In your bag 917, Gromit72
A film shooters bag, shot on film…at his own wedding. Come and check it out.

This is my wedding bag…and by wedding, I mean my own wedding!

I’ve been a big fan of the blog (as I assume anyone who reads your blog rightly should be :).  I most recently followed your fantastic Ginza and Shinjuku camera shop tour and came home with a pristine original cover for my Yashica Mat 124G for 1000 Yen!(do you mean 10,000 yen?)  What a find!

Been wanting to submit a bag for over a year now, but I thought this one is even more special because this bag was what I used to shoot my own wedding pictures

I wanted to bring only film but my now-wife insisted that we bring a digital as a back-up.  And true to us film fans, it didn’t make it out of the bag.

Onto the bag:

– The photo itself was shot with a Nikon F100 50mm 1.8 on Superia 400 film

– I am a big medium format fan as you can see.  Especially since I develop my own negatives (with coffee/caffenol) and flatbed scan, I have a sense of raw excitement looking at medium format negatives that I don’t really experience on 35mm.

– Plaubel Makina 67 80mm F2.8 – absolutely love this camera! Can I say it’s my favorite-ist?  The nikkor lens is super sharp wide open and so excellent for portraits.  Bokeh is fantastically pleasing.  The meter is the one of the best meters ever (Yashica Mat 124G being the other that has an excellent meter as well).  Bonus is it folds up so compact.  Though everyone seems to think it looks like a clown camera..ha.

– Tele-Rolleiflex 135mm F4 – I’m a big TLR fan.  The 135mm is great for half body portraits.  A bit of a beast in terms of size and weight, but lens is fantastic as you’d expect.  The viewfinder is a bit dim and harder to focus especially it being a premium for the longer focal length, so it has the Bill Maxwell viewfinder (which is totally worth it.  A great guy to talk to also).

– Mamiya 6 50mm F4 – another folder making it reasonably compact. Super sharp lens and wide lens is great for environmental portraits or landscapes.  Great to have AE priority on a medium format – love it as well but the super sharp lens sometimes makes it not as pleasing to the eye as the Makina.

– Hasselblad 500c/m 80mm 2.8 C – great to have the interchangeable back since I love both B&W & colour (actually more the former).  Another great camera but the big focal plane shutter makes it a bit loud and harder to shoot handheld.

– Ricoh GR21 – bought it in Tokyo from a great seller who sent it back to Ricoh to have the fogging lens completely replaced for free.  As a big Daido Moriyama fan, this camera is extra special.  The lens is great with essentially no barrel distortion whatsoever for such a wide lens.

– Film – expired Kodak 400NC and 160NC bought on Ebay.  Great low contrast for portraits. Fujicolor 100 japan edition – again great low contrast for portraits

– Bag – a Lexon laptop bag that my wife got from work.  Feel a little like a schoolboy carrying it but holds a lot and is surprisingly small and discrete.  Most importantly, very comfortable carrying around all day

How did the wedding shoot go?  Well, we’re still married

Next on the photography adventure list is enlarging….just bought a Kaiser medium format enlarger.  Now if I can only find colour enlarging paper….

My pix – feel free to come by and check them out
http://instagram.com/gromit72
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gromit72

– Gromit72

Cool stuff there Gromit. Thanks for sharing and congratulations.
Check out the links and make sure you 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. Please understand that there is a long wait now as there is a backlog of submissions. Not all make the cut, so make sure yours is funny/interesting/quirky. And please make sure the shot is of good quality, as the ones that are not do not go up.
Cheers
Japancamerahunter