Equipment - Some thoughts that I share about what´s in my camera bag. 

 

 

Plaubel Makina 67 - This is a very special camera. The Makina 67 was developed by Plaubel (Germany) after the company was bought in 1975 by a japanese company named Doi. It is a medium format  6×7 rangefinder folding camera, made in the 1980s.

It has a nikkor 80mm lens (equivalent to 50mm in 35mm systems) offering great contrast and sharpness. Compared to other medium format cameras it is very small and works great in the field.

The process of taking pictures is just different from SLR cameras with autofocus. It takes time to adjust everything: unfoldung, adjusting the rangefinder, aperture, shutter speed, selecting the motive and so on. If you take your time shooting the results are simply better, not from an optical but from an artistic point of view. 

Photography is about selection. This Process is ongoing while making all these adjustments. Knowing that there is only ten picture to make with one 120mm roll you regard every picture made as something precious. It´s the perfect camera for a sunday afternoon. This camera will teach you awareness.

Nikon F4s - This mechanical film camera was the first professional autofocus camera released in 1988 by Nikon. It was designed by Gugiaro. The body is very solid and offers exellent ergonomics especially the shutter speed dial. Every necessary parameter can be acessed immediatly. 

I never any problems with this camera. It is resistant to rain, dust, wind, snow or frost. In tropical as well as in arctic conditions, it always works. You can always rely to this camera.

 

Nikkor AF 85mm F1.4D - This is a spectecular lens and the jewel of my camera bag. It is very sharp, very well crafted and very expensive. It is made of 9 elements in 8 groups and has an internal focus and a 9 blade diaphragm providing a splendid bokeh. It fits feels very balanced on the body of my D200. The optical performance is truly impressive. I never had a lens coming close to the optical magic of this one, not even the Makina 67 – especially for portraits and details. 

The extreme shallow depth of field makes it difficult to master and requires a fast autofocus. If I had to choose one lens for the rest of my life, it would be this one.

 

Nikkor AF 50mm F1.4D - It was my first lens and I still use it very often. It is compact and light and produces wonderful results especially at fast apertures between f1.4 and f2.2. I love it for low light photography. It is fast, easy to master and unobtrusive which is why I like to use it for informal portraits. This is not easy to explain but it allows me to approach my motive in an intuitive way and to anticipate the picture I want without thinking about technical details. It´s the perfect lens for me to document my surroundings.

 

Nikkor AF 35-70mm F2.8D – This a a solid and very good Lens. It´s on my camera most of the time. It was originally made for photojournalists in the early 90´s. What I like about this lens is that it has a push-pull zooming barrel that is very comfortable to use in the field and a constant aperture of f2.8. A special feature is the macro mode at a length of 35mm wich is great for shooting details or even very close up portraits (if your using a DX-chip Nikon). It´s very well crafted and robust. The optics are impressive. It´s sharp, has a great contrast and a spendid bokeh. If you are looking for a cheap day to day high-performance lens this is the one.

 

Nikkor AF 18-70mm F3.5-4.5 AF-S DX – shitty plastic lens. Period. This lens is definitly not an Investment. I don´t even remember why I do own this lens. If I make picture I don´t see the difference to the picture of a 150 Euro compact camera. Don´t get me wrong. it´s sharp, but nothing more. There is no optical magic, no bokeh to fall in love with, it´s not even well crafted. Personally I prefer to shoot people and to choose the fastest aperture possible to get great unsharp areas. In my opinion what differenciates the god from the great lenses (and often pictures) is the optical quality in the unsharp areas of the picture.