About

Thank you for your visit! I am a budding photographer based out of the Metropolitan Washington, D.C. area. I have a wide range of interests in photography, and I am still experimenting to find my style. I gravitate towards landscapes, yet I enjoy challenging myself with other forms of photography. Cheers to diversity.

I would love to hear your feedback or answer any questions you have.

License

Except where otherwise noted, all work by Aileen Keil is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Please Contact me for commercial or monetized use.

Gear

I am using a Sony Alpha a6000 mirrorless digital camera. It’s lightweight, budget-friendly, and produces high quality images. Lenses include:

• Sony Vario-Tessar T E 16-70mm F4 ZA OSS
• Sony 50mm f/1.8

I don’t like to overburden myself with gear (I’m a minimalist), so I only choose products that are essential and/or that enable. These are phenomenal, and they all work together:

For Carrying:
Peak Design CapturePRO Camera Clip: Secure your camera on your backpack strap or your belt. It comes with an Arca-type quick release plate, which plays well with a variety of tripods and other mounts.
Peak Design Leash Camera Strap: Secure your camera around your neck, as a sling, or tether it to something. Quickly remove the strap from the camera in a snap.
Mind Shift Gear Panorama Backpack: Go hiking with all your essentials and more. Water bladder compartment + easy access to lenses + weather protection + comfort = <3

For Mounting:
Joby GorillaPod Flexible Tripod + Joby Ballhead X: The best lightweight tripod for travel (in my humble opinion). Add Ballhead X so that your whole system is Arca compatible.
Dolica Proline GX 60-inch Tripod + Sirui G-10 G10X G Series Ball Head: The cheapest decent quality tripod that I couldn’t imagine. Add the Sirui Ball Head for Arca compatibility.
Desmond Arca Compatible Clamp (If you already have a good tripod and need to make it Arca compatible, this may work for you depending on your tripod.)

What does “Arca compatible” mean? An Arca compatible plate will fit in an Arca compatible clamp. So, you only need one of these plates attached to your camera if you use multiple tripods or other mounts that are also compatible. This is helpful if you need to use a variety of equipment (to suite your variety of needs). And, if anything breaks, you can replace just that one and still be compatible with the other(s).

The only other items I carry with me are: spare batteries, lens cleaning supplies, and extra SD cards.

Optional: I have 2 lens filters I find quite rewarding. 1) A neutral density filter allows me to take longer exposures in daylight conditions. I can capture of motion blur like in these waterfalls. 2) A circular polarizer can bring clarity to landscape photos and can reduce reflections and glare.