Cutting down

I use two MP bodies with 35 & 75mm lenses. On trips I add a 24mm to that. One camera and it's a 50mm. I make extra room in my pockets for film as I have run out on more occasions than I care to remember. 😱
 
I recently cut down drastically to two cameras. A Konica Auto S2 and a Leica IIIf with a 50mm/f3.5 Elmar that I use daily. The only camera I desire is a nice user M2 with a 50mm/f2.8 Elmar. If I were to find a decent one with no mechanical issues outside of eBay I'd probably buy it and then consider selling the other two.

It's amazing how much better I feel this new year without all the surplus.


Best,
George
 
Sadly for my bank account, I did not cut down in 2007. I have too much fun with all the gear - even if it was well-selected and bought relatively cheap.

But when I go out - one camera/one lens, loaded with B/W 95%+ of the time. And a small, decent digital p&s in case I need to document the car wreck I was just in. Or something. I carry all my junk in a Timbuk2 bag, including the cameras - it's my man purse.

In my pocket? I just pray I remembered my keys.

- John
 
I switched from a DSLR kit (35,50,85, 17 - 55DX, 70 - 200 VR) to rangefinder cameras. Now it is two M bodies (M4-P, M3) and 21mm,35mm,50mm,90mm. Additionally, the IIIf with 50mm and the Hassy 500 C/M with 80mm. I carry a Leica with one lens and the Gossen Digisix every single day with me. In crowded Japanese subways, bars and shopping mails, a camera bag is the least useful thing. Camera with strap around my neck, Digisix around my neck and two or three rolls of film in my pockets.
 
What has amazed me is how one lens (and one body) can do so much, so well (at least in terms of "good" pictures) when you are just wondering about, often performing other daily tasks. It seems like a good picture with a 50mm lens can also be taken with a 35mm lens or a 75mm lens. It just involves a little walking in a world that often does more zooming than walking.

I loved 2 lenses (35 and 75) on two bodies, but as much for having one body that still had film in it when the other ran out. But walking around the streets with 2 Leicas around my neck meant getting mugged in some neighborhoods and interrupted in others by folks who wanted to talk about Leicas. The two bodies - two lenses rig became the on-the-job, super convenient, low profile rig when looking became more important to the job than playing tricks.

Since I only have one M8, and most of my work is digital these days, I'm just wandering around with a single 50mm equivalent, a 35/1.2 Nokton indoors or a 35/2.5 Skopar outdoors. And I miss a few shots because I don't have my 21 or my 90. But I get a lot more because my camera is always ready and I'm looking ahead rather than in my camera bag.
 
Like many here - after 30 years as a pro - I bought an Epson RD-1 so that I could utilise my Leica lenses again and mostly walk around with only a 21mm in the pocket and a 50mm on the camera - the 50 (75mm equiv.) is the most surprising focal length that after all these years I find almost the perfect focal length for the way I see.
The most wonderful thing is that the limitations are in fact liberations and I've made more "keepers" since I got the RD-1 than I have in a long time.
Long live the limitations!
In the other pocket - a spare battery and card.
 
90% of the time I use my RD-1 and 40mm cron (effective 60mm )As an amateur its not always possible to carry this everyday so I have just got a GRD (28mm- equiv) as a constant companion.Giving 2 cameras that can be used together or independently.(I use the 50 cron or 28mm cv the other 10%)

Regards
Steve
 
Bill Pierce said:
What has amazed me is how one lens (and one body) can do so much, so well (at least in terms of "good" pictures) when you are just wondering about, often performing other daily tasks. It seems like a good picture with a 50mm lens can also be taken with a 35mm lens or a 75mm lens. It just involves a little walking in a world that often does more zooming than walking.
Click to expand...

I rebelled against this assertion when I first heard it. While I don't rebel as much now that I've done a lot of shooting with just a 50mm, I still consider it not a very good thing to say as it's founded on the assumption that the world always provides you with a clear path to walk closer to subjects, that subjects hold still for you and that things that fall outside one prime's capabilities simply aren't significant photographic subjects.

My Olympus XA is a great little camera that goes everywhere with me now, but having come to it from SLRs, its limitations are obvious and unforgettable to me. The 35mm f2.8 Zuiko is a marvel compressed into such a tiny space, but it's simply not going to deliver flattering human portraits, closeups of wildlife doing their thing or macro images, all of which are things I like to do and I refute that they're any less significant than snapping pictures of scenery. The 35mm perspective just isn't for portraits, no self-respecting wild animal (or many domestic for that matter) are letting me get close enough with a 35mm and 2.8 feet doesn't even come close to macro focusing ranges.

Because of all of that, I really see no reason to cut down my SLR kits. I can always choose to carry less, but once you've gotten rid of a piece of equipment it's work to get a version back again. In any case, while my legion of 13 lenses, 4 SLRs and one RF is a good-sized stable, I feel I'm nowhere near having so much gear it's a burden to keep. I'm too poor to reach that point, really.

The best thing to put in your pocket is whatever you can forget is there until you need it.
 
In most cases I carry around one RF cam with a 50mm or 90mm lens, and in my pocket a 28mm lens (35mm is not wide enough for me). So in fact I take only two lenses with me and one cam. Only if I want to shoot color and b+w I carry two cams.

Happy New Year..
 
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Okay I'll risk the derision of the rest of you because i'm goint to use that dirty word and praise my "cutdown" a little Panasonic DMC LX1 digital with a neat little Leica zoom.

