What gear do you use?

Hi Guys/Gals,

Was wondering what gear you use. Currently I shoot with a Canon 60D with a 18-200 f5.6 and a 50 f1.4. Will probably upgrade to a full frame by next year. I'm thinking of going mirrorless (SonyA7II), but I'm also considering a 6D. What lense do you guys use, or your go to lense?

I am a Luddite: Leica M3 with a 50 mm lens and Ilford B&W film.

Apparently, convenience offends me. ;)

I like acquiring photographic gear more than actually using it, but I'm not that good at acquiring it, either. I have an Olympus E-PL2 with kit lens plus the Panasonic 14mm pancake. Plus a couple of point-and-shoots.

I'm expecting this evening the arrival of a shipment of lousy print-on-demand copies of the non-POD books I thought I had ordered from Amazon. (Shipped from San Bernardino--not a good sign.) In preparation for documenting their inferiority vis-a-vis non-POD library copies, it's my Canon G15's battery that I recharged last night.

>2 ajsomerset: "B&W film"

You know what finally sold me on the value of black-and-white? Watching the only color episode of Perry Mason. Ick!

Canon EOS1100D with standard 18-55 mm lens, plus EFS55-250mm lens that I don't use much, and a Tamron 50mm (nifty fifty) which I use when my inspiration is at low level. I'll upgrade to a better Canon one of these days but still haven't fathomed out all the settings on this one.

>1 JuliusC: My first camera was a Minolta XGM back in the dark ages and the had a Canon T70 for a few years, then I moved to Contax and their beautiful Zeiss lenses, with a 159 and a G2 rangefinder kit, before losing the photography bug - my eyes water when I look at how much G2s sell for these days compared to how little I got for mine. I was bitten again when the world of digital arrived, and used a Nikon D70 for a while before upgrading to the D80 several years ago. I keep a 35mm on it routinely, but depending upon what I'm going out to shoot then I may change that for a 10-20mm, a 150mm macro (both Sigma), or my beloved Nikon 300mm f4. I also have access to some serious pulling power with the Nikon 500 f4P, but it weighs a ton and needs a tripod weighing a ton to support it. I love the discipline and imagination required by going out with just a single prime.

Being perfectly content with that lot, I had no intention whatsoever of buying anything else until something broke - however, one day I was in a camera shop with a friend who was trying out some kit. Looking fairly absent-mindedly at the display cabinets, my eye was caught by a small and very attractive camera, which turned out to be an Olympus EM10. Long story short, I bought one and am in the process of moving entirely to Micro four-thirds and will do so when Olympus brings out something equivalent to my 300mm.

>2 ajsomerset: I'd suggest no Luddite, rather someone who appreciates quality and the tactile nature of the mechanical process. A friend gave me a Leica iiif and although it only gets used on very rare occasions, I love the feel of pressing the shutter release and forwarding the film. Do you develop, process and print your work yourself?

>3 cpg: I'd be interested in seeing the results of your documentation should you wish to sharing it, as I'm often asked in work to provide OOP books. Up to now I have always sought a second-hand copy instead, as they are usually cheaper, so haven't as yet seen what a POD would look like.

>7 HuxleyTheCat:

After a few attempts at macro shots, I decided I didn't know what I was doing, so I used a flatbed scanner instead. Then I discovered that Amazon doesn't let you attach photos to your request for a refund, so the whole enterprise was for naught. (I apparently did get a full refund, though.)

There are many things that bug me about POD books, but probably the worst is that many publishers/retailers provide no indication whether it's a POD or non-POD book they're sending you. I have been hitting the secondary market pretty heavily lately, and after this latest fiasco I'm planning on shifting even more of my business that way and away from places like Amazon.

I am not your usual photo fanatic as the pieces of "equipment" that I use in order of importance to me are:-
- Photoshop
- Canon Lide 210 flatbed scanner
- iPhone 6
- Panasonic Lumix compact camera.
What I enjoy doing is manipulating photos (or other pictures) in Photoshop to make interesting images. I take snapshots and turn them into quite good photos.
I have been using Photoshop for about a decade, and I am still learning more and more about this extraordinarily complex and sophisticated program.
The images some of you may have already seen that I have made using a scanner and Photoshop are my montages of Folio Society books. These started simple, and have gradually become more complex as my FS book collection has expanded.
Links to these images, starting simple and getting more complex, follow:-
http://i1331.photobucket.com/albums/w587/kyzyk/Folio%20montage%202_zpsmkcdo6mc.j...
http://i1331.photobucket.com/albums/w587/kyzyk/Folio%20montage%205_zpsmb5owg9d.j...
http://i1331.photobucket.com/albums/w587/kyzyk/Folio%20montage%209_zps5mkipa55.j...
http://i1331.photobucket.com/albums/w587/kyzyk/Folio%20montage%2013_zps3ftgf35z....
and here is the latest one, still in progress, and waiting for me to acquire more FS books before it is completed:-
http://i1331.photobucket.com/albums/w587/kyzyk/Folio%20montage%2014_zpsnsghg5hn....
Click on the magnifying glass image at top right to enlarge each picture if desired.
Each book spine is canned, then added to the montage using Photoshop. Book proportions are kept, but sizes are adjusted to fit the montage.

