In Your Bag: 1714 – Frankie Bina

My name is Frankie, I’m 30 years old, originally from Czech Republic, but currently living in South China. I picked up photography as my main hobby a few years ago, as I started traveling frequently for my work and a camera seemed as a perfect tool to fill all the free time at shifting locations. Nowadays I spend most of my free time walking around with a camera or organizing photowalks for our local photoclub.

I don’t take photography too seriously, for me it’s mostly about the fun, new experiences and simply getting out to explore. That’s why I enjoy my small digital Micro 43 systems from Olympus and Panasonic, which are more than enough for my needs. And I’m looking for a similar approach in film cameras, which I started exploring during the last year. But enough about me, let’s move to the content of the bag.

Lovely Olympus OM-10 serves as my main film camera, paired with a Zuiko 50mm f/1.4 lens. I like it for its fairly compact size, a beautiful lens quality, a good metering system and a simple aperture priority mode. And as a fan of the current Olympus, it’s nice to be able to use something from their past. If I had to nitpick, its partly plastic build maybe doesn’t feel as nice as a full metal contemporaries and few times I managed to accidentally switch into the bulb mode, while adjusting the exposure compensation.

At most times I keep it loaded with a black and white film, preferably Fomapan 400. Maybe not the highest quality film, but I quite like its look, it’s more affordable and I’m really happy to support a Czech company.

I always keep with me a second film camera, for the special moments when I want to capture the colours. For this role I picked a simple “reusable disposable” camera, Vibe 501f. Plastic 32mm lens with a too tight viewfinder, fixed focus and just the worst shutter sound, but it serves its purpose well enough. I keep it loaded with Kodak Colorplus 200 or Ultramax 400. 

The third camera is my attempt of recreating the disposable film cameras in a digital form. 10 years old Panasonic Lumix GX1, paired with a 7artisans 18mm f/6.3 bodycap lens and a cheap 35mm optical viewfinder. So, we get the fixed aperture, fixed focus, inaccurate viewfinder and photos that are sort of sharp only in the centre. It’s fun, works perfectly for quick shots on the streets and you don’t need to care about the frame count, just keep experimenting. Tiny Panasonic 14mm f/2.5 lens is just a reserve lens for shooting in low light conditions. 

My current bag of choice is Tenba DNA8, simple and quite small messenger bag, ideal for city walks. There is nothing special about it, a boxy shape due to the inner padded camera cube, few pockets all around, a quick access from top and high quality materials. But I’m very glad that the inner camera cube can be removed. So, if I want to go out just with the two small point-n-shoot cameras and don’t need all the padding, I can leave the boxy cube at home and go with a much sleeker bag, that doesn’t really look like a camera bag anymore.

Thanks to the JCH for this opportunity, I hope my approach to cameras and photography might inspire some of you.

You can find my work on Instagram @Frantabina

You can also check account of the Shenzhen International Foto Collective, our local photoclub, @ShenzhenFoto

Keep them coming folks, we need more submissions, so get your bag on Japancamerahunter.com

Send me a high resolution image of the bag. Optimum size is 1500px 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. Snapshots of your gear with a camera phone and no words will not be featured.
Oh and don’t forget your contact details (twitter, flickr, tumbler et al). Send the bag shots here. Not all make the cut, so make sure yours is funny/interesting/quirky. And please make sure the shot is of good quality, you are a photographer after all. 

Cheers
JCH