Streamlining
The picture above shows my dining room table covered in the gear that I have stored in the glass-fronted cupboard standing in my tiny under-stair office space. There is other stuff such as old Bowens studio lights, autopoles, tripods, light stands, soft boxes, reflectors and other lighting modifiers from my old studio days, but they’re gathering dust (and mould) in the garage. About 80% of this stuff is never used - old flash radio triggers, clips for holding flash units, folding arms, filter systems, cables, tripod heads, and all sorts of adapters and base plates etc. This was taken back in mid 2023, and it’s changed a little bit since then, but there’s still way too much stuff just sitting on shelves. Time to streamline baby.
My camera body stock has been thinned out. I ditched all the Fuji-X stuff after it failed miserably (and expensively) for video work. I sold my X-T3 body to MPB Cameras, and gave my old X-E2 kit including lenses to my eldest who is doing GCSE Photography. I invested in a Nikon mirrorless camera body plus a sturdy lens for my video work, but more on that later. My biggest issue now is the sheer weight of my everyday kit.
Because of the heavy gear i’m carrying every day, i’ve sustained adhesive capsulitis (a frozen shoulder injury) to my left arm, and extremely painful lateral epicondylitis (tennis elbow) to my right arm. Sometimes, i’ve had to trek half a mile (plus return journey) with a rammed Pelican 1510 case and tripod/light stand through city streets because of parking issues, and this has been agony at times - it prevents sleep and restricts mobility of both arms.
So, the objective is to reduce my everyday gear weight by at least 50%, and to sell existing stuff to finance it. My main camera bodies are huge Nikon D pro models, which I use relentlessly every day. they have a shutter life of 400K frames, which is 2-3 times that of the prosumer models. My trusty D4 is well over that now, so will need replacing shortly anyway. My aim is to have only two camera bodies - A Nikon D850, and a mirrorless Nikon X6ii.
The D850 is a six year old model, not strictly a pro body, but is utilised by many a pro shooter because of its 45 megapixel sensor and stunning colour reproduction. I’ve already got the mirrorless Nikon, which has a 24 megapixel full frame sensor, but uses a completely separate Z-mount set of lenses. My existing lenses can be used with the appropriate adapter which works perfectly.
The D850 can shoot raw photos at various sizes, so I don’t need to use the whole 45MP - this would fill up my cloud storage very quickly anyway, and no doubt lead to the requirement for a new computer (it’s all a bloody scam I tell thee).
I’ve got a lightweight Manfrotto carbon fibre tripod, and have just ordered a new geared head from a Dutch company called Sunway Foto. My Manfrotto is so cumbersome and glitchy that it’s sometimes unusable due to jamming. I need rid of that. The lenses I use on a daily basis are a 15mm shift, 24-70mm regular zoom, and a telephoto for very occasional distant views. I had my sturdy 70-200mm pro zoom for 15 years until it recently fell apart inside. This £2k behemoth was quickly replaced with a secondhand, sub £200 plastic 70-300mm Nikon lens that does the job perfectly fine now that I don’t need some huge internal focus glass for press jobs etc.
I obtained a quote for selling all my old gear (which had cost me in excess of £20K through the years), and it came in…….well here’s the screenshot:
I spluttered my coffee out, knowing that any quote i’ve ever had has always been knocked down by 20% (like those online car-sales once they see a tiny scratch on the wing), so I can expect £800 trade-in for the equipment that has kept me alive for 20 years (less than half of what the new camera body will cost secondhand). I’ll have to see if Ebay can come up with something better. Getting rid of the Bowens lights may very well involve taking the old girls to the tip unless I can find someone who will take them off my hands for free.
Anyway, that’s the plan - I’ll keep you updated on its implementation.
