Japancamerahunter

In your bag number 20, A very special guest…
See that? Up there? That is a Times Press badge…Which means we have a very special bag for you today. I am lucky enough to be able to show you the bag(s) of a genuine, highly published professional photographer, Mr. Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert.
Jeremy works as a photographer in Tokyo, Japan. With twenty years of experience his pictures have appeared in magazines and newspapers the world over, such as The Times, The Guardian, New York Times, Time, National Geographic, Marie Claire, Le Figaro, and many many others. For the last 12 years he has been one of the principle photographers for Greenpeace International. He has been the recipient of awards and his work has been exhibited internationally.
We are extremely lucky to be able to take a peek into Jeremy’s bags, so lets have a look….Over to you Jeremy.

My Crumpler bag is my day-to-day assignment bag. Used most of the time for my editorial/corporate/reportage type assignments. Within it I’d carry any variety of the below equipment. I really like to travel as light as possible, and if this means missing a picture sometimes as I don’t have the right gear with me then that is fine. For every picture I miss, I gain a few others by travelling light. What I carry, and what I carry it in, really depends on the assignment, my mood, and how far I’m going.

If I’m on deadline then I’d carry the laptop and card reader, and modem. If not then it stays at the office. The Quantum and Canon flash, depending on the assignment I’d also leave this at the office. The 300mm, bought to cover Princess Diana’s funeral, only comes out depending on the assignment also, as does the USB modem etc. I try to strip down the bag to as light as possible every time.
The one missing feature on this bag is an outside open pocket to slip a bottle of water into it. A big oversight.

Bag: Crumpler Farmer’s Double L
Canon 1D Mk3
Canon 5D
Canon 70-200mm f2.8 Image Stabilizer
Canon 16-35mm f2.8
Canon 1.4 converter (not pictured)
Canon 300mm F4
Canon 550 EX flash
Canon Off-camera extension cable
Quantum flash battery 1+
E-Mobile USD modem
Pack of CF flash cards
Tokyo street atlas
Notepad (I have all my notepads, going back for years..)
Business cards
MacBook Pro 15”
CF card reader

If it is a lit portrait which is required on assignment then the Canons go into my big Tenba bag, along with my Elinchrom Ranger light, and umbrella etc. I have a large, long Manfrotto bag full of stands, clamps, umbrellas, background paper stands etc. Sometimes this gets dragged out also, or if it is a portrait in the street I’ll do away with stands and get my assistant to hold the umbrella and light, thus save incurring the wrath of security or police by having a lighting stand set up as an obstacle in the street.
This Tenba bag is also the one I’d use when going on planes, when I need to carry cameras and laptop etc, to go to a foreign assignment. But this would be without the Elinchrom light obviously, although it has been done on occasion (sweating and praying at check-in).

Tenba bag
Elinchrom Ranger Quadra + ‘s’-type head.
Suntech Umbrella 85cm, or variation of.
5-in-1 reflector 80cm
PocketWizard Plus receiver & transmitter
( and Another Manfrotto bag with light stands, background paper stands etc.)

My little Tenba occasionally gets an outing. It first went with me to Romania, where a few hours after arrival it was very carefully slit down one side by a bunch of thieves on a bus, who were trying to get inside it. Thankfully I noticed something was happening and the theft was thwarted. So down one side at the back it has a 4 inch incision, now sewn up with dental floss (strongest thread around).
This bag is used mainly when I’m shooting for myself, sometimes it’d carry one Canon and two lenses, sometimes my Leicas, or sometimes the Mamiya7. Depends what I’m shooting, and for whom.
The zip is also busted, so this bag is nearing the end of it’s working life perhaps.

Tenba bag
Mamiya 7 and 65mm lens
Leica M6 TTL
Leica M6
Leica M4P (currently on loan to a colleague).
35mm f2 Summicron
28mm Elmarit f2.8
50mm f2 Summicron

I also have a variety of other bags- Sometime the a selection of the above kit would just get thrown in an anonymous looking general day-to-day Karrimor back pack, either for lightness or as I’m shooting somewhere where i don’t wish to stand out as a photographer so much. There’s a blue much loved Domke (F2 I think is it’s name) which I’ve given up using as I find over one shoulder type bags aren’t good for the back or for moving around, now I much prefer a rucksack two-strap variety. I have a waterproof Orteg (bike messenger) bag for assignments at sea and on boats. And two Pelican 1550 cases which I used to use for transiting to ship assignments abroad, when the luggage would go in the plane hold, now I prefer to carry as much as possible in the large Tenba. And a variety of other cameras….the list goes on…

Website is here
Twitter
Facebook Page

A massive thanks to Jeremy for sharing his bags with us, it is great to see work and pleasure bags side by side. You can see how practical all of these set-ups are. It is a real pleasure to have these bags on here.

Keep them coming folks, we need more submissions, so get your bag on Japancamerahunter.com. Send me a hi resolution image of the bag (please make sure it is horizontal) and its contents, with some details about yourself and what you shoot. Oh and don’t forget your contact details (twitter, flickr, tumbler et al).

Cheers
Japancamerahunter

Original Article

Announcing the Japancamerahunter repair system
Is your camera dead? Feel like there is no hope? Now now, don’t fret, it is not the end of the world, contrary to popular belief, these things can be fixed. Or perhaps you didn’t drop yours (like I did), perhaps your camera stopped working of its own free will. Well, that is fine too, you can have that sorted out too.
You see, what a lot of people don’t realize is that they can have many of their (Japanese) cameras repaired by the makers in Japan. Do you have a Konica Hexar with an Error code? Or a Ricoh with a dodgy shutter? Perhaps the screen had died on your digital Contax, or your Mamiya is not taking pictures any longer. You can have all of these problems and more repaired in Japan with the minimum of hassle. Japancamerahunter is proud to offer a camera repair service that takes the trouble out of your hands and returns a shiny happy camera to you.
The system is really simple. Contact us and first find out if the camera can be serviced, as some are harder than others to be repaired. Then pop your sick camera in a box (make sure you take out the batteries, the customs in Japan hate batteries) and send it to us. We will then do all of the hard work for only a small fee. You will have your camera serviced by the maker, safe in the knowledge that it is in good hands.
The prices for the repairs are very reasonable and you will have the peace of mind knowing that the work is guaranteed by the maker. I keep in regular contact with customers to kae sure they are happy and will not have work started on the camera until the customer has agreed to the quote for the work by the company.
Don’t believe me? Check out this review at the bottom of the page.

Most of the major brands are covered, including the following:
Konica Minolta
Bronica
Contax and Kyocera
Ricoh
Mamiya
Epson
Tamron
Canon
Nikon
Makina

So, if you want to get your favourite camera repaired Contact Us and we can make it happen.
Thanks
Japancamerahunter

Original Article

In your bag number 19, Shashinka Ichiban from the USA
Hello there fine people, sorry for the break in service, website issues made it impossible to post anything for a while. But we are back, and ready with another bag submission. This time we have a bag from the USA, from a rather distinguished guest. The great Mr. Aaron J. Heiner aka Shashinka Ichiban. Over to Mr. Ichiban…

This is Shashinka Ichiban from Washington DC. The name was given to me by a Japanese friend of mine I was visiting in Miyazaki years ago. I was trying to rebrand my image, and my friend came up with the name as a joke. So, to get the last laugh I went with it, much to his astonishment. I’ve made many trips to Japan since then to shoot, but I’ve kept the moniker going. Best of all is that the name and branding has done wonders for my sales in the USA.

Right now, I have close to a dozen Domke bags but I only run with three different bag and camera sets. For my personal street shooting, I use a Domke F803 for RF cameras. Whenever I am off the clock, I carry this rig for personal shooting (unless I want to photograph trains, then I move over to the Nikons) I prefer my F803 as it is slimmer and shorter it hugs my body better and keeps the weight closer to me allowing for faster maneuverability.

Lately the Yashica has been staying home as the RF finder is nowhere near as sweet as the Bessa. I also find the Jupiter to be a slightly sharper lens than the Yashcia. Of course the X100 gets about 85% of the use, and I prefer the X100 over my D3s now for shooting.
In the future if I could ever afford one, my goal is to add an Epson R-1 series camera to the line up and another dozen Domke bags. So here’s my bags set up as of tonight.

Domke F803 (Street bag)
Fuji X100 w/ Gordy’s strap
Yashica Electro 35 GSN
Bessa R w/ Domke hand strap
Jupiter-8 f/2.0 50mm
T-Max P3200 and Ilford XP-2
Pelican case for cards
Spare light-meter
Mini-tripod
NP-95 charger
iPhone 4
Mountain Dew (not shown as I was drinking it at the time)

For my personal railway photography, I use a tan F4AF with Nikon D2-series. Then for my work at the newspaper and my weekend warrior shooting for the US Coast Guard, I have a blue F4AF that holds my Nikon D3-series cameras. For either my press bag or CG bag, I tend to run very minimalist to keep the weight down.

Domke F4AF (Newspaper bag)
Nikon D2Hs (#804)
Nikon D2Xs (#105)
Nikon 24-70 AF-S f/2.8
Nikon 70-200 AF-S f/2.8
Nikon 12-24 AF-S f/4.0
Nikon SB400 spare flash
Wapati camera straps (replaced my old Domke Grippers)
CF Cards (that I forgot were still in my back pocket)
-Not shown, Nikon D3 (#904) & Nikon D3s (#005) because I left them in the office over the weekend.

Shashinka Ichiban has a blog check it out
He also has a website
And of course a twitter

Many thanks to Shashinka Ichiban for sharing this great set of bags with us. It is nice to see the classic and the modern side by side. And I am pretty biased towards anyone who sports a number of Domke bags.

Keep them coming folks, we need more submissions, so get your bag on Japancamerahunter.com. Send me a hi resolution image of the bag (please make sure it is horizontal) and its contents, with some details about yourself and what you shoot. Oh and don’t forget your contact details (twitter, flickr, tumbler et al).

Cheers
Japancamerahunter

Original Article

A modern classic, the Leica M9
This camera is still available and a stunning deal. Contact me for more details.
Continuing where the M8 left off, this was Leica’s foray into the full frame digital market. And what a foray, they have managed to create a whole new fanbase with this modern classic. This camera has changed the landscape for digital cameras, and has spawned copycats. But this is the real deal.
A full frame 18mp sensor what takes incredibly detailed and well balanced shots, the Leica m9 is the pinnacle of the modern Leica family. This camera has bought a whole new generation to the rangefinder style of photography.

The build and the quality of this camera is totally Leica, with the legendary German build quality shining through. The camera feels solid and sturdy in the hand, there is a reassurance in the weight.  The chrome body evokes the Leica’s of the past, but the M9 on the body shows that this is a camera for a new generation.

This particular camera is in flawless condition. It has no marks to the body and comes with all of the original documentation. This camera is basically as good as new, with low actuations and low usage. There is still a couple of months left on the Passport as well, until the end of Jan 2012.

Price for this camera is available upon request, please get in touch with me directly if you have any questions about this or other items Contact Us

Thanks for looking
Japancamerahunter

Original Article