What’s in my Camera Bag, 2022?

photo by Harper Gray (my oldest son)

It has been a while since I have shared a true, “what’s in my camera bag?”-style peek into the gear that I use on a regular basis. I am going to take the opportunity to really deep dive into what I pack in my primary kit, my everyday carry, and for travel or street photography. I will also summarize my thoughts on Fuji, after three years of using this system as my primary choice.

Fuji GFX 100s

The museum where I work may be updating the camera equipment in its photo studio, so Fujifilm USA sent me a GFX 100s and three lenses (GF 24mm f/4, GF 45-100mm f/4, and GF 120mm f/4 Macro) to test out for a week. I’ve been shooting Fuji’s X series for several years now, and I consider it a very competent, versatile system. However, there is “capable” and there is “CAPABLE”. This camera fits easily into the latter, as you will soon see.

My Go-To Equipment in 2021

Three years ago, I started sharing a version of the lens and camera stats that I collect every year to observe how I am using or not using my equipment. These public posts are based on the images from my “Best Of” posts, which tend to be a great microcosm for how I use equipment on the whole.

My Go-To Equipment in 2020

Two years ago, I started sharing a version of the lens and camera stats that I collect every year to observe how I am using or not using my equipment. These public posts are based on the images from my Best Of posts, which tend to be a great microcosm for how I use equipment on the whole.

Fujinon XF 35mm f/2 WR Lens

The Fujinon XF 35mm f/2 R WR Lens is the most recent Fuji lens that I have purchased, but it has already become my third most used Fuji lens ever (according to my shot count in Lightroom). It is a lens that I have travelled with extensively, hiked with extensively, used as a walk-around lens extensively, and have leaned on heavily for event work, portrait work, art documentation and more. In simple, this lens, like the 23mm and 50mm lenses, is a lens that I trust to tell my story as a photographer (and in turn, the stories of my quite varied subjects). That said, it is not a perfect lens- it has character, and I’ll get into that in a bit.

The lenses I review are measured in terms of their performance in three categories: Specialist, Utility or Passion. As always, I am not a technical reviewer, so this won’t be charts and tests driven, just real world experiences.        

7artisans Photoelectric 35mm f/1.2 Lens

Sometimes, photography is just meant to be fun. Not worrying about being consistent to a body of work, or not worrying about botching a client’s expectations is often the source of that fun for me, but it can also stem from pure experimentation. From taking a piece of equipment out that may miss the shot, but might also deliver something really beautiful and unexpected. A piece of equipment, by the way, that harkens back to a time when photography was conducted at a slower, more deliberate pace- an analog piece in a digital world. The 7artisans Photoelectric (what the heck does that mean?!) 35mm f/1.2 is that piece of equipment.

The lenses I review are measured in terms of their performance in three categories: Specialist, Utility or Passion. As always, I am not a technical reviewer, so this won’t be charts and tests driven, just real world experiences.        

My Go-To Equipment in 2019

Two years ago, I started sharing a version of the lens and camera stats that I collect every year to observe how I am using or not using my equipment. These public posts are based on the images from my Best Of posts, which tend to be a great microcosm for how I use equipment on the whole.

Great Smoky Mountains National Park (with kids), Part 1

In our modern world, there are precious few places that entertain and enrich the psyche in a way that satisfies wholly, despite whatever wild expectations or seeming familiarity one may have. Places static, though still offering continually different experiences. Places wild, mysterious, and at times, magical.  Places that achieve everything already described, even though they are among the most loved and most visited of their kind. Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of those places, and I’ll soon share how best to enjoy it with kiddos in tow.

History of Nature and Landscape Photography, Transition to Artform

George Shiras and John Hammerin a canoe equipped for jacklighting, Whitefish Lake, Michigan, 1893; © National Geographic Creative Archives

Around the beginning of the 20th Century, significant innovations in camera technology, chemistry, and photographic equipment coalesced at a time when photographers were beginning to recognize the expressive potential of their image-making. An era was fast dawning wherein the photograph would no longer be simply relegated to the realm of science or to cheap novelty, but would instead serve to drive culture, both in and out of art.

History of Nature and Landscape Photography, The Beginnings

Sir Henry Fox Talbot; early 1840’s

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Photography has had a preoccupation with nature almost from the very beginning. In fact, it was probably a preoccupation with nature that led to photography in the first place. The Pencil of Nature was a photobook published in the mid-1840’s by Sir Henry Fox Talbot, who was the first to successfully develop a reproducible negative.