A follow up of a post I did four years ago... I'm back in Tokyo again, and I thought it would be fun to share my current bag setup and see how it differs from back then...
Let's see what I've got now:
- an ultra light backpack (Osprey Daylight or optionally the larger Osprey Escapist 18): in general, I've basically switched completely from shoulder bags to backpacks... much more ergonomic. These ones are also water resistant;
- two main cameras (Fujifilm X100T and Fujifilm X-T10): I used to have 1 main camera and a smaller backup one, but over the last year or so, it seems better for me to have two equally capable (slightly smaller) cameras instead. I will always prefer rangefinder type shooting though;
- a 27mm lens (Fujifilm);
- a 24mm pinhole lens: I use this by far most of the time;
- a 35mm 1.4 lens (Leica - I'll never part with this wonderful lens) with a Fuji adapter. Just for this lens I wish I had a full frame sensor again;
- iPhone (not shown here, usually in my pocket): my iPhone has de facto become one of my standard cameras. Yes it's that good;
- my trusty notebook, by far the heaviest individual item in my bag :)
- pens and pencils, and a sharpener;
- audio recorder & little tripod;
- external flash (FujifIlm EF-X20): fits both cameras, even though they both have built-in flashes already, this little baby is extremely capable;
- small zipped bag with cables, medecine (eye drops, paracetamol, band-aid, ear plugs, ... the usual stuff), iphone accessories, and a battery pack;
- tissues (i love them with Aloe Vera);
- passport and credit cards;
- extra memory cards (I've recently switched from 16 to 64GB, but I'm not convinced yet... 64 takes a long time to fill and to copy over, and I think I would feel safer to have 2 x 32GB instead of 1 x 64GB, just for redundancy's sake. But we'll see. I've never ever had a card fail on me in the past (fingers crossed);
- a little pink microfiber "wonder cloth" to clean lenses or other sensitive stuff;
- spare batteries
- battery chargers: these chargers are the only optional thing in the bag: if I'll just be out for the day, I know my 3+2 spare batteries will be able to last;
- my worry dolls;
- (not pictured) a standard Crumpler insert (L size).
There you go.
Looking back at my previous setup, it seems I'm still basically doing the same... just a few things have changed:
The way I carry everything now: in a backpack as opposed to a shoulder bag, mainly for superior ergonomics. Plus I've been able to reduce weight even more still, as the backpack weighs next to nothing.
Also, it seems I am more happy/at ease with two smaller main cameras + an iphone, instead of one large main camera + a small spare camera. However, learning a new camera's ergonomics is a huge deal, as I used to be able to do everything by feel on my Leica. For now, I definitely lose more time with the general "looking at the menu fiddling with controls" type of thing (also because the controls on both cameras differ slightly), but it might just be me that needs to adapt: the cameras are both really extremely well thought out regarding handling and ergonomics... they are super fast, and the raw files are very very good. what more does one want?
Anything I've missed?
cheers,
anton