DSLR Camera Bodies:

Nikon D300 12.3 Mega Pixel Pro DSLR

Opinion: Wow! Pro DSLR with impressively low noise levels. Produces sharp clean images even in low light and with fast shutter speeds and high ISO settings. Feels substantial and handles well. Only moan was Nikon put the price up the week I went to purchase it.

Nikon D80 - 10.2 Mega Pixel

Opinion: Beautiful camera, masses of flexibility in manual controls. Nice reliable flexible camera that consistantly gives good results. Battery life is not as good as my old D50 so I have invested in the additional battery pack.

Nikon D50 - 6 Mega Pixel.

Opinion: My trusty workhorse. Faultless in my opinion. Easy to use. Excellent battery life. Good rendition of colours. Only thing that lets it down is that technology has moved on and its obsolete. Personally I would not be without this camera!

Lenses:

Sigma 50-500mm F4-6.3 APO DG HSM

Opinion: This lens is brand new and was purchased for wildlife shots. Its massive and very heavy to carry around. Build quality is good. Extremely quiet focusing Its definately needs to be tripod mounted to get pin sharp images. 500mm enables you to get in close to timid subjects. Not good in very low light due to the type of lens it is. (due to its massive size it certainly makes you look like a photographer!)

Sigma 24-70mm F2.8 EX DG Macro

Opinion: Faultless! Big high quality optics. Never had a bad shot from this lens. A real workhorse of a lens. Excellent in both strong sunlight and extremely low light. Pin sharp images and quick to focus. A lens I wouldnt be without.

Sigma 20-40mm F2.8 EX DG Macro

Opinion: Nice fast portrait lens, extremely heavy and feels high quality. Gives very good results.

Nikon AFS DX VR 18-200mm F3.5-5.6G

Opinion: Does most things quite well. Small amount of image distortion at either end of the zoom. Good quality lens.

Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG Macro

Opinion: Magical! If you havent tried macro photography yet, buy this lens and give it a go! Its simple and easy to use and has given extremely pin sharp images. Lightweight with a good quality build. Another lens I wouldnt be without.

Tamron 11-18mm F4-5.6 SP AF Di2 Super Wide Angle Zoom

Opinion: Easy landscapes as you can get everything in! Including your toes if your not careful, as it such a wide angle zoom. Lightweight and reasonable quailty. Ive found if I use my Cokin P Series Filter & Adaptor the extreme edges of the filter holder are included in the shot. I got around this by cutting away extra part of the filter holder so that it takes one filter at a time instead of anything up to three. This lens can suffer from lens flare in bright sun, I would recommend using the petal type hood that this lens comes with to avoid this.

Sigma 70-300mm F4-5.6 APO DG Macro Telephoto Zoom

Opinion: Cheap to buy, feels a bit 'cheapish' compared to some of my other lenses, lightweight, has given me some good results. Nice easy lens thats a pleasure to use. Excellent 'first zoom' lens. The motor is really noisy now, mainly due to the amount of use this lens has had. Images at the 300mm can be a little soft unless the camera is tripod mounted.

Nikon 35-70mm F3.3-5.6 AF

Opinion: Nice sweet little lens, quiet, lightweight, quick to focus and easy to use, good quality optics. This lens is about 20 years old and gives excellent results!

Nikon 18-55mm F3.5-5.6 DX G ED Opinion: Compact, simple and gives OK results.

Flash Units

Nikon SB600 Speedlight's

Opinion: Simply excellent! I have 2 of these. I also use this flash with an Nikon SB28 and the Lastolite 3m lead which enables me to take the flash 'off camera' for shots that require a more delicate approach with the use of flash.

Lastolite Lumen 8 Studio Kit

Opinion - Brilliant! Its heavy to carry around though and the holdall that it comes supplied in is useless.

Interfit INT474 Stellar Extreme 300w Battery Powered Portable Studio Flash

Opinion: Good, battery powered studio lights at a reasonable price! Whats not to like? Other than some of the mounting knobs feel a bit cheap.

Lastolite 8x6 Hilite Background

Opinion: Very good results with this piece of kit. Highly recommended but a tota; nightmare to get back into its bag.

Sekonic L-308s Flash Meter

Opinion: Complicated. Cant get the hang of this although it is new and Im still working with it.

Tripods & Supports

Dynatran AT-858 Profession Tripod from Amvona.com

Opinion: Big, heavy, high quality, sturdy and adaptable pro tripod with a trigger grip head. These retail at about $450 from Amvona. I brought this new from their Ebay shop, brand new, at auction - $80!

Manfrotto 690B Monopod with Manfrotto 222 Trigger Grip Head

Opinion: Ace! Well impressed. Secure, stable, looks the part. Bit heavy to carry around though.

Manfrotto 785B Tripod

Opinion: For £39.99 this is excellent, exremely light weight, stable and collapses down to a really small size. Excellent for those long walks with the camera. Too lightweight for big massive telephoto lenses though.

Manfrotto 790B Monopod

Opinion: For £20 its very good! Easy to use and packs away very small. Too spindle for big lenses. Base cap fell off fairly quickly.

Camera Bags

Tamarac Expedition 8

Opinion: Well made, solid, comfortable. Plenty of pockets. Huge rucksack bag. Swallows everything!

Tamarac Pro 12

Opinion: Well made and plenty of room. My wedding bag basically!

Tamarac 5627 Digital Series Camera Holster

Opinion: Well made, solid and reliable. Plenty of extra pockets.

Lowe Pro Nova 3

Opinion: Nice, looks good, medium sized bag for when I dont want to carry loads of gear around. Lots of padding and extra pockets.

Assorted Bits and Pieces

Cokin P Series filters and holders, these include: ND2, ND4, ND8, Grad ND4 & ND8, Grad Blue, Grad Sunrise, Grad Tobacco, Rainbow. Standard screw in filters: Red, Green, Blue, UV filters, circular polarisers, close-up filters. Best of all...an infra red filter! These are so much fun to use and you get some really interesting results. The photos come out a deep red, then you convert them to monocrome in Photoshop. Amazing filters!

Optitech & Kangaroo Island neoprene camera straps

Very comfy to use. Especially with big heavy lenses.

Aputure battery packs. Base mount battery pack. Enough charge for around 3000 shots. At £28.00 from an Ebay shop called Link Delight in Hong Kong, brand new, these are rather good value! Also came with mains supply and a cigarette lighter power supply, and a free remote shutter release!

I also have one of these kits for my D300 - certainly a lot cheaper than the standard Nikon ones that do exactly the same job for about 7 times the money!

Aputure remote shutter release. Came free with the above mentioned item - it was free and works just fine! Impressed! Software:

Adobe Photshop CS2 & CS4

A truely awesome piece of software! Very in depth though surprisingly easy to use. Adobe Photoshop Elements 4 A slimmed down version of Photoshop CS2 Adobe Lightroom Erm...not used this yet. It looks the part though!

Hardware

Scandisk Extreme III SD & CF Cards

Opinion: Works just fine. Even survived a trip through the washing machine, tumble drier and being ironed! I always prefer to have several smallish cards as oposed to one big one.

Wacom Bamboo Graphics Tablet & Pen

Opinion: Superb bit of kit. If you edit photo's you really should treat yourself to one of these. It gives you so much more editing control. Highly recommended.

Guides and books that come highly recommended:

Magic Lantern Guides to D50, D80 & D300 - These informative little books tell you how to use your camera! All the useful stuff that never came in your camera manual!