A Look in My Camera Bag

I’m often asked about what photographic equipment I carry with me, and use to get the photos that I post on this blog and my Facebook page. To be honest, I don’t think one brand is necessarily better than another. Most modern digital cameras are very good at the purpose for which they were designed. I would recommend that anyone in the market for photo gear, whether it be a camera body, body and lens system, lens, or a multitude of other accessories, read and watch reviews, or talk with someone who is using similar equipment.

Most of the time, I have at least two camera bodies in my truck – A Nikon D750 and a D800. Both are full-frame(FX) DSLR bodies, and serve my purposes well. I also own several Fuji X series mirrorless cameras and lenses, which are excellent, too. The Fujis have a smaller APS-C sized “crop” sensor and are smaller, and lighter weight than my Nikon DSLRs, which I often carry when I don’t want to walk around with a lot of weight.

The Nikon D750 generally has a 28-70mm AF Nikkor f/3.5-4.5D on it. I usually carry a Tokina SD 17-35mm F/4 on my Nikon D800. The D800 probably sees more use, as I like ultrawide lenses for landscape/backroad photography. Sometimes, I switch out a lens on one of the bodies, as I also carry a manual focus 14mm f2.8 Rokinon, an AF 28-200mm Nikkor F/3.5-5.6G, and an AF 75-300 f/4.5-5.6.

My Nikon mount lenses aren’t necessarily the most modern, and some are “older,” actually having been designed for Nikon film cameras. That’s one good thing about Nikon, most older lenses will still work just fine on today’s most modern DSLRs. Most other manufacturers can’t say the same. I still have manual focus Nikon lenses that work quite well on my DSLRs, as well as my film cameras (Yes, I still shoot film, once in a while). Older lenses are generally available used at online sites like Ebay and Amazon, and are often much more affordable than the newer lenses, many of which have image stabilization and other perks, but at a sizable price. I shoot for fun, and not for a living, so I buy what my budget allows, and not necessarily my choice, if money was no object.

Other accessories that I carry include a flash unit/diffuser dedicated to my Nikon cameras; a tripod and monopod, and of course, exra batteries, battery charger, memory cards, and the like; and my Hazard4 Evac PhotoRecon Sling Pack, in which I carry some of my gear. The tripod, monopod and flash unit don’t see a lot of use, but are nice to have when they are needed.

My best technical advice for someone wanting to be good at backroad photogrpahy is to learn your gear and its capabilities and how it relates to your style of photography. Also, most really good pictures that you see, don’t come straight out of a camera. They are processed in a photo editing program like Photoshop and/or Lightroom, to enhance what the camera has captured. There is absolutely nothing wrong with dodging, burning, cropping, and adjusting contrast, saturation, and color curves, and the like. It’s all a part of photography, and has been since the early days of the film darkroom, where these terms originated.

More than anything, I recommend learning to look at a subject and its lighting. Get the exposure right, and a pleasant composition, and you can do pretty much what you want with it. I’m not a fan of gimmicks like HDR (High Dynamic Range) photography, where multiple frames at various exposures are combined to create a single image. I would much prefer to shoot one frame perfectly exposed, and bring out the details in my digital darkroom(Photoshop/Lightroom).

I don’t often give advice on the technical side of photography. However, I do understand light and how it translates to make a good photograph. I learned photography on an old manual 35mm film camera, and developed and printed my film in a darkroom. I’m grateful for today’s digital equipment, as it gives me the time to concentrate on taking the type of images that I like to shoot.