MUSINGS: SHIFTING GEAR
I like to tell myself that my photography gear is convection based, constantly turning over like the topsoil of a garden. While there are a few lone gear survivors, everything else has its day and heads for Ebay or, if I am too lazy, into the storeroom.
My most volatile category is the lenses. One thing that all lenses share is that they take photos. Aside from that, there are a wide variety of lens types and quality, not to mention there being a myriad lenses out there. For my work, there are not that many “great” lenses.
I seem to gravitate toward highly-corrected lenses and never seem to have enough of them. I have been getting rid of those that I seldom use, with a few exceptions. I decided some time ago that I can’t afford to be a lens museum and am moving away from that.
And I imagine that any photographer out there with more than a few lenses drifts toward collecting those lenses that make up his or her particular photography niche. I know I do. I’m usually bundled in with the macro photographers, but in reality I am a close-up photographer. I don’t enjoy the confines of a limited view like 1:1. It makes me feel claustrophobic. I like to breathe in a somewhat larger context. On the other hand, although I do some landscape photography, it is more context than I need. I am into little dioramas, micro-environments, what I call “small worlds.”
I have even sold many legendary macro lenses that I had just because I did not use them or “like” them that much. Examples would be the Nikkor 200mm Macro, the Zeiss 100mm Makro-Planar, and others. Nice, but I found I always preferred other lenses, so why keep them? Just to say I HAVE them is no longer interesting to me. I don’t have them, but I had them. That says it all.
Then, there are lenses that have great qualities, but are IMO otherwise flawed. For example, the legendary Coastal Optics 60mm Macro f/4 lens is very well corrected, even at the forensic level, except for a giant hot spot right in the macro range! However, the lens is poorly designed in other areas like focus throw (there is so little that I have to put the camera/lens on a focus rail!), plus no hood, cheap housing, etc. I still used that lens, but I finally protested the design flaws enough that I sold mine, shipping it out to somewhere in China. I sometimes miss it, but not often.
Which leaves me in the company of those types of lenses that I do use and dote on. These are not so much macro lenses as they do a variety of lenses that I can make work for me in close-up nature photography. And they are a rag-tag crew. Aside from the lordly Zeiss Otus series, I have a mess of industrial lenses, mostly from scanners, plus enlarger and large-format lenses. I love the little devils and use them on view cameras, which brings me to another point.
I had several view cameras, one of them very large and very heavy, but I sold them too. Who needs a beast like that? I am down to the Cambo Actus Mini View Camera and the Novoflex BALPRO bellows system. That’s enough, although I very much like tilt and sometimes some shift.
I also must have ten or twelve focus rails, most of which I am too lazy to sell, having settled on the Novoflex Castel-Q along with their Fine Adjustment Handle. That’s what I use these days.
I won’t even mention the scores of adapters, helicoids, step-up and step-down rings, and etc. that I have around here. In my case it seems that when it comes to photo equipment, more-than-enough is just enough. LOL. And I am always finding something I don’t have!
I also have a trail of tripods that I still have or have given away, mostly old Gitzos, having settled on a couple of Really Right Stuff tripods for my regular use. And tripod heads? Don’t even ask. I have lots of them, small, medium, and large, but all I tend to use are the Arca-Swiss C1 Cube, of which I have a couple.
I keep looking for the energy to sell off hundreds of photo items I don’t need, but the amount of work to put them on Ebay and then box them up for shipment is just too much. I will wait until I need the money and then I will do the work. Anyway, I like to rummage through them all trying to adapt this or that lens for this or that purpose.
For some reason I am real fussy about quick-release clamps. I gave up on Manfrotto clamps years ago after they failed a couple of times! I have a drawer full of quick-release clamps, all of them Arca-Swiss. And I REALLY dislike lever-release clamps. What I love are the RRS screw-knob Arca clamps with the big fat knobs. I like to be certain my camera is firmly attached and that does it. I even installed them on my two Arca Cubes because the ones that come with the Cube suck. They are too tiny and weak.
As for cameras, I love Nikon and I have had pretty much all of their DSLRs, but have sold them off over the years. I still have my first DSLR, the Nikon D1x, which cost $5K and is worth today maybe $100. It was all of 5.3 Mpx. Aside from nature, I took 33,000 photos of rare concert rock-n’-roll posters with the D1x using a vacuum table I built myself.
So, those are some of my equipment biases. I feel like a spinning coin on the table that has finally come to rest with the Nikon D850. It does what I need and always wanted. The rest is up to me.
Am I the Lone Ranger or do others have similar experiences?
[Photo with the Nikon D850 and the Schneider Macro Varon 85mm lens.]
