In your bag No: 1231, Michael Barrett
Michael carries a lot of gear, but each camera serves a different purpose. Come and check out this whopper of a bag.
Here is my carry around bag as it stands now.
I have been shooting on and off for 15 years, I started with film and did the whole camera club thing , then started to study Photography in night school.
I sort of lost my way a bit when as usual the personal politics of camera clubs showed its head and my busy day job took a hold of my free time.
Unfortunately the amount of jobs for Photographers was starting to dry up and unless you liked weddings and event photography you were out of luck.
This all added up to me stopping shooting and packing up my dark room and not touching a camera for many years.
Until my first trip to Tokyo in 2007 I had no interest in shooting. At the time of my trip I felt digital had come a long way and I bought my first DSLR Nikon D40x.
I loved shooting again, on that first trip I shot 4000 photographs and I was enjoying the control with RAW post processing .
It seemed like I had found my happy medium.
Wrong!
Since 2007 I have been back to Tokyo four times and have upgrade my camera six times –
Nikon D90 (not bad)
Nikon D700 (I loved this camera, I think the best DSLR made)
Panasonic Lumix G something ( I want something lighter)
Nikon D800e (Fantastic image quality but my wallet is still hurting after replacing lenses)
Fuji X-Pro 1 (Loved the style and feel but it’s way to slow)
The more I got into it again more technical I was getting , I started shooting Macro which I love and the D800e with Nikkor 200mm f4 Micro is the perfect combination for me.
Over time I was finding with each camera purchase I spent more time in menus or post. I also found I wanted to expand and shoot street and landscape ect.
The bag was also getting heavier now I’m lugging 10+ Kg so I can cover every possible thing.
This year was the most surprising realisation , a majority of my final product was reproducing old technics, I liked the look of older lenses everything didn’t need to be tack sharp.
It also hit me the enjoyment and the art of paying attention to my surrounds as I was shooting was disappearing. Like most people I started to shoot more and cherry pick the best shots, which is fine but I don’t think this is a good technique to improve and develop.
I then found my Grandfathers old Kodak Brownie and decided to shoot a roll. At the same time I started to listen to the Film Photography Podcast and found the Japan Camera Hunter site because the first thing I do when I go Japan is gear hunt.
So I slowed things way down and I’m happy with going back to basics Aperture, Shutter speed and Film Speed, Yes, I did used to do this with my digital shooting but it was too tempting to chimp every shot and shoot 64 Gig , now I have to think more and plan.
This years trip to Japan will be the first time I will not be taking a digital camera, I can’t wait.
I havent shoot that roll in the Brownie (yet) but I have bought 15 vintage and old film cameras (more to come).
Found some good film suppliers and bought them to home develop.
The films I like to shoot are
Rollei Ortho 25
Rollei 80s
Rollei RPX 100 and 400
Kodak Double XX
So down to the Gear in my bag.
I carry three bodies at a time.
Cameras –
Pentax Spotmatic 50mm f1.4 (1966-67) – Got this for $45 and gave it a clean and service.
Nikon F3 (1983) – My first real camera had it for 15+ years hasn’t stopped.
Nikon S2 Nikkor 50mm f1.4 (1955?) – Love this camera.
Leica lllc Nikkor 50mm f2 (Camera 1946-47 Lens 1955) I’m so happy with this I’ve always wanted a Leica M but cost has been an issue got this service by a guy in Japan and it’s like new.
Fuji W690 (1990?) – this is a beast with a massive 6×9 neg.
Kodak Stereo Camera (late 50’s) – Just getting into old style Stereographic.
Lenes –
Skink pancake pinhole and pinhole body cap with several custom made pinholes and slits.
Nikkor 85mm f1.4 D – a great lens.
Zeiss Plannar 50mm f1.4
Nikkor-S 35mm f2.8
Orther –
Minolta lVf lightmeter
Zeiss lens cleaning kit with lens pens
Cable release
Note books
Black rapid strap
iPhone
Bag –
Lowepro
Thanks for the great site and community.
Cheers
Michael Barrett
Thanks for sharing your back with us, Michael. Next time share your links with us too.
Check out the links and please 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. Optimum size is 1500 across. Please ensure there is a bag in the shot, unless you don’t use one. The more you can write about yourself the better, make it appealing and tell us a story.
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
Nice F3 :^)
Thanks Bellamy,
My bag has changed again some new toys added and a change in plans, next time I post I’ll keep the text down.
Thanks Gonçalo , I love my F3, still going strong.
Cheers
Wow, you carry 6 cameras! That must be hard!
How do they all fit inside that small bag? Ohhhh right. They don’t.
You’re just posting you’re camera collection instead of what’s really inside your bag.
Hi Mr T-Bone,
Thanks for your comments. You are 100% correct I don’t carry them all at once in that bag.
I have two bags, a big one which carry’s them all and that smaller one which I carry up to 4 at a time when I go shooting.
No, it isn’t my camera collection , that is what I was shooting with at the time.
When I emailed my picture in I thought I forgot to mention this is my carry around bag and I swap stuff in and out from my big bag but I didn’t think it would be an issue , guess I learnt my lesson now.
Next time I will post my big bag as well, sorry for any misunderstanding .
Thanks for the reply Michael.
But I still don’t really believe that you would carry those 6 cameras around with you. Why would you? There is no need to. You have three cameras with a 50mm lens. Why not just carry one of them? Unless you give me some good reasons to believe you need three different cameras with three different 50mm lenses on them for one evening, then I just don’t believe that you carry all of them around.
BTW – I shoot a lot and carried lots of gear.
Hey T-bone ,
Nice to hear from you.
Yeah I shoot all those 50mm , I love 50mm and they are all 1.4 except the Nikkor f2.
Two are old 50mm I love the old lens design fantastic wide open. The last one is the newer zeiss 1.4 newer lens it has the vintage feel but not the look of the others.
I sort of collect 50mm lenses . I go for the look the lens produces and I prefer the 50mm angle of view. So the short answer is even though they are all the same focal length they all produce different image results due to the lens design.
I also shoot some whacky films so I load different films in different cameras.
I can assure you I carry all of this in my big back pack , just ask my back. Ha ha.
I also pack a d800e . Last time my back pack was 9.5 kg , that’s why I travel with two bags.
I hope this helps explain my odd shooting behavior.
I’m getting closer to my final Japan bag which will make , you happier as I think I’ll only be taking four cameras this time. I’ll keep you posted.
Cheers
Michael Barrett
Nice bag and cams!would love to see your photos taken by this 6 beast! thank you!
Hi Godoff,
Thanks for your comment. Yes , the Fuji is nice and i will get a link up when I have scanned some images from it. If I had a choice again I would go for the wide version. The negs are nice and big and the lens is pretty sharp . I would recommend the Fuji its a very well built and easy to use camera and for 6×9 it is pretty easy to carry around.
Cheers
Michael