Refurbished Canon Camera kits with a full one year Canon warranty.
Yes, you can get a quality, name brand Canon DLSR with two lenses for under $500 at Canon USA. If you only want one lens the kit is less than $350. I found these particular specials this morning.
What is “gray market” photo equipment and how does it differ from “U.S. Warranty” equipment? Gray market equipment (also called “parallel import”) is imported into the U.S. but bypasses the official U.S. distributor. Gray market equipment costs less, sometimes a lot less.
Is it a great deal? Or is it a rip-off? You are searching online for a good price and you come across a terrific deal. Are you about to get burned? There are ways you can tell.
The first rule when choosing camera gear is to buy what you can afford. It is hard to enjoy taking pictures if you are worried about how to pay for the camera you are holding. So buy what you can afford now, and upgrade later. And the second rule? We will get to that later.
Welcome to my online buying guide for photographers. With over 80 articles it is one of the most comprehensive photography buyer’s guides on the web.
I get lots of photo questions, especially at this time of year, and many of them begin with “What is the best . . . .” They usually come from photographers or someone who is shopping for a photographer. If you are shopping for yourself, or for a photographer in your life, this series is for you.
My “best of the best” series recommends the best photo gear, accessories, software, books, DVDs, online photo labs, and a whole lot more. Thanks to the information in these articles I get emails from photographers thanking me for saving them time, frustration, and a lot of money.
This article is reposted annually in November with some updates in between. Reposted: November 30, 2024. Most recent update: December 19, 2024.
Cadence
We planned on shooting at midnight when the moon was high enough in the sky to do portraits, but we got clouds, lightning, and wind. So we went with it.
Anoush, Lake Michigan at sunset
It was a beautiful day at a Lake Michigan beach at sunset and the colors just kept getting better as you will see in the next image.
Kodak 126 Instamatic Camera and Kodachrome 64 film cartridge.
I just learned today is National Camera Day. Who knew?
This Kodak 126 Instamatic cartridge camera was my first camera. It was a gift from my parents when I was in high school. I used print film cartridges for about 3 years. It was not until I was in college that I made the switch to slide film cartridges.
Camera LCD zoomed in on a Grackle photo. iPhone photo.
It is simple to rate photos in your camera, provided you have a rate button. (Later on I will tell you what to do if you don’t have a rate button.) If you take a photo you want to find quickly when you download the memory card, just push the rate button. When you download the photos on your memory card you can use Adobe Bridge (more about Bridge later) to quickly find your rated photos.
Field of View Table with the horizontal, vertical and diagonal FOV.
There are times that it is handy to have a FOV Lens Chart, also called Angle of View charts. These charts tell you in degrees the angle of view for lenses used on cameras with different size digital sensors. Why might you need to know that information? I am glad you asked.
AlienBees Studio Lights
For the best combination of quality and price, it is hard to beat AlienBees studio lights. I’ve been using AlienBees in my studio for over 10 years, and like so many other photographers, I’ve been singing their praises. It would be hard to find the same quality for less money.
Yongnuo 600EX-RT Speedlite and Yongnuo YN-E3-RT Transmitter. Click to see a larger version.
Should you spend $549 on a Canon 600EX-RT speedlite, or $138 on Yongnuo’s nearly identical clone, the YN600EX-RT? And what about the radio transmitters? Canon’s is $299 and the Yongnuo copy is $95. So you can buy three Yongnuo speedlites plus the radio transmitter for a total of $509, less than the price of one Canon speedlite. The price advantage is clear, but what about quality, reliability, and service issues? Continue reading
RØDE warning and registration page.
If you aren’t careful, you could end up with a fake RØDE Microphone. If you already bought one, here’s how to tell if it is fake. If you don’t have a RØDE mic, here’s how to avoid buying a fake.
RØDE VideoMicro in use at Acadia National Park.
Let’s face it. While many recent DLSRs, ILCs and smartphones can give you excellent visual quality in the videos, the sound quality of the built in microphone leaves a lot to be desired. For a modest amount of money you can bring the sound quality up to par with the visual quality. That is why video mic sales have exploded.
GoPro HERO12 Black. Click image for a larger version.
Looking for a small, mountable, “ideal for sports and action”, inexpensive, high definition video and still camera with a waterproof housing and image quality that Lucasfilm (the Star Wars people) calls “amazing”? This camera will go anywhere and mount just about anywhere. Prices range from $279 to $399 (which is a lot less than your typical DSLR with HiDef video).
