What would you do if you had to start again? - inspired by Harry the K

[Retro-Grouch]

Lots of discussion here about what folks would have done in the past, but what about now, given the actual availability, and cost, of equipment? And what about the actual work itself?
In my original post, I suggested (not facetiously) that I could probably pursue everything I wanted to do with a Rolleiflex (OK, I would like a 2.8 over the 3.5's I currently have. Picky, picky!) I've moved in recent years to a very direct, uninflected documentary style that is very well served by the Rollei's minimalism. Even my landscape work has moved that way. Sometimes I wish I had the cojones to ditch all my equipment and make precisely that move to the one Rollei. OK, also a cheapo TLR for a backup, of course!
How would the work itself change? First of all, I think I would be more focused and less scattered and distracted by the ability to explore other genres that my current extensive assortment of equipment provides and encourages. Additionally, in the past, my exploration of social issues through the documentation of material culture (including our impact on the landscape) has shifted to a more direct engagement with the people themselves who are the agents and sometimes victims of these social changes. The weight of my previous landscape work seems to compel me to continue with that exploration as well, but if that landscape work were to vanish, I would prefer to only pursue my explorations through documentary portraiture.
I feel the weight of time and advancing age. The distraction of equipment takes my focus away from the work I want to do now, in the time I have left. The question I raised is not idle musing, but a very real attempt to grapple with what's of fundamental importance to me as a photographer and as a person.
And, not incidentally, many thanks to Archiver for turning this into a thread! It seems to be generating a fair number of responses.

 

[CMur12]

Right now, I have way more cameras than I can actually use. I have 9 TLRs and a lot of 35mm equipment. I have a DSLR, but I'm still more film than digital

It occurs to me that I could probably do most everything I want to do photographically with a Mamiya C330f system like the one I have (C330f, 5 lenses, 3 grips, 2 focusing screens, 3 finders, Paramender, lens hoods). I also can't imagine being without a Minolta Autocord.

My first serious camera was a Yashica TL-Super, that I bought as a demo model in 1972. So, I would still want a mechanical, match-needle SLR to relive and reconnect with my early experiences in photography. Today, I would choose a Minolta SR-T 102 (I have a black one!). I also really like the Minolta X-570 with autowinder. The winder completes the X-570. It gives it more ballast, more gripping surface, and it balances perfectly with my favorite, chunky 85mm f/1.7 lens.

So, I think I would want to reassemble the following:

Mamiya C330f system
Minolta Autocord and accessories

Minolta SR-T 102
Minolta X-570 + Autowinder G

Possibly an older Canon DSLR

- Murray

 

[DownUnder]

Start over... I'd pursue watercolors, oil paints, ceramics, pottery and poetry... I'd learn to play the harmonica...

A fresh start at this point in my life... not interested. I've made every mistake, I've had every embarrassing moment possible... no need to start over now. The first time around was good-enough and bad-enough.

Thank goodness my wife still tolerates me!

Mike

To me this is by far the most sensible of a big lot of well thought out and intelligent responses! (Along with Retro-Grough, #21). My reasons being we are all quite close to the same age and our photographic pursuits and style/s have have moved in mostly the same direction/, as we 'oldies' tend to do as time passes and we try to make things easier and simpler for ourselves.

To which I say, me too. Yes to everything. A slightly different choice of pursuits. I'm a lousy artist, to the point that as an architect I could never master CAD (= computer assisted drafting) and I had to contract this service out when planning for my clients.

I would travel more while I still can. Waste less time online - excepting RFF of course, ha! Write more books. Sit and listen more to those people in my life who have interesting things to say. Revisit many places, mostly in Asia, that I've been to in the past. Plan to return to Canada to visit my parents' and stepbrothers' final resting places to say to them, gone as they are, how sorry I am for so many things but the past is the past and the mistakes and problems we had can't be undone. More importantly I would see the rest of my family while they are still here, which would involve making friends with them again as sadly I've let those contacts lapse over the years, living halfway around the world as I do. This is a pleasant thought but as the years pass, less important to me than I once believed it was. I'm now more Buddhist than ever, in a typically Western wishy-washy way, but it calms and soothes me.

And photography? FIrst and foremost, a huge sigh of relief. My gear is insured through my household policy, with a small separate policy I take out when I travel to Asia, covering only the gear I carry with me. All of which would pay me, I hope, enough for a round the world air ticket.

