Ched..
Um... well... I have a D600 and when I put one of my DX lenses on it, a smaller frame line immediately shows in the center of the FX frame indicating the DX crop area. i.e. the D600 will shoot DX glass all day long, just at 10MP, not at 24MP.

Graham

I started in the 70s with a Rollei 2.8, a Zenit, then a Nikon F, then a Hasselblad and then turned pro and had a slew of cameras. Then moved to film and Arris and Aatons.

Then moved to editing and thus to digital movie making. But still kept a Nikon F3HP, a Leica SL2 MOT, R3, plus MF and LF cameras.

Moved again to digital on the stills side, eventually had a lot of business, and ran twin D800Es.

Business died out, and I'd learned from the many times I'd been around the digital block not to hold on to digital camera bodies too long, because their value declined too sharply over time.

So I sold an M9, a digital Hasselblad, the D800Es, everything digital.

And I oversold.

Because even after this many times around the block, and these many decades, I'd still go on a video or film assignment, look around wherever it was I happened to be -- and feel that yen for a real camera because what was in front of my eyes was so compelling that I was reaching for a camera that... wasn't there anymore.

Yes, I have an iPhone. Yes, it's always with me and I use it all the time for happy snaps - but.. no, for me, that's not a real camera. Sorry if you disagree.

And I realized that, all the money and business and calculation and estimation aside, after all of that, I still wanted and needed a personal camera, just for me and my own shots.

So around October last year I bit the bullet and bought me a real, personal digital camera.
Probably the first personal camera I have bought, just for me, not for money, business, whatever, since the very first camera I bought, just for myself, before any thought of being a professional even touched my horizons.

Sure, I told myself that it was to use all the Nikon and Leica glass I have still lying around (and won't sell, because I use that glass on my 4.6k BlackMagic digital cinema cameras), and many more justifications I'm sure we're all well familiar with.

But to be totally honest? Nah. It was to have that particular mass, body shape, whatever, within easy reach at all times.

That personal digital camera?

D600.

Love it, won't sell it, even if I go broke and need the cash. Can afford to shoot it into the ground, don't care if I do, because it's at near as low as it will go, resale wise, and that's where I bought it at. And will buy another one to replace it, if I need to.

If business takes off again? Maybe I'll just rent, then buy D850's or whatever the flavor of the month is.

But personally?

In stills cameras, have only really loved the M2/M4, M9, SL from Leica, the Hasselblad 500CM/NC2/150mm combo, the Rolleiflex 2.8 and 3,5Fs, the Sinar P, the Canon F1n, the Nikon F1, F3HP...

and now the D600, which has been my daily driver since I saw it, used, cheep cheep in a pawn shop.

That's my own personal story.

Naturally, YMMV.

24-85 (lightest), 28-70 (heaviest) or street sweeper (24-120) on my D600, depending on where I'm going and how much lugging around I feel up to, and how much potential banging around the kit might get into while out and about. Usually the 24-85 has been living on the camera in between gigs, but this year, I might start carrying the 28-70 around more, its IQ is outstanding. Which means, yes, I might have to use a separate bag and lug the 300/4 around too, just in case... :-)

Glitter bomb?

Ha! I use almost exactly your same setup, ecurb!
Lowe Magnum bag, FF body, 20, street sweeper, 70-300.
Have a 300 prime with monopod in its own separate bag, though, that I bring along for sports, nature, portraits and wildlife shoots.
Nice thing about it is that if I'm shooting film the FF digital body swaps out for my F3HP and some film, and that's about it.

Or. just learn and use something like a free Lightwave or a Resolve, done deal, no looking at entry-level anything, upsell anything, adsell anything, upgrade anything, add-on anything. Just get on and edit.

In pride of place in my LF kit is a pristine Crown Speed Graphic with a Schneider 135/4.7 lens, ten double-slide holders, a Rollex 6x9 back, and a Polaroid 500 back. Plus original press flash bulb kit - with original flash bulbs that came with when I originally bought it!

