canon

In my camera bag, 2025

Writing a blog for over a quarter of a century means occasionally repeating yourself and/or celebrating anniversaries of things. Back in 2011 a regular follower of my posts used my “Ask Me a Question” link to enquire about what was in my day-to-day camera bag. I duly wrote a post called “In My Camera Bag” in which I listed everything that was in my go-to bag of choice at the time. A couple of Canon EOS5D MkII bodies, two 580ex II flash units and 16-35, 24-70 and 70-200 f2.8 L lenses lived in a LowePro Stealth Reporter 650AW bag along with a Mac laptop and quite a few accessories. That was a heavy bag.

Fast forward seven years to 2018 and my much loved and rather ancient Domke J3 camera bag (pictured above) was filled with two EOS5D MkIV bodies, 16-35, 24-70 and 70-200 f4L lenses with two 600EX RT II flashes. By this time my laptops were carried in a tiny little rucksack because I’d been through some bad experiences with a spinal issue and didn’t necessarily need to carry it all of the time. I’m not sure when I bought the bag but it was well over twenty years ago and when I wrote the 2018 remix version of what I carried in my camera bag of it was already my well-worn favourite.

So, a further seven years on, here are some short updates on a few bits of kit that still spend a considerable amount of time in the same old bag.

  • Canon EOS R6 MkII camera bodies
  • Canon EOS R5 MkII camera bodies
  • Canon RF 14-35 f4L lens
  • Canon RF 24-105 f4L lens
  • Canon RF 70-200 f4L lens
  • Canon RF 100-500 f4.5 – 7.1 L lens
  • Canon EL5 Speedlites
  • Canon ST-E10 Speedlite transmitters

Out of the two R6 MkII and two R5 MkII bodies there will be a total of two in the bag at any given time. I leave it packed with one of each just in case I get a short notice job and need to run out of the door but I rarely work that way and so I will pack the right bodies for the job before I leave and keep the others in the rolling bag with the rest of the spare kit because not all of it can be accommodated at the same time, and even if it could that would be a seriously heavy bag. Laptops live in small rucksacks or a Think Tank rolling bag depending on what I’m doing. I’m not going to mention the other gear sitting in a cupboard in my office but there are a few camera bodies, a dozen or so lenses and more flash units than any sane person should own. So, if you like the shortened version of the kit review – it goes like this:

(more…)

Recent portrait work: The Bishop of Salisbury


A couple of weeks ago I shot some portraits of The Bishop of Salisbury, Rt Revd Stephen Lake, in the grounds of Salisbury Cathedral. The first few frames were for part of a release to the press along with an extended caption explaining a conference he had hosted that was exploring the relationship between the Church of England and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. I also shot some of the outdoor activities that went along with the event.

The rest of the images of The Bishop were for stock and I really enjoyed shooting them. He and I had met before, we are almost exactly the same age and grew up just a couple of miles from one another and so it is no surprise that we got on pretty well. As we chatted I shot pictures. What you see above is fifteen of the edited frames including a much needed headshot but as I carried on shooting I got closer and closer to what I really wanted to achieve – which is the frame below.
(more…)

On holiday with my compact camera
Venice, Italy, during the Biennale. 09 November 2024. ©Neil Turner

Every time I get a new compact camera (and there have been quite a few) I come onto my blog and talk about it. Just under a year ago I got the Canon Powershot G5X MkII to replace my G7X MkII and took it on a family holiday to Venice. Earlier this month we were back in the same city with the same camera but this time the vacation was all about art. The Venice Biennale and all of the fringe shows that happen across the city are great places to see a lot of good, bad and occasionally indifferent art and, for a photographer, it’s a great place to see people interacting with it.

To save you going back and reading last year’s post I swapped from the G7X MkII for three basic reasons:

(more…)

Canon EOS R5 MkII – one month in


A couple of months ago I mentioned that I was due to take delivery of my first Canon EOS R5 MkII camera body. They are in great demand and the waiting lists at just about every retailer are pretty long and so I was delighted when mine turned up a little over a month ago. When work permitted I got down to the nerdy business of getting to know everything about it. Of course the menus were very familiar to my other Canons but different enough that they needed a few hours of study. The layout is also similar enough to my much-loved EOS R6 MKII bodies that the camera worked ergonomically from day one, hour one and pretty much minute two.

