The Underequipped Photographer

c. 1950 Nash Ambassador. Old U.S. Highway 27, Chattooga

County, GA. Jpeg from Fuji X-Pro1, 27mm f2.8 lens. I like the

way the X-Pro handles this very contrasty scene.

 

Many photographers would consider me underequipped. That's because my approach to photography is not equipment-centric. 

What about you? Is your primary interest photography or photographic equipment?  

For many of us, it's both. Owning and using fine, precision equipment can be very pleasurable in itself, and of course there are certain kinds of photography, such as action and sports that are difficult to do well without specialized equipment.  

But if photography itself is our primary interest, most of us could get by with very little equipment. In the 1930s through the '60s, photographers such as Fritz Henle traveled the world with nothing but a twin-lens reflex. Their pictures can certainly hold their own in comparison to the work being done today. Edward Weston did most of his work with an 8x10 view camera and one lens, although he also used a 4x5 Graphlex single-lens reflex (we would consider it almost unusably primitive) for portraits. Henri Cartier-Bresson and Elliott Erwitt were Leica photographers who mostly used 50mm lenses, and travel photographer Gerald Brimacombe did great work with a pair of early digital cameras with built-in zoom lenses. The last time we corresponded he told me that he now carries one Nikon D610 and a 24-120mm zoom lens when he travels. Nothing else. Like those named above, he has adapted his vision to fit the equipment he uses.

I will confess that for most of my career I had Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS). However, being frugal (okay a cheapskate), I mostly indulged my addiction by buying, using, and selling second-hand equipment. It was fun, and didn't break the bank. Also, I learned a lot about how to buy good used equipment. In fact, everything I now use in my work was acquired second-hand and serves me well.

All the photographs in my just-concluded series of posts about our tour of the wild, wild west in 2018 were made with just three cameras and three lenses -- the Fuji X-Pro1, X-T1, and X-T20 bodies and the 27mm f2.8, 16-50 f3.5-5.6, and 50-230 f4.8-6.3 lenses. All were bought used through on-line fora. The workhorse was the X-T20. 

However, I did run into one problem, because each camera has slightly different menus. I wrote about that here. I solved that problem earlier this year by buying a Fuji X-H1. Again, used, and again, through an online forum. I find the X-H1 to be just about the perfect camera for me. I'll also hang on to the X-Pro1 because the menu is relatively simple and the files have a special character that I love. The X-T1 and the X-T20, both lovely cameras, are now for sale. 

With two bodies and three lenses I have what I need. I don't need anything else. And don't despise my cheap lenses. They aren't as well built, perhaps, as their more expensive brethren, but they don't give much away in terms of sharpness, as I wrote here and here, and they will probably outlast me. Also, they give me a great range -- 24mm to 345mm in full-frame equivalents.   

So am I underequipped? I don't think so. I love cameras, but when I have the equipment I need to do the work I want to do, I'm more interested in what I can do with it than in the equipment itself. And I no longer have GAS.  

Of course, there are a few things it would be nice to have. . .maybe the 60mm macro lens, or the 56mm f1.2. . .

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts? 

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020) 

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

Heading East!

Fuji X-Pro1, Fujinon XF 27mm f2.8 lens

Heading East!

The visit to the Petrified Forest essentially marked the finish of our tour of the wild, wild west. Time to head home. Going east on Interstate 40, we made it to Albuquerque rather late in the evening, but were able to find a campground near the Interstate. The next night we found a small campground in Shamrock, Texas, right on Route 66.

Louise Cooking in our travel trailer.

Fuji X-T1, Fujinon XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OISII

 

We stayed two nights at a nice campground (but with bad moquitoes) near Ardmore, Oklahoma to visit Louise's nephew and his family, then across Arkansas, Tennessee, and finally home to northwest Georgia, arriving the evening of October 3rd after 30 days on the road.

Best of all, time with our grandchildren and their families.

Fuji X-Pro1, Fujinon XF 27mm f2.8 lens

It was a somewhat grueling, but enjoyable time. We can hardly wait to do it again. (But, we hope, in a motor home or larger trailer.)

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts? 