Snicker if you will but this baby is part of me and and lives in a jacket pocket all the time.

It has no viewfinder just an LCD but you know it has reminded me about the essence of photography, as in seeing before you shoot. Watching the world with your eyes and seeing the pictures form. Looking for HCB's old geometry. Then raising the camera only at the last second.

Its smooth and fluid and the image stabilization and all the bells and whistles. lets me work quicker and often at shutter speeds I never would have dared before. I think it has increaased ability to get quicker stronger images.

And though I love my Leicas and grew up with them--from an old IIf to an M-6--
I see digital as a natural extension of photography rather then something that diminishes it. The camera is smaller than a CL and totally inconspicous. Perfect for working in crowds and totally silent.

In fact, I just spent a month in Europe shooting digtial and sitting in the hotel at the end of a day and reviewing images on my laptop was tremendous.
It helped tighten my shooting and let me see what worked and what didn't.

I look at my digital images and my film images and the pictures still reflect me and my eye's view of the world not the gear.

My cut down to the bone camera has really kind of opened up new places for me and added to my vision.
 
Steve - above I mentioned carrying a small, decent digital p&s at all times. Mine is also the Panasonic LX-1. This may be the best, and best value, digital camera I have ever owned. I call it my "GAS buster" since I have not really wanted a newer digital since I bought it. It is my "extra roll of film" if I run out. The R-D1 is capable of making better images at times - it should be, given the price differential.

- John
 
Leighgion said:
I rebelled against this assertion when I first heard it. While I don't rebel as much now that I've done a lot of shooting with just a 50mm, I still consider it not a very good thing to say as it's founded on the assumption that the world always provides you with a clear path to walk closer to subjects, that subjects hold still for you and that things that fall outside one prime's capabilities simply aren't significant photographic subjects.

My Olympus XA is a great little camera that goes everywhere with me now, but having come to it from SLRs, its limitations are obvious and unforgettable to me. The 35mm f2.8 Zuiko is a marvel compressed into such a tiny space, but it's simply not going to deliver flattering human portraits, closeups of wildlife doing their thing or macro images, all of which are things I like to do and I refute that they're any less significant than snapping pictures of scenery. The 35mm perspective just isn't for portraits, no self-respecting wild animal (or many domestic for that matter) are letting me get close enough with a 35mm and 2.8 feet doesn't even come close to macro focusing ranges.

Because of all of that, I really see no reason to cut down my SLR kits. I can always choose to carry less, but once you've gotten rid of a piece of equipment it's work to get a version back again. In any case, while my legion of 13 lenses, 4 SLRs and one RF is a good-sized stable, I feel I'm nowhere near having so much gear it's a burden to keep. I'm too poor to reach that point, really.

The best thing to put in your pocket is whatever you can forget is there until you need it.
Click to expand...

My one body and one lens rig is carried for personal work at times when, although I'm always looking, I sometimes don't even expect to find a picture. When I go out on a job and have to come back with a picture, I carry a multibody DSLR rig that's probably very similar to yours. Indeed, the occasional assistant isn't an expert in anything much outside of picking up heavy bags of cameras and lighting gear.

But, outside of the zoo where I carry a 400 even though I'm just shooting for myself, I really enjoy working with very little gear. I actually find it frees me up and I'm better able to respond quickly to things I notice.

Bill

P.S. I do occasionally shoot portraits with a 35mm lens, quite often with a 50. I just don't get so close that the face is distorted. Like it or not, when somebody says, "Take my picture." when I'm wandering around with a single camera, they're going to get an environmental portrait.
 
I have small shoulder bag that goes everywhere with me. Currently it holds a Bessa T with minifinder and Canon 35mm f1.8. The Bessa's loaded wtih Delta 3200 (rated at 1600). For me, there is only one lens that will do most of what I want and that's a 35mm.
 
I think photo gear is like fat. Heavy. Easy to put on. Hard to take off. Try as I might I find it hard to leave behind lenses and or bodies when I go off on a photo expedition. I would love to have the discipline as some shooters do of saying. "Today I am only shooting 90mm" (or whatever.) Not a bad discipline- if only I was disciplined!
 
I'm cutting down...mainly because I've only been using rangefinders for a year or so, and it's been a learning experience as to what lenses I find handy.
In the end, I think I'll have just the 40mm Nokton for 90% of my shots and the 21mm skopar for the odd landscape. I need to play with the 90mm some more, but so far I'm finding I don't like even short tele on a rangefinder.
 
My usual outfit is two M6 bodies with 35mm and 50mm Summicrons attached. In the bag, or pockets of the vest, will be 21/4 Skopar and 90/4 Elmar-C lenses, light meter and whatever. It's a pretty light outfit and it doesn't bother me to carry it. I still have that Boy Scout thing going...you know, "Be Prepared".

If I'm just taking a walk in the neighborhood or wandering around without pictures in mind, I will carry one of the M6 bodies with the 50mm Summicron or one of my old Kiev 4A bodies with a 50/2 Zeiss Sonnar.

After about 30 years of carrying first Nikon equipment professionally and then Canon equipment as an amateur, I had to undergo cervical spine surgery in 2007. My shoulders and low back are not much better than my neck. The days of routinely carrying around fast zooms, long telephotos and heavy Gitzo tripods are pretty much over for me.
 
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