Urban Motion

© Ben Anderson

I’ve always been a bit of a gear head, so much so that I’ve picked up a lot of photographic equipment over the last few years, 8 cameras (all used, not collecting dust), lots of glass, various tripods, all manner of lighting gizmos, and basically all the associated paraphernalia.

So why is less more? Because if you have less gear you have less choices to make and are forced to concentrate on what really counts - your photography!

It’s taken me a while to appreciate this, and I think it’s only really now that I’ve covered pretty much all the major formats, P&S digi, P&S 35mm, 35 SLR, 35 RF, 1.6xcrop DSLR, Full frame DSLR, 6×6, 6×7, 4×5, & 8×10, that I KNOW from a hands on perspective what matters to me in order to achieve the right aesthetic.

With this in mind I’m going to be slimming my collection down to my Sinar P2, Mamiya7, and 1DMKII. This means good bye Leica M6, goodbye Rollei 6008i (I may yet keep this), and a fond farewell to various other 35mm cameras, most of my lighting gear (except 1 metz), all my Manfrotto’s, and about as much of anything else I can. I guess I can finance a couple of years worth of film and dev from the proceeds.

Downsizing is cathartic, liberating, and hopefully will lead me to take better pictures - which is what it’s all about, isn’t it?

© Ben Anderson

Photography as a pursuit requires equipment, over time, and for many reasons both subjective and objective, we all tend to end up with a favourite camera or a select choice of gear that we prefer to shoot with. This is the same for any activity that requires equipment, and I’m willing to bet that almost everyone can relate to it.

My favourite camera is the Mamiya 7II, and of course the older Mamiya 7 is equally just as good. Of all the cameras I’ve tried, and that’s a lot, the 7 offers me the best balance of options, ergonomics, framing, and format ie. quality. I’ve been shooting a 7 pretty much exclusively since I purchased one back in March.

So imagine my consternation when my 7 decided to completely lock up mid roll whilst out shooting with a friend last week. Picture Marlon Brando as Kurtz in Apocalypse Now, ‘The Horror!’. After taking a shot the camera just refused to wind on. I tried swapping batteries, operating the darkslide, removing the lens, popping the door open slightly, and even a different lens, all to no avail. After some frantic phone calls, and general disbelief by many that a 7 could malfunction this way, I decided to bite the bullet and remove the film. I didn’t have a dark bag with me so that meant trashing the roll so that I could carry on shooting.

With the roll removed the camera started to work again. Hoping this was a glitch with just this one roll I shot another 4, only to have the problem return. Fortunately my shooting partner that day, Ben Roberts, had got the shots he wanted and so let me borrow his mk i 7.

A few days later, hoping that I had just been extremely unlucky, I loaded up another roll, only to have the camera malfunction again after just 3 shots. Now I knew that someone serious was up and reluctantly decided to take the camera back to my dealer, Dale Photographic. My 7 has been RTM’d with a woefully long expected turnaround of 4 weeks - Dale offer a superb service (personal endorsement, I’ve no affiliation with them) but unfortunately have no control over the upstream turnaround. On the plus side Dale has a mk i 7 coming in on Monday that I should be able to borrow, it’s only 4 days away but I can feel the withdrawal symptoms already.

If I was a pro shooter making a living out of this camera I’d be buying a 2nd body right now, since I’m not, I guess I just have to go cold turkey. Fingers crossed eh!