What’s in Chuq’s Camera Bag (2022 Fuji Edition)
Update: After writing up my Fuji gear collection, I made the decision to switch to Sony and bought a Sony A7IV. I still think this is useful for Fuji users or potential users, and there’s a lot to like about Sony (I do NOT like that my sony gear is bigger and heavier, since I’ve switched from APC to Full frame, but it’s a change I don’t regret from the results — oh, and lots more expensive).
The Fuji gear has been sold off, and I’m now (as of August, 2022) 100% a Sony photographer.
My Run and Gun Bird Rig
This is the setup I use when I’m going light and specifically planning to photograph birds.
It consists of the Fujifilm X-S10, the Fujinon XF70-300mmF4-5.6 R LM OIS with the Fujifilm 1.4x teleconverter, giving me (before APS C 1.6x crop) of 100 @ F5.6 to 420 @ F8. It is lightweight, is easily hand-holdable, and has really good, fast autofocus. It lives on a Black Rapid camera sling hanging at my hip, and I can move around easily and get it into action quickly without any fumbling.
Often when I go out with this setup, all I carry is a spare battery and memory card. When I want it in a bag, my choice these days is a bag by Nomatic and Peter McKinnon that’s is an 8 liter sling and fits this setup perfectly. I backed that bag on Kickstarter and after the expected supply chain delays, had it arrive, and it’s extremely well built from premium materials — and as of this writing, isn’t on Nomatic’s site at all because of the huge backlog of bags they’ve been trying to fulfill. That said, I really like the fit and finish of Nomatic’s bags, , and recommend that brand in general if you’re bag hunting.
This is a simple, one-task setup intended specifically for bird photography, and usually hangs out in my office and I use it to photograph birds out the window at the feeder, and when I’m out birding, I’ll carry it as my primary camera.
Now, for the not so simple…
My Hybrid Video and Landscape Photography Rig
These days, when I’m doing photography using my wide angle lenses, or when I’m going out and planning to capture video as well as stills, this is the setup I use.
What do we have here? A Fujifilm X-S10, and I wrap it in a Smallrig cage, attach a MOVO shotgun mic and a 4K monitor to it, and weigh it down with my Fujifilm XF100-400mmF4.5-5.6 R LM OIS WR (the picture above shows the 70-300, but in practice, I’m using the 100-400 when going out with this setup). I love the 100-400 lens, and it’s a stop faster than my 70-300+1.4x combo, but it’s also much bigger and heavier. It can be hand held, but it’s quite difficult to get stable video that way, so I also normally use this with a IFOOTAGE 71" Carbon Fiber Camera Monopod, which I learned about from Jordan Drake on DP Review TV and which I great for this kind of mostly-mobile hybrid photography work. I’ve added a Neewer video head to it, and adapted that to attach to Arca Swiss quick connects The iFootage has a small tripod foot you can extend, giving it enough stability to let go once in a while, but not enough that I’d ever walk away from it if it was free standing; instead I find places to lean it on.
This is not a small or light setup. Don’t expect to run and gun with this. But if you want good quality, stable footage with decent audio — and if you intend to start shooting video, those are key requirements — this is where you are likely to end up.
Depending on what I’m intending to do, I use one of two bags to haul it around. The small bag is the Tenba Axis 20L, which will hold everything I need for a day trip somewhere that might include either landscape work or bird/wildlife video work. The larger bag is the Shimoda Designs Explore 40 Liter bag, where I have inserted their Large DLSR core insert. This is the bag I use to pack basically everything when, for instance, I’m headed out on a multi-day trip, because Ic an also include chargers, cleaning gear and lots of the small items in here, and then transfer just what I need for a specific outing into a smaller bag like the Tenba, so effectively, this is my remote base station, not something I haul into the field too often.
Here’s a quick look at my Tenba packed for a typical outing (although pretend that it has the 100-400 in it, not the 70-300):
If I take everything out, here’s what is in there:
My filter pack
Batteries for the monitor
My accessory kits, which I’ll go into detail later
Memory cards
My Fuji batteries
My filter kit includes:
a Circular Polarizer
3 and 6 stop ND filters
Step down rings to allow one size filter to fit all my lenses.
I’m not mentioning brands because this is some gear I’m considering upgrading. These work fine, but there have been some nice innovations (such as magnetic attachment) that might improve the workflow.
Now, the accessory kits. The first one contains some basic gear I find handy in the field, including
some rope
small spools of gaffer tape
screwdriver and hex wrench for quick repairs
a sharp knife
a multi-tool
With this, I can usually convince a piece of gear that’s decided to come apart to go back together again.
My second accessory kit are my remotes, both wired. One is the standard Fuji remove shutter, that only does remote shutter button pushing. On the right is one by JJC, which I can also use to program timelapses and do some other features I never remember I can do. Like most of these remote tools, the UI kinda sucks, and I use it just often enough to have to re-learn how to set it up every time I haul it out, and sooner or later I’ll go looking again for options that do this for me that don’t suck.
