Dustin Cole Photography

I use the best stuff that Nikon offers. I used to use these hulking zoom lenses but have slowly weened off of them and exclusively use prime (fixed focal length) lenses now.

Camera
Nikon D700

Lenses:
Nikon 35mm f/1.4 – this lens gets about 98% shoot time
Nikon 24mm f/2.8
Nikon 85mm f/1.8
Nikon 105mm f/2.8 MACRO
Nikon 24-70 f/2.8
Nikon 80-200 f/2.8

Accessories:
Nikon SB-800 Speedlight – two of these
Pocketwizard Plus II Transceiver – radio triggers for flashes

Macbook Pro 15″ i7 with Adobe Lightroom and VSCO Effects

That’s easy. I simply upload them to my Smugmug site, where you can download the files separately or as a single .zip file. If you want the RAW files (though not many people do), I will send you the files on a flash drive for a small charge.

28!

I did indeed! I completed most of a photography minor during my undergraduate at UCSD. I unfortunately had to miss a required course because I took some time off to volunteer in Sri Lanka after the tsunami of 2005. So I couldn’t get the actual degree. But it was a perfect time to study photography as the school scrapped the darkroom and all film production the year I finished. I’m very thankful that I got to have the experience of developing film and doing my first paid photography events on film. There’s nothing quite like changing film mid roll to switch ISO: frantically rewinding half a finished roll of film, writing the shot number on the can, swapping in another half shot roll of film, and clicking through blank shots to find where I left off.

Since then I’ve learned through following blogs and lessons from some of my favorite photographers: Dave Black Photography, Mel McLellan, The Image is Found, Joe McNally, The Strobist, Scott Robert, Karl Grobl, Bauman Photographers, Michael Wilson.

I got my first point n shoot in 2002 and fell in love. I was that annoying broke high school kid who read every photography magazine at Barnes and Noble and never actually bought one. Fortunately my father has always been an avid amateur and let me use his gear throughout college. I began shooting professionally in 2008, so it’s been about four years now. It’s been incredibly fun and exciting, but been extremely challenging and heart-wrenching.

You can order prints and other great products (calendars, mugs, shirts…) from my smugmug site. Smugmug uses a great lab and I’ve always been more than satisfied with the quality of their work. I don’t get any commission from this, it’s simply a service I am glad to offer my clients. Of course, because I give you the full JPGs, you are free to print photos anywhere you like. But since Smugmug offers high quality at a good price, why not? 

Sure! I want you to be completely happy with your photos. I will do any re-edits you want after a shoot.

Heck yes. I don’t charge by the hour. I have no wife and kids calling me home. I’ll be there from the very beginning to the very end.

This is a wordpress theme from themeforest.net And I use Wordpress with ProPhoto for my blog which is freaking amazing. I also use an incredible program called BlogStomp to arrange my photos together side by side.

Honestly, your money would be much better spent on a few good books. I recommend these: Understanding Exposure, National Geographic Photography Field Guide, Photography (my very first photography textbook from college in 2004. Probably the only textbook I read cover to cover.) Those are just a few. The point is: read books, magazines, websites, etc. THEN go upgrade your camera when you feel limited by a lacking function on the camera.