What Equipment Can You do Without?

When I am out and about capturing images, I sometimes get approached by an aspiring amateur or just a nice person trying to make conversation to ask for free advice or to just make small talk.  Every once in a while one of these people inevitably will say “Nice camera. It must take great pictures.”  I usually do not say anything because I do not believe the person knew how insulting that comment is to a photographer trying to make a living off his or her skills.  However, every once in a while I tell them “it’s the operator,” which is a phrase I borrowed from Clint Smith at Thunder Ranch.    Despite that little diatribe, I must admit to being a bit of a gear head, which is a disease I am trying to cure by reducing the size of my kit.

The proliferation of this disease of course is something the manufacturers love to hear and are alwasys ecstatic when they see articles such as the one in togtech.com where 15 of the Worlds Top 15 Photographers Reveal Their Favorite Gear.  The author , Tyler Olson” asked 15 professional photographers “What is your favorite piece of photography gear.  It can be a camera, bag, strap, tripod, dolly, memory card, accessory, lighting.. literally anything used in your shooting work flow.  I’m looking for a single piece of gear that makes you smile every time you use it or cry when you loose it.”

I tried to think about how I would answer that question.  The fact, I had to think long and hard tells me I probably have more than I need but less than I want.  So I decided to put a little twist to Tyler’s original question and pose it to anyone who is willing to answer.  The question is “What piece of equipment can you make do without even though you use it all the time?”

I believe my personal answer to that would be my Canon DSLR gear.  Don’t get me wrong.  My Canon Mark IV is very useful and I use it at just about every paid project.  It is easy to use, creates wonderful images even in low light, weather resistant, can accept a myriad of lenses and do it at 10 frames a second.  What is wrong with all that?  Nothing!  Especially when I am out shooting sports.  For that application, the camera is absolutely wonderful.  However, whenever I have that camera in my hand, my personality changes and I tend to shoot like a Taliban fighter doing the Afganistan off-hand.  You know the caricature of the guy shooting indiscriminately over his head or around a wall as opposed to concentrating on his sights and trigger.

Yes.  It is about the operator, but certain gear helps us do certain things.  When I am shooting sports, I want a fast and rugged camera to fit the operating environment to capture the action.  However, I am finding that I place greater attention to details and my subject when I shoot with something much slower whether it is a small rangefinder such as the Leica M series of film and digital equipment where I can get close to my subject without an intimidating hunk of gear or a tripod-mounted medium format camera such as the Mamiya RZ67 so I can walk around and study my subject before I move my gear into position.

We’ll see if I can really live without my DSLR gear.  I’m going through all the pluses and minuses of such a decision right now.  I figure my Leica M9 and I can still do everything I do with the exception of sports.  The biggest plus of course would be a kit that weighs a fraction of my Canon gear.