In your bag 309, Brandon Kowalski
No knives today, just a nice safe setup. Though I would say that this is more of a gear shot than a bag shot. Brandon is young, but has a couple of nice cameras to play with. Come and have a look.

Hi there Bellamy and fellow photographers,

My Name is Brandon Kowalski, I am a 18 year old Brit Living in North Yorkshire, I have been into photography for about 4 years and have been shooting mainly film for the last 18 months. I started with a Sony DSLR but picked up a Zenit 12 and from then was hooked on film. Though I don’t have the zenit or sony anymore they will still be the cameras that got me into photography and taught me the basics. These days I only shoot Black and White and develop the negatives myself, for me its one of the best feelings in photography seeing your negatives come out good of the developing tank.

I don’t really have a style of photography but I like to shoot on the street mainly, also I enjoy portraits, basically anything with people involved.  Recently I have started doing some work for oxfam, taking portraits of the volunteers and shots as they work, also I have lined up doing some promotional stuff for a theatre near me, For the oxfam shoot I have been shooting a mixture of film and digital but mainly film.

I have two different bags for two different systems and formats of film. The bag i use is a old unbranded camera bag, It does its job.

The first bag is my Canon EOS bag.

In this bag i have my Canon EOS 50E with battery grip, the battery grip not only makes the camera easier to hold for portraits but means that the camera can be ran off standard AA batteries, the 50E its self is a great camera, it has never let me down. Attached via a M42 adapter i have a Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar 50mm 1.8m which is a fantastic lens and one of my favourite 50s, I do own the Canon EF 50 1.8 (which was used on my canon 40D to take this shot) but i fell the Pancolar gives a much better look and feel to the images also it has far superior bokeh (not that thats really important to me). Other M42 lenses i use are: Super Takumar 55m f2, which is a great multi purpose lens, Pentacon 30mm f3.5, a very nice lens but needs to be stopped down, is quite a unusual focal length but great for street photography and last but not least my Vivitar 135mm 2.8, this is the Komine made version and is a great lens for portraits and is hugely underrated. On the far right is my favourite EF mount lens its the Canon 17-40mm f4 L, this lens is amazing, its sharp wide open and just gets sharper, renders tones lovely, however there is some distortion at 17mm but its nothing to serious. I used this lens alot for interior shots in oxfam.
On the hot shoe of the 50E I have a Rowi external rangefinder, which my seem pointless for an SLR but getting accurate focus with the M42 lenses can be quite difficult at larger apertures, so i sometimes use the Rowi to double check.

Also in my bag I have 49mm filters for the Pentacon, Zeiss and Takumar, the main filters i use are a hoya K2 yellow filter and a vivitar polarising filter, also i have a blower and lens cleaning cloth.

The films I use mainly are Lucky SHD 100 and Fomapan 100, though for more serious shots i use Ilford FP4+ and Neopan 400.
If I want to shoot digital I will use all the same lenses and accessories on my Canon 40D.

My Next Bag is my Bronica ETRS system.

In this Bag i have my Bronica ETRS body with speed grip and AE-II prism finder, the lens mounted is the fantastic Zenzanon PE 40mm f4, with the prism and speed grip on the camera feels like a larger, heavier 35mm SLR and handles like too, it also makes portraits much easier with the grip on. The 40mm PE is a great wide angle lens that is capable of fantastic images that are incredibly sharp, detailed and have nice depth of field, this set up was also used for shots at oxfam and produce some of my favourite photographs. Also In this bag I have an additional 120 film back, I will usually load one with 100 speed film and the other with 400 speed. On the right of the camera is the Zenzanon EII 75mm 2.8, which again is a great lens, it is the standard lens for the Bronica, it is a very versatile lens and due to its close focus abilities can be used for portraits. I also carry in this bag a waist level finder for when I want the camera to be lighter, the Bronica ETRS system is incredibly versatile and when the waist level finder is put on and the speed grip removed it because quite small, light and easy to handle. I always carry a light meter with me when im using this or any camera, when the AE-II prism isn’t mounted the camera becomes completely manual so a light meter is needed, At the front there is a small moleskine notepad, 2 Ikea pencils and a rubber, Just to keep notes for developing and for writing ideas and bus/train times down etc.

The Films i mainly use again are Lucky SHD 100 and Fomapan 100, though for autumn and winter which are coming up soon i will probably be shooting with t-max 400 and/or HP5+.

Link to my flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/brandkow93/

Thanks alot Bellamy love the site :)

Brandon

Thanks for sharing your gear with us Brandon. I wish you had put a bag in there too. Great to see you shooting with different formats though.
Check out the link and make sure you guys come and comment.

Keep them coming folks, we need more submissions, so get your bag on Japancamerahunter.com. Send me a hi resolution image of the bag (please make sure it is horizontal) and its contents, with some details about yourself and what you shoot. Oh and don’t forget your contact details (twitter, flickr, tumbler et al). Send the bag shots here.

Cheers
Japancamerahunter