Simon Linge
Travel | Last Updated: April 4, 2024
I am a freelance 3D artist and photographer. My main passion for photography is when it is combined with traveling and exploring new and interesting places. The types of shots I like to take are usually in the travel and street genre as well as some landscape and wildlife.
I started getting into photography back in 2004 and started with all Canon gear. Last year I decided to move across almost entirely to Sony. I prefer the mirrorless system and particularly like having an articulating screen. Such a screen makes shooting angles low to the ground a lot more practical than a DSLR viewfinder. I also find that it allows for more discrete shooting.
Over the years I have learnt that having too much gear is not necessarily a good thing and I have now cut back quite a bit. I have always preferred faster prime lenses that have large wide-open apertures. The benefits are the added flexibility for shooting with a shallow depth of field for easier subject isolation. Also, with fast primes it is more viable to shoot in low light situations without the need for a flash or tripod. There are of course some downsides that come with this, for example, you can’t zoom quickly without using your feet, and you don’t have an ideal all-in-one lens that can zoom from a wide angle to semi-telephoto.
The Sony Zeiss Distagon T* FE 35mm f/1.4
and Sony G Master 85mm f/1.4
are my most commonly used lenses as I find these two focal lengths best fit my style of shooting. Using these 2 lenses across a Sony a7II
full frame and a Sony a6300
APSC sensor means that I have access to a bit of extra flexibility with effective focal length. I can use the a6300
and extend the reach to make these lenses approximately the equivalent of a 50mm and 127mm.
The Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM
is the only remaining lens that I have from my old Canon gear. With the newer Metabones adapters, the autofocus speed has become good enough that I can still use this with my Sony bodies. This is probably my least used lens as it is only really used for wildlife and some landscape stuff, it is not so practical for traveling due to its size and weight but when I think I might find a use for it, I will lug around the extra weight.
The Sony Zeiss 24mm f/1.8
is a nice compact and light lens, it works great on an APSC body like the Sony a6300
and gives an approximate equivalent to a 35mm field of view with more depth of field. If I want to go out with ultra-minimal gear, this combination is very convenient.
Similarly, the Sony E 10-18mm f/4 OSS
is my wide-angle lens that is also designed for APSC bodies. Typically, landscape and wide-angle shots do not require a very shallow depth of field and so I can get away with using this ultra-light and compact lens on my a6300
for all my wide-angle needs.
My 3rd and oldest camera is the Sony NEX-7
. This was originally my primary mirrorless camera but eventually, I got tired of the relatively poor ISO performance as newer models came to market. Instead of selling it when I upgraded, I had it converted to a dedicated infrared camera as this is another area of photography that has always interested me (and explored previously with an old Canon 5D
that I used to have). Typically, infrared shots work best during the bright light of day, and so ISO performance is not such an issue anymore.
One thing I particularly like about my current set of cameras is that they all share common batteries and SD cards. Although these cameras are known to not have the most amazing battery life, the batteries are small and light enough that I can easily carry 4-8 of them across all 3 cameras and not have to worry about running out.
I tend to keep my full set of gear packed into a bigger backpack and then have a couple of smaller bags to use for when I only want to take a few things out with me at a time. These days I rarely take all my gear with me at once but decide what I am most likely to use and keep my bag as light as possible.
Cameras:
Sony Alpha a7II
Sony Alpha a6300
Sony NEX-7
(converted to infrared)
Lenses:
Sony E 10-18mm f/4 OSS
Sony Zeiss Distagon T* FE 35mm f/1.4
Sony G Master 85mm f/1.4
Metabones EF-E mount Mark IV
Canon EF 1.4x II Extender
Canon EF 300mm f/2.8L IS USM
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