My Equipment

I shoot Pentax ME Supers, for a couple reasons. They were great cameras; compact, reliable, and no-nonsense. I can still pick up spare bodies at a reasonable price, in good condition. They have perhaps the smallest body size of any conventional 35mm SLR, which is important for my stereo work, where I often mate a matched pair of ME Supers side-by-side. This keeps lens separation at a minimum; a necessity for some stereo work. Also, many third party lens manufacturers still make very good manual focus lenses for the Pentax KA mount. Why manual focus? Again, for my stereo photography. With two cameras mounted side by side, one may not want to focus in the same area as the other; focusing by the numbers assures everything is correct. Keeping everything manual also keeps the size down.

I often shoot Takumar 28-80 f3.5 zoom lenses, both for my regular phtography and for stereo. They're cheap & dirty, but they do the job, especially in portraiture, where total sharpness isn't a necessity. There are many good 35-70 zooms out there, but getting out to 28mm is more important to me. For speed and clarity, I still prefer the original f1.7 50mm lens made by Pentax; that is, until I break down and pick up a f1.2... For candids, concert, animals, and sports, I use a Takumar 70-210 f4 zoom.

I use a Bogen 2001 compact tripod with 3-D head, and a Bogen monopod outfitted with a small ball head for vertical shooting. Basic bulletproof stuff for the common man. I shoot a Vivitar 285 auto-thyristor TTL flash, mounted various ways, and bounced in various ways. I sometimes use it mounted on a Stroboframe rig with the "vertiflip" feature. The sensor can be used remotely, so it can be used in auto mode bounced out of an umbrella as well. The foot hasn't broken off of it yet; when it does, I'll put one of those rugged aluminum ones on it.

I shoot every kind of film imaginable, from Fuji Velvia to Kodak Royal Gold 1000, depending on the situation.

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