In my camera bag: One camera, many discoveries..

So I’ve read many online photographers/bloggers ought to have a post on what’s in their camera bag. It’s strictly a personal preference. So I’m not going to line up things and put numbers on them to go thru one by one…instead I’ll explain what I benefited from it.

My recent new denim. For me jeans are like collecting stamps…

I think my jeans pocket has more things than my camera bag. Being free of any heavy weight is an encouraging way allow you to walk longer, that’s unless you were a serviceman, firefighter, police officers, etc… I personally work out daily at home, mainly with the fitness ball and dumbbells. Cardio is the type of exercise that I lack of, certainly I think I managed to treat my photo walks as my cardio exercise. And yes, I do sweat when I walk a lot. And just to let you all know a bit more about life in Hong Kong (at least my life). I go to work on foot, takes about 20 mins. The way back is a bit longer as, the landscape in Hong Kong is not all that flat and I live on the skirt of the mountain. Basically, I walk daily for at least an hour. And I count that as my exercise.

My camera bag is a simple shoulder style bag, it’s made with nylon type of fabric – ultra light. I do not pack anything unnecessary into my bag. I pack only the items that keep my camera running and clean, that’s all. Air blower, lens brush, extra battery, backup SD. That doesn’t sound so professional..I’m not anyway. So What!? That’s what I pack to work daily and for weekend shooting. I used to carry extra lens (when I still had my Lumix G3), half bottle of water…that was too heavy. Now I don’t even bother to bring my own water.

Being able to only shoot with one camera and perhaps one lens only is a discipline that’s practical for beginners like myself. The least complicated way do photography can often surprise yourself. One good example I always think of is my GRD. Once I learned about the focal length/distance, the rest is a breeze. The camera does everything for you and functions are just at the finger tip. I never ever imagined myself to learn about parallax on a compact point and shoot camera like this. And I did.

There’re many things that taught me while on the go. Such as using flash…I played with the ISO, aperture and EV. I learned the basic mix from those 3 aspects: how they’re going to affect a photographic result. I was stunned when I shot photo such as this one.

This photo opened up a new window to my flash photography on the street. Of course that wasn’t my first attempt. But that was my first successful shot (I didn’t shoot extensively with flash). Before that, I was onto something. This was actually my real first attempt.

I was only trying out the fill-in flash to light up the shadow. That encouraged me to use flash during the day especially after knowing flashing during the day people could hardly see. I discovered that in my own world when I used my GRD extensively.

Now I’m onto another mission, is to apply the same experimentation mindset on my X100. I hope to discover something out from a more traditional camera (i know it’s not a real rangefinder) by bringing it out daily. So far I’ve learned that, this camera is shiny. It can catch people’s attention on the street. “Lose some and gained some.” It’s not as easy to get a candid shot but It encouraged me instead to asked permission for a photo. Even I’d done little directing to have them look the way I wanted (that’s new). People see my camera and look at me as some enthusiast photographer. Not a necessarily a bad thing depends on how yourself look at it.

The X100 for me is substantially heavier than the GRD, chunkier for sure. I’m also working on my reaction time with it. I’d never done a decent job at blending in either, maybe I’ll never be. I guess time will tell. And I’ll not stop shooting and learning.

I always believe a disciplined photographer would find ways to work with a camera and shoot as one. Gear is so overrated in the modern world. We all should think less about your gear, and use our head for photography!