glass

One of the downsides of shooting digital is the constant need to back up data... and that's what I'm doing right now. Not much choice, I've nearly filled a 250GB hard drive on my laptop, and really need to free up some space very soon. In a little while, I'll be all caught up, with two full backups... one of them on a portable drive and ready to be stored off-site.

While I'm waiting for that drive to grind away ("three hours remaining" it says on the screen), a few more thoughts on equipment and minimalism.

Earlier today I started to pack my kit for a shoot on Sunday. I'm taking the camera body, a 35mm Summicron, a 50mm Summilux, a spare battery, and a battery charger. That's basically it. The entire kit fits into a small Domke satchel with lots of room to spare, and it's not heavy at all.

Most of the time, I shoot with the 35mm lens. With the 1.3x crop factor of the M8 sensor, it's a 46mm equivalent, so functionally a "normal" lens. It's one of the smaller and more compact lenses made, tiny even with a lens hood attached.

I have a few other lenses, but seldom carry them. The 50 goes when I think there might be a need for low-light shooting, since the f/1.4 maximum aperture helps there, or when I want a bit longer focal length (67mm equivalent, in this case) for tighter head shots. Less often a 28mm gets packed, usually when I'm shooting landscapes. I don't think any other lens has been out of the drawer in a long time.

In the DSLR world a huge backpack full of heavy zoom lenses is probably the norm. It's very easy to be seduced into carrying everything but the kitchen sink, and even using all of it.

But I can get by just fine with one or two fast prime lenses. I find that it simplifies, even forces me to see a little more clearly. It's also a lot easier on my shoulder.