Hung onto my original Sinar P kit for as long as I could, but since I didn't have any real call to use it any more, couldn't justify keeping it. Pity, that was a great camera setup!

In MF is my 500C/M with 150mm and NC2, my Bronica ETRs with similar headshot setup, and my much-battered yet still very much alive Fuji GAZ645, yes, the old one with the motor zoom lens. Its LCD has long since gone the way of all things, but since I've never used anything but ASA/ISO 100 tranny film in it for its whole life, I never had to change the settings on it anyway. It still works, so I still use it, when I have the chance! Gone are my Rolleis, in particular the Rollei 2.8D that started everything for me, back almost 50 years ago. It was delapidated back then, and literally fell apart one day due to over-use. I had it repaired for the princely sum of fifty pounds Sterling (and it was princely, back in the day) and then traded it in for a 500C, and that in turn for the 500C/M I still have today.

Then there's the digital stuff, mostly Nikon, that I use for quick jobs, Nikon and Leica/Leitax glass all along, but also my old and trusty F3HP, and a Leicaflex R3.

I used to spend DAYS inside a darkroom. At least 3-4 hours at a time.

Now I spend HOURS inside Lightroom. And HOURS more in Photoshop. At least 3-4 hours at a time.

Hmm...

David, hello and Merry Christmas to you!
Over the years, I've kept onto a few of my film cameras, some in 16mm and 35mm, and some in 135, MF and LF. Probably one or two of each format.
I still "exercise" them regularly, around once a month or two, put a roll or two through each one of them (or a half-dozen sheets, depending) and get them to my lab, mainly to say hello and see who's still around these days.
I love that you've kept your collection going and of course, please do share what you have here on the site with the rest of us - of which there are probably more than we think!
I'm still working (no such thing as retirement for freelancers, you know) so don't have much time to shoot film unless paid to do so, but there are clients out there still who ask for it, and when a job like that comes around, I'll be happy to post details here.
Happy Holidays!

In the studio I sometimes work out of, there is a secure equipment room where there are four heavy metal cabinets bolted to the wall behind them and with decent locks on them, and each one has two of those small wi-fi motion detectors, one in the room facing the cabinets, and one inside each of the cabinets themselves.

There's one cabinet for bodies, one for lenses, one for lighting units (not stands), and one for accessories and misc grippage (tripods, etc).

The camera cabinet has several personal grab-and-go bags, mainly LowePro AW Magnums, which contain kits for common on-location jobs (portraits, events, interiors, fashion, etc.)

One-inch foam-core is cut to fit each shelf. It seems to work well, and is probably replaced periodically if/when it wears out with use. However, I think that isn't too often, in any event.

Of course this is in a working pro studio that carries equipment insurance, but still. The insurance company appreciates the attention we pay to equipment security, and that reflects in the reasonable premiums they charge.

Plus when you need the gear, you need it right then, not weeks after adjusters et al have finished their work.

So here's another example of GAS in the software age.

If you've been following this, you'll see that I've been mentioning Lightworks quite a bit here.

Now back in the day, Lightworks, and its big sibling Heavyworks, ruled the roost. Everybody was cutting on it, it was Windows 98 at the time, D/Vision had just come out and life was good. I remember mixing one of the first feature films on four Mac Quads with their boards wired together running one of the first versions of Digidesign's Pro Tools, to get 16 channels of audio working, but that's another story - and life was still good.

Okay, fast forward to 2012 or so, about 20 years I believe, and I read in the trades that Lightworks is coming back - and for free. I see in the list of distributors that my local Lightworks dealership is back on the list, so I get in touch for the first time in awhile (remember the days of personalized service? Rather than deal directly with the manufacturer?) and they said they'd never stopped representing Lightworks. In fact, some of the leading Hollywood editors, working on A list movies, had their very same Windows 98 machines running Lightworks from back in the 90's, daily, ever since.

A quick check through the Lightworks site confirmed this - movies that were made between the 90's and the '10s were on there too. If Lightworks had gone out of business (which it had), how come these movies were still being made? And edited on Lightworks? How was that even possible?

So what happened there is, I believe, a siren song for the folk on this site. Obviously the people using Lightworks took the time to learn the system, and learn it very well. Then they used the system. And they used it very well.

Since feature film movie-making has, by and large, remained mainly cuts, fades, and dissolves for more than a century now, and all the rest is bells and whistles, why change the basic editorial process because someone wants you to buy, or worse, rent, something "new" that basically does exactly the same as it always has done?

I'm sure those top top editors in the studios who are still using Lightworks from the 90's have daily visits from Avid, Apple, Adobe and the like, saying "upgrade, upgrade". And once you get on that band-waggon, it's the top of their tiered marketing program, that goes hand in hand with phased redundancy, product lifespan and all those neat phrases invented by, you guessed it, marketing, sales and accountants, instead of the engineers who want to design things, and make them well and to last. At least that's what it was in the 90's, when we were still trying to be excellent at what we so, instead of being millionaires. But those stalwarts just minded their own business, that of making A-grade Hollywood studio movies, and probably told the others to go off and mind theirs, which is software sales.

Not so for the rest of us.

Now, the editing, or the photography, or whatever it is, has become secondary to fame and fortune, on all fronts. Fame is now accessible with a Tweet or two (say no more). Fortune in all the "passive income" models - like software rental, and forced-redundancy upgrades when none are actually necessary.

So yes, thanks, Adobe and Apple. You may be this day and age, and you certainly have the bucks to "prove" that screwing your fellow human works for you, and you can call this business, but it's the manufacturing business, not show business, and not the business of film and TV and photo production or post-production.

Let's not confuse the one with the other.

Yes, this sounds like a rant. But with the manufacturers being practically the only ones expounding their views into our eyes and ears every day, I thought that speaking out for the people who were quietly minding their own business and making good art, might be in order this Christmas season, just to balance things out a little.

The UHH motto seems to be "find the gear you need to do what you want to do; then learn it well, and use it well." This still, after coming up to half a century doing this, sounds like a good idea to me.

Happy Happy Merry Merry to one and all.

From my back yard to yours - Season's Greetings!

Err... the end of the rear focusing rail?

Agreed with all here.

Even since I started shooting sports and BIF, more as a sometimes-paying hobby than anything else, I've often wondered about the advisability of going with the 10fps cameras and the snap-focus more-light gathering glass, unless I was shooting for a lot more money than I'm getting now, or at night to those funky mercury vapor or other intermittent light sources, etc., when only one of those cameras will do.

But even then, something like a D810 and a faster 80-200 is probably all I'd need. Somehow 10fps feels to me like I could just get out my 4.6k video camera and shoot 60fps, and just pick a frame out of that footage.

In another place and time, that wouldn't be considered cricket, not at all.

If I were shooting full-time for Sports Illustrated, though...

Yes, agreed.
I'm not too sure about the advisability of all that Nikon footage going up into a cloud first though. Isn't the D850 a "real" camera, though? Oh, yes, it has Snapbridge, right? So a "fake camera", after all... :-)

Yes, Rush is okay to use for basic editing.

In the future -- nearer than we think and probably with Apple leading the way -- video editing will be apps on smart phones, with the presently-combined functions of ingest, edit, color, effects, graphics and audio probably in separate apps - and everything tied to our phone bills, or on a monthly subscription basis.

Me, I'm old school and against paying a monthly fee for what I used to be able to buy and own, instead of just rent or lease.

Hence my leaning towards products like Resolve or Lightworks, which are fully professional and fully-featured products, just without the monthly (or any other purchase) fee.

The others? They're either selling, up-selling, or leading towards one or the other.

In principle, I believe that they are the ones who should be working for my buck, not the way they want it, which is to have me working for my buck and then paying them for it.