In your bag No: 1218, Andrew Gundershaug
We have a bogof bag shot for you today (buy on get one free). Yep, thats right, two bags for the price of one. Andrew shares with us the two bags he takes when travelling. Check them out.
I have been a fan of your site for the past year and today I decided I would rather share my passion for photography than work on…well work.
I live in California and manage five power plants for a large independent power company based here in the United States. I took a promotion two years ago which has changed my lifestyle a little bit as I am commuting for the first time in my life. I don’t know if you have ever had the experience of commuting but it affords one some time each day to contemplate many things. Anyhow, I spend my time driving looking for good light and interesting subjects to photograph. When I am not working I spend time with my family up at Lake Tahoe where we ski in the winter and boat in the summer. Tahoe is super beautiful so it is fun to be there taking photos. I have been interested in photography most of my life and have always been fascinated cameras. My father had an OM1 when I was a kid as well as a couple of LEICA III(F and C) cameras and I believe the time I spent coddling established the photographic trajectory of my life.
While I attended college (mid 90’s) I was lucky to work in a camera store for a couple of years during what was likely the pinnacle of film. My boss made a good living convincing people to trade in their “old” Leicas and Nikons and upgrade to the latest point and shoot (we sold some classics such as the T4 and the Olympus Stylus) that would likely improve their photography. During my time in the store many of the cameras that are revered on this site and in the film community debuted and I was lucky to borrow them and try them out from time to time. I strongly embraced digital around 2005 but in the last couple of years I have been getting back into shooting film. I have quite a few film cameras that I find anchor me to my roots and the history of Photography. My favorite films are Tri-X, NEOPAN, Fuji Superia, Velvia, Portra, EKTAR, and Fuji Pro400H. TRI-X has a look that I will never get bored with.
What I have today is what I am traveling with right now (Today). It is actually two bags…
Bag 1 – Lowepro Messenger 150-This bad was dirt cheap, looks like a computer messenger bag, and really does a good job of protecting my equipment.
· Fuji X-E1 and XF 18-55 f/2.8-4 – This camera is always with me and one of the best cameras I have ever owned. It makes my canon Digital SLR seem like dog poo
· Canon Screw mount 85mm f/1.7 – This has a Fuji adaptor on it and is my go to portrait lens for the Fuji as it produces fantastic bokeh, I usually shoot it at f/2. This was my Dad’s lens for his Canon P back in the 70’s.
· Olympus OM4 with 50mm f/1.4 and 28mm f/2.8 – This is my standard black and white film camera and is almost exclusively loaded with TRI-X. The camera has one of the most intuitive and killer meters ever built into a camera, you can take a spot meter reading and then assign it a +/-2 EV offset using either the shadow or highlight button. I dig the cinematic look of red #29 so I have one of those for the camera. I had a silver one of these back in the 90’s but I think this black one has a more accurate meter or something. Both lenses are very good and have a distinctive Olympus look with color film.
· Yashica T4 – right now it has Fuji PRO400H in it, I shoot pretty much everything in this little camera. I takes nearly perfect photos every push of the button. I packed this thing with me for almost a year in South America and I think I took better photos with it than the Leica M4P that I had with me at the time. The motor has sounded a little gritty for the last 10 years but it keeps going.
· Singh-Ray Galen Rowell Graduated ND Filters and holder – I don’t always use the holders but the ND filters are invaluable for landscape photos. I use them for all the time for digital and film, color and black and white. I carry the 2 & 3 Soft Edge and a 3 stop Hard edge. I used to try to do everything in Photoshop but I find the ND filter gets it right during capture and is less time consuming than combining images and layer masks in Photoshop.
· Polarizer 77mm, I can use it on all of the cameras using step down rings
· Sekonic L308- Killer meter, It gives the same readings as my uber classic Gosse Luna-Pro but the flash meter is invaluable.
· Nikon SB-24 – This flash is a work horse, it has an optical slave built in as well as manual and auto flash modes. Favorite of the STROBIST disciples
Bag #2 – Lowepro Backpack – I am not sure what model this is as it has been with me for a long time. I actually ran into a guy who works as a designer for Lowepro a few months ago and he was fascinated with this bag, he approached it with awe and admiration like he had just discovered the missing link. The bottom section is a padded bad and the upper section is pure backpack. It sucks more or less for walking around and taking photos but works really well at getting stuff from A to B.
This bad has the current stuff in it that I don’t need all of the time but combined with the other bad I can do a 3 flash portrait shoot with all of the cameras as well as shoot ultra wide film landscapes on slide film. I have Canon digital camera as well but don’t use it very often
· Canon EOS3 – Total tank with all of the techno wizardry (and more) of a modern digital camera but it shoots film. This thing is crazy loud, it is designed to do something like 5 FPS which sounds like you are the paparazzi or the press corps…the autofocus is lightning fast and it actually has eye control so it will focus where you look (I don’t use it but it is there if I ever need it). Right now it is loaded with Velvia 50 and has the Canon 17-40mm f/4 wide angle lens on it.
· Canon 50mm f/1.4 Sicko tack sharp lens – great for pretty much anything and wide open is fantastic when shooting moody B&W portraits with TRI-X
· Canon 75-300 – for tele zoom stuff(mostly my kids soccer games)
· Canon 550 and 580 EX Flashes, can be combined with SB-24 which has optical slave
· Canon ST-E2 Wireless TTL Controller for the flashes…I normally just use it to fire the flashes set to manual using the L-308S. I also carry some Yongnu wireless triggers which must be stuck in a pocket somewhere
· Gels, filters, etc
That is it for now…photos can be seen at FLICKR
https://www.flickr.com/gp/78621754@N00/78MDoD
Thanks for sharing your bags with us, Andrew. It is nice to see such differences in both bags.
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