Looking for a tripod? Choose wisely. Other than a camera and a good lens, nothing can make a bigger difference in your photography than a good tripod. This is the place to find information, recommended models, and links to more information.
Forget-Me-Nots, Thorne-Swift Nature Preserve, Michigan
There are several ways to do closeup photography. Closeup filters, extension tubes, and macro lenses are the most commonly used options. The best gear for you depends on your preferences, how you want to work, the subjects you are after, how much stuff you want to carry, and how much you want to spend. I cover your best options.
iPhone photography has become a huge thing. According to Flickr, the millions of Flickr users take more pictures with an iPhone (47%) than any other camera. A lot of iPhone photographers are looking for add on lenses for their phone, and that may include you. So which lenses are the best?
Flash adapter and umbrella for a shoe-mount electronic flash.
There are a lot of practical and inexpensive (more or less) gifts for photographers. Here is a nice list of items starting at $8. To make it easy to track them down, these items are individuality linked plus most of these items can be found in the Misc Goodies section of my photography store which has direct links to Amazon.com. Prices are current as of the date of this post, but prices do fluctuate. Some items can be temporarily unavailable. These items are not listed in order of price.
My favorite camera stores are B&H Photo, Adorama, KEH Camera, and Amazon. I will tell you why I like them, and why you should be wary of so many other online camera stores.
I was comparing the Canon PowerShot SX280 HS with other cameras with similar features (shirt pocket size, 20x zoom range) like the Panasonic Lumix ZS30. There weren’t full reviews of either camera so I went back to reviews of the Canon SX260 HS and the Panasonic ZS20, assuming the current cameras would be somewhat better than the older models and that both would have the pedigree traits of their predecessors (which is often but not always the case for a camera’s family tree).
Canon EOS R5
The holiday season is here and I am getting the usual questions about which digital cameras I recommend. In every price range there are some cameras that are better designed than others. How do you find them? That is what this article is all about.
Welcome to my online buying guide for photographers. With over 75 articles it is one of the most comprehensive photography buyer’s guides on the web.
I get lots of photo questions, especially at this time of year, and many of them begin with “What is the best . . . .” They usually come from photographers or someone who is shopping for a photographer. If you are shopping for yourself, or for a photographer in your life, this series is for you.
My “best of the best” series recommends the best photo gear, accessories, software, books, DVDs, online photo labs, and a whole lot more. Thanks to the information in these articles I get emails from photographers thanking me for saving them time, frustration, and a lot of money.
This article is updated annually. Most recent update: June 19, 2025.
Refurbished Canon gear.
Yes, you can get a quality, name brand Canon DLSR with two lenses for under $600 at Canon USA. I found these particular specials this evening for a total of $570. If you buy both specials you get a camera and two lenses.
Trunk or Treat, sponsored by the Graceland University Enactus program, Lamoni Iowa.
If I am photographing an event and the light is constant, I shoot in manual mode for the most accurate exposure and the best color. But if the light is variable, there isn’t time during an active event to be constantly changing the exposure because you will miss too many photo ops. That means shooting in an automatic mode.
Camera gear for Trunk or Treat.
This is the gear I will be taking to photograph Trunk or Treat, a big annual event in Lamoni Iowa. The camera with a 24-105mm lens will be hanging around my neck. The camera with the 70-300mm lens will be hanging from my right shoulder. Two memory card wallets, one for each camera will be in my jacket pocket. The spare camera battery, which will fit either camera, will also be in my jacket pocket.
It has been a really hot summer so I am posting this again as a “save your camera gear” reminder. Camera gear has a temperature and humidity rating. A top of the line Canon camera body has a limit of 115°F and 85% or less humidity. A black camera on a hot day can easily exceed that limit. Less expensive cameras of any brand have lower limits so it is important to protect your gear.
The ideas for this article started with a question about camera gear (see my Mama Killdeer article). A friend of mine was surprised to learn I used a lens that cost less than $200 to capture an image of a killdeer. So I went to the refurbished gear section of Canon’s web site to check some of their current prices. The camera and lens combination above is $200. The lens is a good, general purpose, semi-wide angle to short telephoto lens. (To keep things simple I am rounding everything up to the next dollar.)
I captured this image in a church parking lot in rural southern Iowa. Two years ago she laid her eggs in the same parking lot and successfully hatched her eggs a few weeks later. This summer she did it again.