My husband and I love photography. It’s one of many things we learned about each other when we were dating. It’s also one of the few things that will get us both up for sunrise.

We’re both still learning, but I thought I’d share some tools and tips I found along the way.

I typically use a combination of my iPhone X and Sony a6000. My favorite lens is the Zeiss 32mm f/1.8 Touit, which is great for portrait photography. It does reasonably well in landscapes and closeups, but if I want a really close macro, I’ll tend to use my phone. It's pretty amazing what our phones can do today. For extreme macros of small parts at work, I tend to use my Aukey phone attachment. 

Coming from a point and shoot, I’ve learned that the main settings to watch are my f, shutter speed, and aperture. I'm working on balancing the three. 

For food photography, my husband found this cool tutorial that goes through simple tricks you can use at home to achieve good lighting. It's amazing how much diffuse, natural lighting helps or how useful a sheet of white paper can be to achieve the right amount of highlighting. 

Given how long it takes to sort and edit photos, I've also started being more intentional with the pictures I take. If I don't love it, I either don't take it or delete it. Otherwise, it can get a little overwhelming. For editing, I use Lightroom from time to time, but mostly stick with editing recipes I've created on my mobile VSCO app. I'm a huge fan of their film series. I use KP4, A6, A8, E5, C3, and C6 often. Most of the time, I'm increasing exposure and changing the temperature or tint.

What's your favorite camera gear and editing software?