The third accessory bag I carry has safety supplies:
A face mask (thank you, Covid)
Hand warmers, which, if you haven’t used these HotHhnds things, can make early morning photo shoots a lot less painful.
Sanitary wipes
in the first aid kit, there are:
a compass
an emergency whistle,
splinter removers
tweezers
safety pins
Q-tips
bandages
safety blanket
The idea here is to have what I need when I’m away from the car to allow me to get back to it, and/or deal with the trivially small ouches that happen without having to return to use the first aid kit my car has.
When I pack a camera bag, I also always put in a few other things:
A battery powered headlamp on a strap
spare batteries for gear I’m carrying (and the flashlight)
Business cards
lens cleaning cloths
I’ll sometimes add in a snack or a water bottle, but I’m rarely far enough away from the car these days to make that really necessary.
Lenses and Other Gear
My camera collection currently consists of:
(2) Fujifilm X-S10 bodies
Fujifilm XF 70-300: my “go to” birding lens these days, attached to a 1.4x Teleconverter
Fujifilm XF 100-400: used to be my go to lens, but the 70-300 is much lighter and smaller and only a stop slower, and while I can add the 1.4x teleconverter to this and get sharp images, I rarely need that extra oomph. I’m likely to sell this one — right now, I’d buy a second 70-300 and teleconverter, but they’re out of stock. Thank you, supply chain.
Fujifilm XF 16-55: my 24-70 equivalent wide angle lens
Fujifilm XF 55-140: my 70-200 equivalent lens. I rarely touch this any more, since the 70-300 handles this range, so it’s likely to get sold
Rokinon 8mm fisheye: a lens I bought as something to experiment with. I don’t use it often, but it can be fun to figure out how to get a nice image out of it.
Fujinon 35mm F1.2: my “nifty 50” equivalent, that I bought to experiment and play with, since I seem to so rarely use primes these days.
Fujifilm 1.4X Teleconverters
Fujifilm 16mm and 11mm extension tubes
My iPhone 13 Pro: I use this mostly for scouting shots and casual shooting, but more and more, it’s becoming one I turn to for wide angle work of all sorts.
For tripods, these are the ones I use most often:
IFOOTAGE 71" Carbon Fiber Camera Monopod: I’ve adapted this to use an Arca-swiss style quick release
Neewer carbon fiber 80” tripod: I use both a Neewer Ballhead and the Neewer Carbon Fiber Gimbal on it depending on what I’m shooting
I have a couple of others that I use occasionally and another carbon fiber generic tripod I use for my birding spotting scope, but none are things I’d recommend or buy today, since they are aluminum legs and I find the added weight something that causes me to leave them on the shelf. Neewer has a tripod with a rotatable center shaft like my Vanguard has, and I’m really tempted to bring that into the mix and send off some of my other tripods to a new home. (update: I just bought it)
The bags I use include:
Tenba Axis 20L
Lowepro 13x32 Lens case (to haul the 100-400 around in)
Tom Bihn “Maker” bag (a small bag I use as my carry around day pack that doesn’t look like a camera bag because it isn’t, but which holds a body and two lenses nicely)
Things I might change
Right now I’m pretty happy with my setup. I have talked about starting a switch to Sony’s mirrorless platform, but I’ve decided for now I’m happy with what I have and would rather spend my money on going somewhere to take images. Shifting my tripods to be 100% carbon fiber is likely (update: I did it), and at some point, I am going to sell my 55-140 and my 100-400, and buy another 70-300 and a second 1.4x teleconverter. I may replace my filter set; I am tempted by some of the square filter systems, and also by some of the newer setups (like Kase) that use magnetic attachment, but so far, it hasn’t been on my priority list. At some point I might look at upgrading in the 24-70 range, and I’m always tempted by the ultra-wide lens ranges (12-24) but when I’ve had lenses in those ranges I almost never use them.
In general, though, what I have works pretty well for me. As I start to explore and figure out what I want to shoot here in Washington, I am watching what I’m using and what I’m shooting, and that will be what might cause me to modify this set of gear, but in general, I’m not seeing anything major I’m planning to change in the next year, other than replacing the 100-400, which will actually be replaced with something smaller, lighter and cheaper. I don’ t see myself buying a new camera body in the next year, I am really liking the X-S10 size and performance.
Final Notes
I hope this is useful to you. If you have questions, feel free to drop me a note and ask.
One question I’ll answer here since I know someone will ask: why am I considering buying a second 70-300 lens? It’s really logistics: I do really have two camera setups, and they tend to live in two places, so sharing a single lens between the two is — possible but inconvenient. One lives here in my office or in the car, and the other lives in my garage office area, and the two are at opposite ends of the house. I want them both in “grab and go” condition, because otherwise I think it’s safe to assume that whenever I want to grab a camera the lens will be in the wrong place. There’s no strong need to have both, it’s really just a convenience thing.