Lately an inexpensive Panasonic "bridge camera" used unadventurously, but back around 30 years ago a Leica iiia / f2 Summitar which I still have, and the bathroom was commandeered whenever there was developing and printing to be done.

I have used many cameras over the years, starting with a 4x5 Speed Graphic and twin-lens Rolleiflex and doing my own processing and printing, and have to say that film is still my favorite photographic medium. The two cameras I used most often for personal shooting during the greatest part of my career in motion pictures and television were film cameras. For work-related shooting, the Nikon F2, with a range of lenses from 20mm to 800mm catadioptric. For casual shooting, due to its compact (for the period) size and its amazing image quality, the Kodak Retina IIIc camera with its Schneider-Kreuznach 50mm f2 lens.

My favorite photographic media was black and white Kodak Plus-X, though as I started to shoot more at night or under conditions of low light I most often shot Tri-X for the additional 2 stops of sensitivity. When circumstances required color, I used Kodachrome whenever possible, and still think that this was the finest medium for color image capture ever devised--given sufficient light for correct exposure. I have Kodachrome slides from the mid-1960s which, when projected on a theater size screen, are incredible in terms of resolution and image contrast, to a degree I have not yet seen in digital capture, even with a Canon 5D which is the best quality digital camera I have used.

Since retiring from the entertainment industry, I usually do my shooting with my iPhone, or when greater control and higher image quality is needed, a Canon G10. There is no doubt that modern digital cameras and Photoshop are wonderful tools for the photographer, and have considerably raised the quality level of general picture-taking. Still, there is an element of artistry found in a high-quality platinum print from black and white silver-emulsion film, which, for me, has never been surpassed. Fiona has mentioned in another thread Ansel Adams, and those who are fortunate enough to have seen one of his contact prints from his 8x10 cameras know what I mean.

>11 Django6924:
Ansel Adams's photos and writings (by him and his students/followers) were my main source for learning about photography and how to take better-than-average photos...

The cameras that I use are Sony a580 and old film camera Zenit 3M, made in the Soviet Union in early 60s.

I've owned a lot of cameras in my life. Most of them were lost in Hurricane Katrina, but I still have quite a few.

At work I shoot with Nikons, usually a D7000 and a D700. But the cameras I carry daily are a Ricoh GR Digital IV and a Fuji GA645. If I'm going on the water, a Canon WP-1.

My best tool is a camera stand I found for $35 at an estate sale. The two lights are on flexible stems and can be raised and lowered, as can the camera itself. I use a Canon T2i DSLR with the kit lens (18-55, 55-250) plus an old Vivitar macro lens. But I've discovered that for use with the camera stand, my iPhone6 (and the 5s I had before it) is perfectly fine. The trick is to pair it with a tripod adapter the folks at Joby sell for $20. It mounts on the tripod (or in this case, the camera stand) and then has a clip that expands to hold your phone, even if it is in its case. The current model will hold the iPhone6 (not sure about the supersized model) down to an iPhone4, and similar-sized Android phones. So I can plop a book on the camera stand, snap the iPhone into the adapter and fire away, in a matter of seconds.
Here's a link to the adapter:
http://joby.com/smartphones/griptight-mount
Here's a gallery of Christmas ornaments shot using the stand, the iPhone 5s and a black background.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/stevejohnsonmsu/albums/72157648998069099/with/1586...

And yeah to the folks who love Photoshop. No other computer program has given me so much pleasure.

