gfen wrote:
> I'm starting to establish a kit to walk around with most of
> the time, so I can leave the rest of my stuff at home. This
> will contain the aforementioned body and lens, as well as the
> FA28-70mm f4, a reverse ring for the 50mm, a red, yellow, and
> polariziing filter, and monopod.
>
> The rest of the kit can stay at home for special occasions.
(I fixed the spacing for you.)
I don't carry all my gear every day either. But I don't have a
minimal walking-around kit that stays consistent, so I had a bit
of trouble with the long-term aspects of Mark's mind-experiment.
Some days my walking-around kit is nothing more than the Super
Program or KX and the A35-105/3.5. C'est tout. But if I'm
heading out at night, I might put the 85/2 or 50/1.4 on there
instead. If I'm going to be indoors and have a greater than
usual expectation of wanting to shoot there, I'll pop a flash
on top -- often an AF280T, but sometimes (because it's more
compact) an Olympus T-20. If the ME already has film in it of
a speed appropriate to the time of day, that might be what goes
with me. If I'm heading into an environment where I expect
smallish things to catch my eye from a distance (some parts of
the city, for example, or any place where there are lots of
sightseers in interesting clothes), the 70-210/4 goes on
whichever camera I carry. Once in a while I'll take a
screwmount body and lens when I go out -- either to finish off a
roll that's still loaded, or just because it's been too long
since I used 'em and I feel like doing so.
So what's my "minimal kit"?
Give me the 35-105/3.5 for daylight one day, and the next night
it'll be all wrong 'cause I'm out late enough that f/3.5 is too
slow.
My _walking_around_ kit, which is as minimal as I get, changes
depending on the environment I'm walking into and what I expect
to shoot. And that's only a "just in case" camera -- just in
case a photo pops up in front of me that needs to be taken.
Take me to an event where I specifically expect to do some
shooting, and a) I'll want a few more tools and b) I'll bring
way more than that environment's "minimal kit" just 'cause it's
easier to simply grab the whole camera bag on the way out the
door. (Not always. Sometimes I throw two or three bodies, a
few primes, a couple of zooms, and a flash into a canvas
shoulder bag instead of dragging the whole K-mount big bag of
stuff along. In full daylight, I can do quite a bit with:
24/2.8, 35-105/3.5, 50/2, 85/2, 135/2.5, 70-210/4, and either
100-300/4 or 400/6.3 preset. Some overlap there for when I want
the same length on two different bodies at the same time with
different film. But even that is admittedly not an attempt at a
_minimal_ kit, merely an attempt to travel "lighter than
usual". I'm still hedging my bets, keeping my options open,
etc.)
Send me away from home for more than a day, into multiple
shooting environments, and I definitely want a more varied set
of tools near at hand.
Send me away for a week (e.g. The Pennsic War every August), and
I'll take the full K-mount kit, the full screwmount kit, the
mostly-working screwmount backup cameras, two and a half times
as much film as I actually expect to shoot (enough to make
non-photographers' jaws drop), both real tripods and both
tabletop tripods, and the Konica and it's couple of lenses just
in case. I used to also take along a disposable panoramic
camera, but now I just make a panoramic mask inside one of the
S1a bodies with gaffer's tape. And now that I've got the
Nishika, that'll be coming as well.
Of course, I don't hike in and it's not _really_ "camping". I
drive, and although I live in a tent for a week (and have to
park the car a couple miles away after I finish unloading), I'm
really in the middle of a city. A city of tents, but a city of
10,000 people, with all the variety of subjects and conditions
that implies (but without a camera store on site, so if anything
breaks I need to have a backup with me). Put me out in the
woods with one or two friends, and I won't bring anywhere near
that much gear.
I can't put together *a* minimal kit, because I do too many
types of shooting, of too many kinds of subjects, in too many
different environments and conditions. I'm greedy; I want to do
it all. I'll shoot what I can with the tools I have or can
afford, but ifwhen I get my hands on yet another tool, I'm quite
likely to say, "Oh great, now I can do such-and-such that I've
been wanting to do for a while!" Just wait until the day
(probably a long time in the future) when I get my hands on a
large-format camera with full motion!
The best I can do for a question like Mark's is to say what my
minimal kit (the kit large enough to get the job done but small
enough to make me feel nervous about it) for each of several
different situations.
-- Glenn
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