Fuji mirrorless gear bag

My Favorite Gear and Services

After twelve years in business as a photographer, I feel like I’ve tried just about every tool and piece of gear marketed to us photographers. Here are all my favorite products and services that I’ve not only tested but implemented in my own business.

This page contains affiliate links, which means that I receive a small kickback if you purchase anything from my links. I only recommend products and services that I have spent my own money on and used in my own business.

What’s in my camera bag?

For my first five years in business as a photographer, I was a loyal Canon DSLR photographer. Then I slipped on ice and dropped one of my cameras into a creek while location scouting. A cracked lens and frozen-from-the-inside-out body later, I decided that this was the sign I’d been looking for. Mirrorless cameras were just starting to become “a thing,” and I was intrigued by the smaller size and lighter weight.

I first went with Fujifilm, and worked my way through the X-T2, X-T3, X-T4, and X-T5 bodies. I truly loved those cameras and the photos I created with them, but found myself butting up against some limitations when it came to low light/astro-photography and fast AF for action shots while skiing. After six years on Fujifilm, I switched to Sony in 2024, and I’ve been super happy with that decision. Here’s all the gear I currently use in my business:

Camera Bodies

Sony a7iv x 3 (amazon)
Fuji Instax Mini EVO (amazon)
Canon A1 film camera

Lenses

Sony FE 24-70mm F2.8 GM II (amazon)
Sony FE 70-200mm F2.8 GM OSS II (amazon)
Sony FE 24mm F1.4 GM (amazon)
Sony FE 35mm F1.4 GM (amazon)
Sony FE 50mm F1.4 GM (amazon)
Sony FE 85mm F1.8 (amazon)

Camera Bags

WANDRD Prvke Camera Backpack (amazon)
ONA Bowery Messenger Bag (amazon)
Osprey Kresta 30 Backpack (amazon)
Think Tank Airport Advantage (amazon)

Camera Straps

HoldFast Gear MoneyMaker Two-Camera Harness (amazon)
BlackRapid Cross Shot Camera Sling (amazon)

Flash & Flash Accessories

2 x Profoto A10 (amazon)
MagMod MagShoe (amazon)

Other Gear

30 (ish?) x SanDisk 128GB Extreme PRO SDXC (amazon)
2 x Memory Card Case (amazon)
Think Tank Photo DSLR Battery Holder 4 (amazon)
6 x Sony NPFZ100 Batteries (amazon)

Backup Solutions

TerraMaster D5-300C 5-Bay RAID (amazon)
2 x Seagate Exos 7E8 8TB Internal Hard Drive HDD (amazon)
2 x SanDisk 2TB Extreme Portable SSD (amazon)

Colorado adventure wedding photographer Nina Larsen Reed of Larsen Photo Co.

Adventure Gear

As an elopement photographer, my gear bag consists of much more than just camera gear. Check out my favorite backpacks, headlamps, hiking boots, and adventure gear for more.

My Favorite Business Tools & Services

These are all of the tools, software, and subscription services that I am currently using to run my business. I love nerding out on CRMs and websites, and have been building my own Wordpress sites since 2006, so I’m always happy to answer questions on this stuff!

Website

My website is built on WordPress using the Kadence WP theme + blocks. It’s by far the easiest builder I’ve worked with in the 20 years since I built my first WP site, and it doesn’t hurt that Kadence is really easy to optimize for page speed!

Cloudways

Fast web hosting is key to a fast website. If you’re still hosting your website on GoDaddy or Blue Host, it’s time to look into an alternative—and I happen to think Cloudways is the best option. Cloudways makes it super easy to migrate a WP site from another host, and the staging site feature is invaluable.

I use a couple of different paid plugins to optimize my site for speed, and my caching plugin WP Rocket is the most important of them. If you care about speed & technical scores, it’s well worth the annual fee.

Perfmatters is so cheap that it barely feels like a paid plugin, but it offers some speed and optimization features that WP Rocket is missing, so I like using both in combination for the best results.

If you’re already using Yoast, there’s no reason to switch SEO plugins, but if you’re starting from scratch with optimizing a Wordpress website I’d recommend SEO Press over Yoast.

Image optimization is especially important for us photographers. The ShortPixel plugin runs in the background of my site without me doing a thing after installing and setting it up.

Business

Táve is my CRM, but it’s so much more than a customer relationship management tool. I use Táve to send contracts and invoices, automated emails and questionnaires, keep track of my workflow, track my leads, and a hundred other things that help me save time in my business. If you sign up using my link, you’ll get a free 60 day trial instead of the regular 30 days.

Do you have a hard time getting calls scheduled with your leads? Would you like more structured business hours, and not missing dinner because you’re on a video call? Cal.com does everything their more famous competitor Calendly does, but for free!

Todoist runs my entire life. It’s a free web- and app-based to do list manager, that lets you split tasks into projects, add notes, set deadlines and reminders, and everything you need to stay on track.

Tailwind is the program I use to automate my Pinterest strategy, to where it drives over a thousand visitors a month directly to my website. You can sign up for a free plan, although I use their paid plan to get the best results.

Photography

ADOBE

I could not run my business without Adobe. I edit all my photos in Lightroom, and often pull them into Photoshop as well for more advanced edits. Lately I’ve also started using Firefly to create illustrations! If you somehow don’t already have an Adobe plan, you get 30% off your first 12 months by using my link.

Pic-Time is miles ahead of the competition when it comes to client galleries. Not only are they well designed, but their built-in automations and email campaigns make selling prints easier than ever. You get one month free if you use my code: YJ4QFN

I’ve tried using AI culling, but it’s just nowhere close to good enough at picking out the best moments yet. Culling in Photo Mechanic is plenty fast enough on its own—I can always get through a full gallery in under the 1h3m of folklore.

Everyone should be using the JPEGmini Lightroom plugin, because it saves tons of hard drive space without any visible difference on photos (printed or digital).

Business Books

My favorite books that have made an impact on my business!