Having two different formats of memory card in the same camera has never been ideal and once again we have SD plus CF Express B and so it took a few minutes to decide how I was going to shoot making the best use of the two cards. In the end I opted for JPGs to the SD card and RAW files to the more robust (and larger capacity) CF Express card. Pretty much every other function is set up to match my existing cameras but it was the way that you set up and use FTP direct from the camera that took the longest to get my head around and become happy with.

(more…)

Another look at editing on iOS mobile devices

Back in February 2018 I concluded that I had failed to develop a decent workflow for the iPad or iPhone and that if I had the time I’d come back and continue with the quest. Since then I’ve occasionally used versions of my previous workflow and have dabbled with new options as they have come to my attention. Some six and a half years later I bring good news if you shoot with Canon and don’t mind paying for useful applications on subscription.

With the help of Canon and Adobe I think that I have now got a usable and developing workflow for importing, editing, captioning and transmitting images from my iPhone. All of this is currently only possible on my phone because my iPad is a bit out of date and cannot load one of the key applications. Apple announced a new version of the iPad Mini this week which prompted me to post this update.

Let’s talk about what has changed to make me so positive about what’s now possible:

(more…)

Thirteen quick portraits using unfamiliar gear
Husnah Kukundakwe – Ugandan Para Swimming athlete, photographed at the Athletes Village ahead of the Paris 2024 Paralympic Games. Monday 26 August 2024. Photo: OIS/Neil Turner

I hope that most people reading this are aware that my photography career has lots of elements to it. I have shot pictures for some 38 years now but for the last ten years I have also worked as an editor on large sports projects with Bob Martin and his team. One of the best parts of that work is going to Olympic and Paralympic events with the Olympic Information Service and this year we went to Paris to provide some coverage of the Paralympics and to work as mentors for eight young photographers. Bob Martin, Joel Marklund and Adrian Dennis did a great job as their photographic mentors and Sammie Thompson, Joe Toth and I guided them through our live workflow giving them a chance to get to grips with working as live editors for a couple of days each as well as sorting out their images. You can see what the team produced here.

(more…)

The ultimate compromise lens?


That’s a dramatic headline but, never before having had a lens like this, it’s the most accurate way that I could think of to sum it up. Canon’s RF 100-500mm f4.5-7.1 L IS USM is something of a conundrum. It covers a range of focal lengths that I find extremely useful in a lot of the work that I currently do and, paired with the RF 24-105mm f4 L IS USM, it is a valuable item in my travelling kit bag. I have shot pictures with it that I would simply not have been able to without hauling some incredibly heavy (and expensive) lenses around the world.

Do I love this lens? No. Do I appreciate it? Yes… with bells on.

(more…)

One month in with the Canon EL5 flash
The oldie but goodie 600 EXII RT on the left meets the EL5 on the right.

Many months ago I wrote about my experiences with the top-of-the-range Canon EL1 flash. It was heavy, bulky and expensive but in almost every other way I found it to be very, very good. At the time there was a rumour of a smaller, lighter and cheaper alternative coming from Canon but it took a while to come out and a good deal longer for me to get my hands on not just one but two of them.

EL1 versus 600 EXII RT wasn’t really a great comparison and I found myself matching the big Canon flash against my Elinchrom One which was only ever going to be a contest when using them on stands and with light modifiers because there really isn’t much out there that can be compared to the EL1. The EL5, on the other hand, is a much more direct match for the older 600 EXII. They are much the same size (the EL5 is fatter at the head and I’ll cover that in a bit) and the weight difference isn’t too great with the 600 EXII coming in a 555g with 4 x AA Eneloop batteries loaded and the EL5 tipping our kitchen scales at 601g complete with the same LP-EL battery that was so impressive in the EL1. Both work perfectly with my much-loved ST-E10 speedlite transmitters and that’s where the similarities end.

(more…)