My "Family" of Gear

So as with most photographers, I have several different cameras I use and enjoy.

[Before I get into this, I should say that I do "own" a Canon EOS 7D but I haven't actually received it yet.]

And suddenly, my AV-1 is tiny!

 My first camera that I use for just about everything is my Canon EOS A2. It is the most modern film camera I own and it works pretty much like a new Canon but it takes film. The perks about this camera is that it takes any EF lens I can find, it has a 5 FPS shutter, a decent autofocus system and a built-in IR assist beam. This is the camera that I use when I want to take pictures of a model or take pictures at a sports game with film. It just rocks. The downsides are that the batteries are not easily found (2CR5) and the camera is too big for street photography. If you whip this thing out in the middle of the sidewalk on a busy day (and don't take this sentence out of context), you'll have people giving you weird looks, staring, and questioning your motives.

My second camera is a Canon AV-1. It is the smallest of the bunch but also the most well made. It is an older camera from the late 70s and lacks a few key features, the biggest being that it does not have manual shutter speed selection (it's big brother, the AE-1, did). Looking past it's shortcomings, it's a very capable camera that is always reliable and meters every shot perfectly. It's so small, the FD 50mm 1.8 that I use on it dwarfs the camera!

Finally, my biggest camera is a Mamiya C220 TLR. It is a medium format camera and can take 120 or 220 film. It's a great landscape camera but it also works well for candid and portrait photography. The glass I use on it is two 80mm f2.8 Mamiya-Sekor lenses that are tack sharp, contrasty, and have awesome bokeh. In fact, when doing portraits, I prefer to use this camera rather than my SLRs because of the quality of the lenses on this camera. Another pro of this camera is that it is lightweight and that it doesn't take batteries. The cons are that it doesn't have a built in meter and it lacks parallax correction.

So, those are my toys cameras. Up next, I'll be explaining my films.