Here is what’s in my camera bag:

• Nikon D40 - now four years old and showing its teeth. My biggest gripe is only three autofocus points.
• Nikon 55-200mm VR - first lens I purchased to go with the kit 18-55mm.
• Sigma 30mm/1.4 - hefty lens that is great for low light, but can be difficult (at least for this rank amateur) to shoot wide open.
• Nikon SB-700 Flash - pop-up flashes are for losers.

Note: I rarely use the iPhone camera (either my current iPhone 4 or on my old 3GS), either because the photo quality isn’t that great, especially indoors, and I honestly sometimes I forget that my phone even has a camera.

Here’s the software I use:

• Adobe Lightroom 3 - my primary tool for organization and editing of photos. My library has almost 9000 photos and a rough yearly average is 1500 photos. I’m not too aggressive about only holding onto true keepers, but I’m not afraid to delete stuff either.
• Apple Aperture - I keep Aperture around strictly for its tight integration with the rest of my Apple gear. I export my top pictures (about 220, mostly all of my kids) to Aperture for syncing with my Apple TV and iPhone and the easy availability of the Aperture library to other apps like iMovie and the new Final Cut Pro X. I wrote previously about keeping these keepers synched between Lightroom and Aperture. I also like Aperture’s Faces and Places capability. The latter I have to add manually since my D40 obviously does not include GPS metadata. As a side note, I don’t think I’ve opened iPhoto since I purchased my current machine (15 inch MacNook Pro) last year.
• Nik Software Complete Collection - I have the Lightroom/Aperture versions of these great filters such as Viveza and Silver Efex, although I haven’t used them too much. On the to-do list…
• Adobe Photoshop CS4 I freely admit that I’m a complete Photoshop noob and when I do use it, it is usually to use actions from Totally Rad and Pioneer Woman.

And here is my wishlist:

• Nikon D7000 - I thought the D90 was going to be my replacement, and then this came along. Need to save some lunch money first.
• Sigma 17-50mm/2.8 - A better low-light mid-range zoom, and significantly cheaper than its Nikon equivalent.
• Nikon 70-300mm VR - Need a bit more reach.
• Nikon 16-85mm VR - Not a fixed focal length, but a highly regarded all-around zoom.