For those of us who still enjoy shooting film, but may not have a camera with a working meter (such as is the case with my Rollei 35S which has a meter which used a long-outlawed mercury battery), or perhaps an even older camera with no meter (my twin-lens Rollei), then you can save yourself from having to buy an expensive dedicated light meter if you have a smartphone such as the iPhone 5s which I use. I use two very good apps which make use of the iPhone's built-in camera to give you a meter readings you can use on your camera. For those who haven't used it, the iPhone's built-in camera is very sensitive, and I've found the meter readings I can get from it are very accurate. Some of the available apps even let you zoom into several different areas of the displayed picture and take readings of highlight areas, shadows, etc.

Incidentally, although I have several dedicated light meters, spot, reflected and incident, unless I'm experimenting I never carry them around any more--they are just extra gear and I always have my iPhone with me any way.

Reading this thread makes me feel rather inadequate! My main camera is a rather humble Canon EOS 350D, with two rather basic lenses, all of which I bought 10 years ago. Other than a tripod, a remote, and Photoshop, that is all the kit I own. To be honest, I don't think I have outgrown it either. It has suited me very well, although occasionally I could have done with a better macro and zoom lens.

Just a few weeks ago upgraded from a Canon 7D to the Mark II version. The lenses I use most often are a Canon 15-85mm with a Canon 100mm macro f2.8 and a Canon 100-400mm. And Photoshop.

>16 Conte_Mosca:

Actually, you shouldn't--I take pictures with my iPhone for the most part and only get out other gear when I just want to have some fun fooling with exposure situations and solving photographic problems that require more user control. Most of the gear I have I owe to nostalgia and a love of gadgetry.

>16 Conte_Mosca: Michael, you know how some of us are in the habit of acquiring far more FS / LEC etc books than we either have space for or will ever have time to read? Sadly that affliction is also transferable to camera-gear...

One of the things I love about photography is that it's two hobbies in one: firstly there's the photography element, and then there's the whole different element of the production of the final image. I've never got into Photoshop, but I am a Lightroom enthusiast, and for me there is an enormous amount of fun/challenge in trying to reproduce the thing within the shot which I originally saw in my mind's eye and which made me wish to capture the image in the first instance - often that can just be a mood or atmosphere rather than something tangible. I think this is the reason why I lost my enthusiasm for photography for a few years - I didn't have access to a darkroom (my bathroom just wasn't suitable) and had to rely on high street processing/printing, which was always inconsistent and often disappointing. When digital came along those things came back within my own control, and the hobby just took off again for me.

>15 Django6924:

What apps do you use for light meter readings, if you don't mind my asking?

>19 HuxleyTheCat: I certainly do know that habit Fiona :-)

I am very happy with my rather limited kit though. Having used just a single camera for over 10 years, and just the two lenses (18-55mm and 55-200mm), I have the benefit of knowing it very well. My approach however is quite a simple one - 95% of my shots use AV mode, and 4% Manual (with 1% or less "other"). Most post production is in Camera RAW, with final tweaks in Lightroom or Photoshop if needed.

Photoshop really comes into its own in my (amateur) digital artwork, which often use my photographs as a component, although I still use Corel Painter as my main tool for graphic art, with a Wacom Intuos 5 Touch graphics tablet.

>20 scholasticus:

myLightMeter Pro, a free download, is very easy to use, lets you use the built-in iPhone camera to let you select the areas you want to measure, and has a very intuitive user interface:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mylightmeter-pro/id583922375?mt=8

FotoMeter Pro has an interface that looks like an old Weston or Gossen light meter, and works as both a reflected or incident light meter. The app costs $0.99 to download:

http://www.kitdastudio.com/?p=183

The most elaborate (and expensive: $25.00) app I use is Cine Meter II (a simpler version, Cine Meter, has most of the same features and costs about $5.00). It is what I use for digital cinema, so it might be of limited interest to still photographers, but in addition to functioning as a spot meter, it provides color temperature readings, a waveform monitor which shows light levels across the entire subject, as well as a false color monitor, which shows you the scene you are photographing with "false" colors--overexposed highlights and underexposed shadows appear in primary colors. For someone who would desire to know the basics of using an exposure system similar to the Adams "Zone System," this provides a very visual way to determine exposure under the most demanding conditions:

http://www.adamwilt.com/cinemeter/index.html

>22 Django6924:

Thank you very kindly, Robert! I will probably be looking at the first two you mentioned. I agree that the third is probably well beyond what I need, given my particularly limited capabilities in terms of photography. I admit that my preferred method of capturing memorable images during a trip is through words rather than photographs, yet I will never say no to a well-composed picture should it be within the realm of my abilities!

Leica M-P (typ 240) and M Momochrom (typ 246) here. Also dabbling in a bit of medium-format film (c1952 Rolleiflex TLR).