Daily Archives: July 20, 2021

2 years, 8 months ago 5
Posted in: blog

 

It depends, but yes and no! If you love cameras, lenses, and accessories and you can afford them without making your family do without their needs, then no!  If you love all that stuff but it’s not in your houdehold budget, then yes!  Now that is the moral agument about gear, but how about photographically?

 

Let me play out a scenario; you have a very large camera bag and it contains 3 camera bodies and 12 lenses, including a 105 mm Macro, 105mm portrait and a 100 mm f 1.4 lens, and you miss the shot trying to decide which 105 to use,  yes you have too much gear!  The point is that the fewer choices you have the faster and more decisively you can decide what gear to pull out of the bag and use!  Many years ago I had a Lowepro Super Trekker bag, completly loaded it weighed over 70 lbs.  Not only was it a burden to carry, it provided way too many choices!

 

I’ve been doing this for almost 52 years and this is what I’ve learned about camera gear:

 

1. If you have so much gear that it hurts to carry it, it’s too much gear, and if you leave it at home, what is the use of owning it!

 

     2.  Any specialty lenses or gear that you almost never use, falls into the too much gear catagory!

 

      3.  Any specialty lenses or gear that use when you need it, and you can afford it, it’s not too much gear.

 

      4.  The smaller you can make your everyday lens carry package and still meet your needs, the better!

 

       5.  The best gear is the lenses and accessories that you find meet the most of your needs the most of the time.

 

       6.  If your work does not require large maximum aperture lenses (f 1.0, f 1.2 or f 1.4)  you can live without them.

 

        7.  It’s always better to save up and buy the best quality gear that will last longer and give better service.

 

        8.  Just remember, cameras and lenses are tools and the more effectively you use them, the better your work will be, and after all, is that not the point to doing this!?

 

I have been giving it lot of thought and I believe that I could do 95% of my field photography with only two lenses, the 16-80 and the new 70-300.  That’s a range of 24mm to 450 mm.  If I really wanted to carry more I could add a wide angle zoom of a single wider lens like the 14mm f 2.8 and I think that would cover it.  I do not own the 70-300, but that can be fixed!!!!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim