragging around too, fewer moving parts to go bad.

Fuji-Film XT1: After years of dragging around an DSLR, I finally jumped to a mirrorless camera. I picked this one for no other reason than that several photographer friends were shooting it and liked it. I also got an 18-135 lens which is working great as my all-purpose shoot everything lens. Here’s the thing — this camera is not the easiest to use, especially if you haven’t updated your kit for a while. But slowing down is making me a thoughtful photographer, and that’s good. Plus, digital, am I right? You can screw up everything and just keep trying.

iPhone: What can I say that you don’t already know? It’s in my kit, I use it all the damn time for video, snapping photos, mapping my location, finding waffles, listening to podcasts, squandering my hard earned free time on Twitter, and oh, yeah, making the occasional phone call. Heaven help me, I love this stupid device. And hate myself because of that. I also have a Samsung Galaxy III, but the camera in it sucks. A lot. Both my phones are unlocked. It’s worth noting that my cameras are all wifi enabled, so I can shoot with them and then upload images via my phone.

Extended battery case: I have tried a zillion of these — okay, maybe a dozen — as a gear reviewer and there’s only one that I really liked — the Mophie Juice Pack. It doubles the life of your phone without doubling the size.

Power bank: There are a bunch of these, I’ve got one from Cygnett. It’s a terrifically useful device for charging anything that’s charged via USB. It’s about the size of my phone and is super handy for keeping everything running. Plus, it charges two devices at once.