My gear

It might not be that important. A real photographer might borrow a camera or shoot wonderful pictures with a plastic toy. Even professionals rent equipment from time to time. Why does it matter what equipment I own? Well, it might be a sign of commitment towards photography. Of of the size of budget you can allocate for your hobby. Or even how profitable your photography business is or how you position yourself amongst other photographers. Or whatever. People just tend to be interested in what gear others are using.

So, here you are:

I’ve just purchased my long desired Nikon D300 dSLR. It’s so fresh that apart from holding it in my hand for some time and shooting a few test pictures I don’t have too much experiences with it. However, I can confirm that it looks to be a digital camera much more than the D80: much sturdier, heavier and more ergonomic.
I’d definitely categorize D300 as a professional camera.
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I’ve made my photos with a Nikon D80 Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera for 2 years. It’s not a pro camera body, it’s never been so. However, it creates 10 megapixel images, outputs raw files, can control and fire Nikon strobes remotely, has a hot shoe for a speedlight or a wireless flash trigger, has aperture and shutter priority modes and can be used manually as well. And it served me very, very well.
At the time I bought there was no good reason to by the D200 instead of this one. Now, D300 does mean a big difference.
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I purchased my DSLR with the 18-135mm Nikkor kit lens which I have sold since then.

I have two serious looking lenses:
The first one is an AF-S DX Zoom-Nikkor 17-55mm f/2.8G IF-ED which is a nice, not that heavy, almost all purpose lens. I like its range when shooting either indoor or outdoor. However it is definitely not a portrait lens and its bokeh is not even close to the one of my 70-200. It is designed for DX camera bodies and while Björn Rorslett gives it a 5 (from 5) for its close range and 4 for its distant performance on D2X, it is not really recommended to use it on a full frame body.
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The second one is the huge AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8G IF-ED. When I started to use my original kit lens I felt myself somewhat limited by the upper end of its range and the desire for the 70-200 started to grow in me. I simply love this lens. I use it for portraiture, candid shots and for almost anything else until my wrist starts to hurt. The 70-200 is a heavy lens, it deserves a tripod in many cases, but the picture quality is amazing. Björn has given it a 5 on any cropped body but only 4 on the full frame D3.
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Artificial lighting is wonderful and exciting, though at the beginning maybe a bit scary area of the art and science of photography.

I was lucky to be able to borrow one of this remotely controllable Nikon SB-800 speedlights quite early and started to use it really remotely. Since then I purchased my own one and use with much care and respect.
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My lighting kit has been extended recently with a powerful set of studio strobes consisting of two pieces of 400Ws strobes and light stands and umbrellas and a softbox. I use a Falconeyes flash meter and trigger the flashes with a Falconeyes IR flash trigger. They both are the simplest possible solution for such tasks (in terms of build quality and the amount of money you need to steal for them from the family budget), but are working fine so far.