I have a stash of Rollei TLRs, and I'm big in Nikons, but I would never again buy any of those, not the new Nikon range. Fuji maybe, but not XTs. The old gear I cling to does all I want it to. D700s, D800s, D lenses. D-D-D. At my age portability is important, so my replacement would have to be a small camera kit, entirely backpackable, with good colors and mid-tones. Sharpness is now less important to me than it was before, as I no longer sell stock.

Maybe a Leica CL. Or a Fuji Xpro3. Two lenses, a 28 equivalent and an 85 ditto. Maybe a 200 equivalent if a good one came my way affordably, but knowing me it would gather dust in its bag. Also lens hoods, UVs, a few spare batteries. Nuttin' else. Oh, and a new Leica table top tripod with the ball head. I had one in the '80s but had to sell it. A few weeks ago I lucked into one, as new, for < AUD $100. It and a Rolex Oyster watch are two things I once had and long wanted to buy again. Now for that elusive time piece. Not likely for a hundred, but we'll see.

Film gear and darkroom, bye-bye to all that. I would miss my beloved Contax G kit, two cameras and those beaut Zeiss Contax lenses, but not for two seconds would I consider replacing it. Ditto my Leica iig, I love it dearly but to use it on an everyday basis No darn way!

For me digital is the way - so he says, with 100,000+ negatives and slides in his archive, clamoring for their moment on my Plustek. Ha! to all that.

Life is so short. It's up to us to make it mighty sweet, as Bing sang. Simple is best.

 

[Godfrey]

heh.
I do pencil sketches (pretty crude) and I play piano (worse). I'm better at photography than most other artistic pursuits. So I'd keep doing it. I have always traveled a lot, keep on doing that. And continue to walk, and cycle, and listen to music, and read.

Maybe modify my "re-up" kit this way ...

- Leica M10 Monochrom + 2 lenses
- Polaroid SLR670x + many cases of film packs...

... Far less processing work as I slide into my dotage. LOL!

G
—
"We all have a chance to be young and foolish in our lives. If we survive that, we can go on to being old and foolish."

 

[Majki]

Any M series + any 28mm.
The most universal set. For me. And for my enjoyment of photography.

Cheap version: Ricoh R1/ Olympus XA

 

[besk]

I would have purchased a small SLR such as a Nikon FM with wide, normal and short telephoto lenses and a small wooden 4x5 view camera such as Wista with a similar lens set up and saved a lot of money and time.

 

[Doug A]

I have fairly complete Fuji X, Nikon MF, Nikon AF, Hasselblad V and Leica Barnack kits. If I lost it all I would replace as much of the Barnack kit as made economic sense.

 

[mdarnton]

I'm mostly using a Nikon Z5 and some Voigtlander M w/a lenses, so that's probably what I'd replace. 15, 21, 28, 50, maybe add one of those really fast Chinese 85mm lenses instead of what I use now. Then IF I wanted another Leica someday I'd be set. The Z5 is kind of my dream camera, but I sure like those tiny M lenses.

What would be gone? Leica M-4s and some Leica lenses (plus the Voigtlander ones I actually use), a pretty full Nikon AI-s film kit, 8x10, 5x7, and 4x5 kits, Hasselblad and a few lenses. But I'm not using ANY of that since I got the Z5.

Or maybe I'd just use my phone camera more. That sort of works.

 

[JeffS7444]

Digital would be easy:

Sony A7CR or A7R5, replacing A7R4, and RX100-7 replacing RX100-1. At least one of the lenses would be an E-mount 50/2 Voigtländer Apo-Lanthar, and perhaps the 35/2 as well.

Micro 4/3: Not sure that I'd replace it. OM has the best IBIS that I've encountered, but Sony has made strides there too. OM's USA web site still has a page devoted to Pen, and even teases an image of the E-P7, but hasn't actually offered a Pen-type camera here for ages, not sure what's up with that.

Tripod: Back to the Gitzo 1228 w/horizontal boom accessory, tripod head TBD.

 

[Leon C]

And what about the actual work itself?

I'd have done more portrait work as I originally wanted to do, I wanted to do actors and done more of my architechtural stuff which I did to get away from the 'work' stuff, some of my music pics were more like live portraits anyway so it was always there in my head, I loved doing the music stuff and had an easyish route into it as my neighbour owned a Studio and started there but always think about if I didn't take the easy road, not that music pics in clubs with no lights was easy, still lots to learn!

