The Camera and Lens I Use For My Blog Photos + My Favorite Photo Editing Programs/Apps

Sweater – Urban Outfitters | Jeans – GRLFRND | Shoes – J.Crew (old but similar here) | Bag – Gucci | Sunglasses – Stella McCartney

I hope you had a great weekend! The weather has been so dreary and depressing these past few days and I am craving the sunshine desperately. I stayed in most of Saturday afternoon and Sunday, played with Miles and finished up decorating his nursery with my girlfriend who is helping me with all my home decor. I am waiting on a few more things to trickle in and then we will shoot the entire room for the blog! 

For today’s post, I thought I would share a bit more about the equipment and programs that I use when it comes to all the imagery on my blog and social media. Stan currently takes all my photos and never had any training prior to me starting a blog. He did take a photography class a few years ago so he could learn how to shoot in manual mode, and after that I felt more comfortable investing in a professional camera and lens. While Stan will still take the majority of the photos for my blog, I met an amazing local photographer at an event last year and she is going to begin taking photos for me from time to time. I like to collaborate with other creative people because they can always offer a fresh perspective. However, I have had numerous questions and emails over the years from readers about the specific camera we use for photos as well as what I use for filming YouTube videos, so I thought I would put it into a blog post to reference at any time.

I initially began my blogging journey with a Canon Rebel which was a great camera and helped Stan and me learn how a DSLR works. From that camera, we graduated to a Canon 70d which is currently the camera I use for filming my YouTube videos and what I use to take all the beauty product shots on my blog. I enjoy it and find it very easy to use, plus having the option for both video and photography was what ultimately made me want to purchase it. When I felt Stan was comfortable enough shooting in manual mode and we had learned enough about photography, I invested in a Canon 5D Mark III which is the current camera we shoot with. As far as Instagram pictures, they are a mix of DSLR photos and my iPhone 8+. The camera on the iPhone is truly remarkable and if I wasn’t going to invest in a DSLR, I would shoot mostly with my phone because the picture quality is fantastic. 

For my YouTube videos and beauty product shots, I use a Sigma 35mm lens, and this is the ring light and stand that I use for lighting. When I purchased the Canon 5D Mark III, I splurged on a high quality lens and went with a 50mm F/1.2 lens. While a camera is important to the photography process, it is truly the lens that makes all the difference. As soon as we starting shooting with the 50mm lens, we both could really see the difference. For what I currently do and the content I create, I am happy with all our equipment and have no desire to upgrade or change it. I feel that we could continue with exactly what we have for the next 10 years or more and have our photography still look beautiful and current. 

For my blog photos, I use Lightroom and find it to be the most user friendly. For most of my photos, I simply adjust the brightness, sharpness and alter the coloring slightly if needed to get a true representation of the actual color of the item. I have Photoshop but haven’t learned how to use it yet, though that is something I want to do this year. As far as editing apps that I use with my iPhone photos, my favorites are Snapseed and VSCO. And if I don’t use either of those, then I simply use the editing tool in the Instagram app itself. But once I bought the iPhone 8+, I have hardly had to edit my photos because the picture quality is so fantastic. For videos, I use iMovie to edit all of my YouTube content.

There you have it – all the equipment and programs I use daily. Blogging has changed so much over the years, and while I do think good photography is necessary I think it is more important to have consistent quality content that is both inspirational and helpful. I work to have photos or imagery that can inspire creativity in my readers, but also make it a resource for fashion, beauty and lifestyle topics. That is and has always been my mission, and it’s actually what I have written on my About Me page – creating posts that both inspire and inform. 

Feel free to reach out with any questions or leave me a comment below!