----- Original Message ----- From: "Taz" Subject: Too much gear
> Howdy > > I know some of you must have the same problem I do. Plain and simple I've > got too much gear....no I'm not doing the sane thing and selling some. > Nope....I just want to know how to carry more effectively and efficiently > without killing my back, shoulder, etc. So I'm wondering how the rest of > you handle this problem. The fear of a body going on the fritz, or having > the wrong lens for shot drives me nuts...plus since I've got all this nifty > stuff.....I wanna play with it all at once. Taking the one and leaving the > other at home is just agony sometimes ya know. So anyways tell me your > stories and solutions to this.... :) There is no solution. If you have too much gear to carry at one time, you have to leave something behind. If this means "missing a shot", so be it. My solution is to decide what I am going to go out and try to photograph, and carry what I need to do that. What I have found is that if I am carrying everything I need to take every picture I may see, I am spending all my time trying to force pictures to happen, and not enough time letting them happen. I have found that if I try to force a picture, I get a forced picture, and usually quite a bad one. If I have a camera and a lens, rather than a dozen lenses, the process of finding pictures is much easier, and much more successful. I work within the limitations of the equipment I have chosen to carry, and if something beautiful happens that I can't photograph, I at least get to see it, rather than the inside of a gadget bag. I have found from experience that having too much equipment on site is counterproductive. I have "lost" perfectly good pictures from the need to get just the right lens out of the bag and onto the camera, and by the time I have done that, the fleeting image is gone. This is annoying on several levels. Not only have I missed a picture, but the lost cause of trying to capture it has caused me to only get fleeting glimpses of some very nice things. Now, I take a much more pragmatic approach. I know that if I am in a photogenic place, photogenic things will happen. I don't need a dozen lenses and 4 camera bodies, just one camera and a lens or perhaps two or three will suffice. I get more nice pictures this way, and I get to enjoy being where nice pictures are, which is more therapeutic than always being in a frenzy to get every picture possible. William Robb