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020) 

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

Touring the Wild, Wild West

The Teepees. Petrified Forest National Park

 

The Petrified Forest Part II

Although the numerous and massive petrified logs are the main attraction in the Petrified Forest, there is much more to be seen in the 346-square-mile park. We didn't see it all, of course -- just some of the highlights. 

The Agate Bridge. A 110-foot long petrified tree bridges the head of a canyon.

Driving north from the Rainbow Forest Visitor's Center past the Crystal Forest, we first came to the Agate Bridge, a 110-foot petrified fallen tree that forms a bridge across the head of a canyon. The Park Service has reinforced it with an underlayment of concrete. Then on to the Teepees, large, conical, teepee-shaped hills displaying different colored rock strata. 

2,000-year-old petroglyphs on Newspaper Rock.

 

Beyond the Teepees is Newspaper Rock, a large rock with more than 650 petroglyphs (picture-writings) engraved by an ancient people. Some of the petroglyphs are thought to be more than 2,000 years old. Guarding the parking lot was a large raven, who very kindly allowed us to pass. 

The guardian of Newspaper Rock.

Moving on north from Newspaper Rock, we crossed Interstate 40 and the original alignment of the legendary Route 66, which bisect the park in an east-west direction and into the northern section of the park and the Painted Desert.

The Painted Desert

Named by Spanish explorers in 1540, the Painted Desert runs 160 miles southwest from near the east end of the Grand Canyon to the Petrified Forest, which is one of the best places to view its brilliant reds and shades of lavender. 

A 1932 Studebaker marks the original alignment of Route 66.

But it was back at the place where the original alignment of U.S. Highway 66 -- the historic Route 66 -- crossed the park road that I made my favorite find: something unique to go into my book Found on Road Dead: An Anthology of Abandoned Automobiles. It was the weathered hulk of a 1932 Studebaker marking the route used by millions of Los Angeles-Chicago travelers from 1926 to 1958. 

Fuji X-T20 with Fujinon XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OISII and XC 50-230mm f4.8-6.3 OIS lenses and Fuji X-Pro1 with Fujinon XF 27mm f2.8 lens.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts? 

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020) 

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone

Touring the Wild, Wild West

Massive petrified logs. Agate House in the distance.

On the Rocks: The Petrified Forest 

Although we would have liked to have spent some time in the Flagstaff area, we set that aside for a future trip (we're always looking ahead), and blew on through on Interstate 40 to Winslow, where we dry camped (also called boondocking) in the WalMart parking lot.

(For those of you who are concerned about hygiene, dry camping doesn't mean we don't take showers. We have a propane water heater, separate tanks for fresh water, gray water, and sewage, and with careful management we can do quite well.)

Wood turned to rainbow-hued quartz.

On the road early the next morning, we soon came to one of the most fascinating places (at least, to us) on our trip -- Petrified Forest National Park, where fallen tree trunks soaked up ground water and silica from volcanic ash and over time crystallized into quartz in rainbow hues. 

A forest of stone.

The Petrified Forest is not a spectacular place, in the way that Bryce Canyon or Arches or Zion are spectacular, but it offers a great variety of intensely interesting things to see. We consider it one of our favorite national parks. 

The Agate House

We took the two-mile hike from the Rainbow Forest Visitor's Center through petrified chunks of logs, most of them quite large, to the Agate House, a seven-room pueblo built 1050-1300 A.D. of chunks of petrified wood. It was reconstructed on the original foundation in 1934. A number of other Puebloan dwellings have been found, including one with 100 rooms, but only the Agate House has been reconstructed. The others have been left as they were for archaeologists and others to study. 

A resident of the desert.

Since we had entered the park at the south end, we drove north slowly on park roads, finding strange and new things at every turn. We'll continue exploring the Petrified Forest in Monday's post.

Fuji X-T20, Fujinon XC 16-50mm f3.5-5.6 OISII and XC 50-230mm f4.8-6.3 OIS lenses.

Blog Note: I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings at alifeinphotography.blogspot.com. I'm trying to build up my readership, so if you're reading this on Facebook and like what I write, would you please consider sharing my posts? 

(Photographs copyright David B. Jenkins 2020) 

Soli Gloria Deo

To the glory of God alone