Now I have started again, sort of, after a 24yr break from photography, I find myself doing more relaxed close up stuff, messing with more gear, I'm enjoying buying cheap gear to experiment with, setting up the darkroom, I do still do a little music but much more relaxed now as no money pressure as it's more for documentary purposes and for a friend, of course before the prospect of photography putting food on the table, in my youth I wanted to be a photojournalist but wrong place, wrong time.

Gear wise:

Film, I'd be happy with my couple of OM1's and a few prime lenses, my music set up was only 2 Cameras and 3 Lenses, so no need for bags of gear to get the pic.
Digital: Just as happy with my D200 ~ 180/2.8 ~ 85/2 ~ and the humble but excellent AF-S 18/70 3.5/4.5, sometimes simple is easier.

 

[Darthfeeble]

The cameras are just things, covered by insurance (my agent is a photographer). I'd replace the two main ones and cash the check for the rest. I wouldn't begin to know what to do about the prints and negatives I have, I don't sell anything and I'm sure they will be in the recycle bin when I pass so why worry. I plan on selling off the collection of old cameras soon so hopefully that solves the equipment problem.

 

[JohnGellings]

A Fujifilm GFX-100s and the 50, 63 and 80mm lenses. I would use it for everything including "street."

Likely this will be the set-up I will have next year, but I am not sure I will give up my other cameras.

Well, ultimately, I did not go this route. I still have my 50R with 50/63mm lenses with no plans to upgrade. I think if Fuji made an GF100RF with a 63MM lens, that would likely be the camera that allowed me to sell everything else.

 

[kxl]

My first camera was a Pentax K1000 -- gifted to me when I was in high school. Of course, in the late 70's SLR's ruled the roost. It got me started on the SLR/DSLR journey. So, when I bought my first camera with my own money after college, I bought a Nikon FE2. It was only later in life that I got into RF's. Not that I had any choice in what I was gifted, but I would have wished a much earlier start on my RF journey, and maybe purchased what M body I could afford fresh out of college in the mid-eighties.

And that's what I would do (am doing) now.

 

[Rayt]

I don’t have that much time and certainly can’t walk down that yellow brick road again so maybe I’ll learn how to bake meat pies.

 

[38Deardorff]

What I would have done back then is not of much value to me....I learned the most from my foray into LF.....using my namesake 5x7 Deardorff exclusively for a long time. Today I'd buy an M2 with a 21mm & 35mm Steelrim Summilux, replace my Rolleiflex T and replace the Fuji GW680lll....those would do it all for me.

 

[FrozenInTime]

These days all I want is a pair of Leica MPs plus 35 and 50mm Summilux lenses.
The big change from 20 years ago is the ease of instantly home scanning with a EVIL camera; this alone is now enough for me to be at ease with not carrying a digital system into the field. Only regret is spending 20 years trading and upgrading, only to get back to where I started.

 

[boojum]

With the ready capital I'd start where I am now: X2D + Q3 43. Similar in field of view when the X2D wears the XCD 55V but different images overall. The X2D was love at first use, the Q3 has not been so but I am beginning to love it more as time passes. Yeah, I am lucky to have them. Yeah, I saved for years and that's how it happened.

 

[Bill Blackwell]

If all of what I have now was lost, I'd probably get an M10 or 11 Monochrom and perhaps three lenses. But I'd also seriously consider dropping Leica altogether and move to a Fuji medium format system (the latest 100mb body with a couple of primes). I’ve already been tempted!

 

[Phil_F_NM]

Knowing myself and that nothing will scratch the GAS other than whatever shiny or black paint thing I'm fantasizing about at the moment, I would have to say I'd probably do most of it the same way, but I would encourage myself to imbibe less alcohol, and to begin Kabat-Zinn mindfulness meditation at least two decades before I actually began meditation.
Phil

 

[ddutchison2]

Having recently come across an OG Canon F1 - I kind of wished I'd bought into Canon instead of Nikon way back in the 80s, Most every control turns in a different direction in these two camera systems and my muscle memory is just too heavily trained to how Nikons work. Still, there are worse fates than being acclimatized to Nikon I guess.