A Canon Starter Bag

Well, looks like I'll be updating the blog weekly...

One thing caught my eye as I was skimming through Strobist (between the move and the trip, I am about a month behind on reading Strobist and other photography blogs -- I really need to add them to my Bloglines feed).

In a recent post Hobby described his ideal 'starter' bag for an aspiring photographer on a budget and I was surprised how similar his views were to mine. Of course, he went with Nikon, but the Canon equivalents are pretty much what I bought. Of course, I'm starting to wonder if I have too much gear because I've been shooting so infrequently lately.

From the sound of it, the D70s is somewhere between the Rebel XT and 20D, making it pretty much perfect for new photographer. I'd recommend a used 20D for someone getting started, but an XT (350D) will do just fine too. Just make sure you get a warranty on a refurbished camera, IMHO. Although, I'm super jealous of the crazy-fast sync speed of the D70s. If I started over with new gear, I'd probably go with Nikon.

The Tamron 17-50mm F/2.8 is a great lens. Enough said.

Light stand, umbrella adapter, and shoot through umbrella. Again, pretty necessary, I agree totally that these should be early purchases. And they don't have to be expensive to work.

The only item I disagree with is the Nikon SB-800. At $300+, I feel like you could get a Sunpak 383/Vivitar 285/Nikon SB-24 plus an eBay trigger for a third of the price, and then you'd have extra money to get a few more important extras, like batteries, CF cards, etc. Or heck, you could get 2-3 flashes for the same cost and they'd all sync. Yeah, the eBay triggers aren't perfectly reliable, but they are good enough to start with. And saving $200 (a little less than 20%) is a big deal.

Other than that though, it was uncanny how Mr. Strobist picked out a starter bag pretty much exactly like what I bought over the past year. Listen to his advice, you can't go wrong.