Juggling the Cameras of Summer

The natural follow-up question to my summer camera count – after "you use how many cameras???" – was how I manage to use them all. Not just physically, but practically. It's hard enough to be familiar with just one camera, and full proficiency can take months to acquire. It's a fair question.

First of all, to some extent it's simply not possible for me to know any of my cameras as well as someone who only uses one will. I'm not claiming to be polymath, or someone who's an Olympic fencer by day and a concert violinist at night. And yes, there are times when I've missed a shot, or not done as well as I might have, because I didn't know the tool as well as I could have. But then again, I find that's usually true for people with only one camera as well.

I spend a huge amount of time with a wide array of cameras – working in a camera store certainly helps with that. Someone can hand me a model that I've never seen before, tell me what they want it to do, and I can usually set it up correctly without referring to any online resources. Knowing cameras, and how they work, is what I do.

Working in a camera store also gives me a lot of free time to play. I can use slow moments to reacquaint myself with each cameras' controls and handling before I need to use it for a project or event. I'm not taking photos, but doing drills is the next best thing – and sometimes it's even better.

And I do take photos as well – usually a lot of them. I'll take a camera for a walk and go through a roll of film, or fifty to a hundred digital frames, in the week before I use it for a project or event. I also make a point of "warming up" with some fun throw-away photos before getting to work, and I find this really helps me loosen up and produce better results no matter how much I've been using that particular tool.

But ultimately what I do isn't all that different from those who have only one or two cameras. Most photographers use one 'primary' camera and have lenses that cover a huge range of focal lengths. I just do the opposite. Almost every photo I take is between 35mm and 85mm. So even though the camera and character changes, the composition and perspectives stay familiar. For me that's easier than being able to range between ultra-wide and long telephotos for a single subject.

There's also the fact that sometimes taking photos isn't the point of using a camera. More on that later.


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