JackParrish

Here's my favorite setup. I have found, after trying out most bag versions over the years, that there is no perfect setup. It's not even fair to try. The best we can hope for is a bag that helps us feel some relief as we manage a portfolio of tradeoffs around what we want and what we need. it helps if it has some style to it, at least for professional work that requires moving in an out of a variety of offices and meetings over a week. The best quality bags I've found are ThinkTank and Ona. Others are good, too, but even some of the really expensive bags out there have frustrating inserts, or stiffness in the bag, that makes them hard to work out of. For those who use their bags to transport their equipment from one table top to another, I think there is a larger selection of bags that check most of the boxes you need. But if you're going to be working out of a bag for longer stretches, there are just a lot fewer options where the tradeoffs don't become overwhelming pretty fast. I don't carry around a bunch of loose lenses. I almost never change them when shooting out of a walking bag, and I've found that the best way to get the benefit of multiple lenses is by keeping them mounted on multiple bodies. For all my professional work, I use two XT2 bodies (XT1 before that) and then I have a "third body" for a third lens, or that I use in terrible weather (never want to chance it with the main bodies if I can avoid it). My third body, right now, is an XT1 that also serves as a very small "cocktail camera" when I need it to be as unintrusive as possible. I keep the 23mm on a body almost always, and then either the 56mm or the 90mm fuji lenses on the other. If it's during the day, I generally have the 90mm on it as it's a great tradeoff for size against the 135mm equivalent reach. I found I'd be called in to shoot a protest or a fire scene or etc, and I'd want to keep some distance. With fires, you never know the fumes present in the smoke. The three fuji bodies don't get too heavy for me, but I could never do this when I had the big DSLR rig going. My daily carry setup is one of two Ona bags. I have the Bowery in canvas (leather does start to get too heavy with that bag) for days when I need all three bodies on me, plus a laptop or tablet. And when I only need one or two bodies and no computer, I use a leather bowery bag. I find both bags to be outstanding in terms of both function and style. I can wear them with a tux or with jeans--in a boardroom or on a loading dock--and never have to think about it. All in all, I love this setup and it is, by far, the most productive set up I've worked with in my career. I can wear either of these bags, loaded with my equipment, all day long with only minor complaints about strain after even a long day of constant wear. I love the large pockets on the front of the ONA bags--they're among my favorite "front pockets" in the business. I only wish they had some sort of locking mechanism for slightly improved security when traveling. Cell phone pics, but you get the idea. Edited for spelling.

it is not a great lens, optically, like some of the other fuji offerings. You trade off the "specialness", optically, for the form factor. But neither is it a "dog" lens, either. I got some good images with it, and liked the form factor. Ultimately, though, I sold it. My personal preference is to only put on lenses that have special properties to them. And when you have those, there is little reason to reach for much else. This lens has a HUGE convenience factor, and that's meaningful, but optically it had the weakest argument for that single slot on the body of the camera--which is pretty valuable creative real estate.

I shoot professionally with only 5 lenses. I have access to the 70-200 equivalent, but rarely need it. Here is the list of the lenses I use with the system for all my commercial work. And I'll put them in the order I would buy them if I didn't just replace them all at once. You can have as many lenses as you like, but you don't NEED any more than these for the vast majority of work you can do. The obvious exceptions are huge zooms for sports or wildlife, and a macro lens if you're specializing in macro-based photography. The 16mm isn't macro, but it actually focuses well enough, with such low distortion, that I don't feel any need to buy a macro tube or macro lens as a matter of necessity. They would be better options for pure macro shooting, but I can get the detail shots I need from the 16mm or the 90mm if used properly. And I know we're talking about what is "good enough", but let's not miss that this is also a killer bag. Maybe even earning the "legendary" title when we look back on it 20 years from now. 1. 23mm 1.4 2. 56mm 3. 16mm 4. 90mm 5. 35mm 2.0

I shoot professionally, and the xt2 is more than sufficient. In manual mode, so,was the xt1 for anything other than sports and wildlife. In fact, going toe to toe with the 5dm3, I prefer the Xt2. Trade offs exist among all the bodies, but the xt2 holds its own against Sony, Nikon, and Canon. Different systems will have different advantages, but you can build a professional bag around thenxt2 and be perfectly happy about it. No need for hand wringing or feeling unsure about it. I read his xt2 review a while ago and it reeked of someone who hadn't really used the camera.

I am finding the 35 f2 to have superb IQ. I mixed up a bunch of my images shot between the two and have had some very good photogs try to separate whitch was taken with which lens. Not only can they not "weed out" the f2 images against the 1.4, but more than once I've heard "this must be the 1.4 because the broken is better" only to find it was the f2. If great photographers cannot pick out a real difference between the two in a blind sample, I'm not going to spend any time worrying about it. F2 is a great lens that cannot functionally be separated from the 1.4 when you're assessing final images. I think everything else is just handwringing and nitpicking.

I don't mind the grip. It is bigger than it needs to be, but the hand feeling and tactile improvement is very good. That said, it will stay off the camera most of the time and be used for specific tasks as needed. EVF on the Xt2 is superb. For manual shooting I use the focus peaking highlights plus the Acros simulation and I can move faster in that set up, manually, than I can use auto functions on other cameras. And that's in low light, too. That EVF just makes it unbelievably easy to do. AF performed equal to or greater than the Canon 5DM3 that I tested it against. That really surprised me. Biggest drawback I've found is the auto brightness on the EVF is not well implemented. Anything that does "Auto" like that should be completely unnoticeable-- you should forget it's even there. Not so with this one. It is often inaccurate, clumsy, and over-eagerly gets too dim. So I just turned that feature off and it's great. But it could have been done much, much better.

I love the form factor of the XPRO, so as long as the technology is at their cutting edge and it is weather sealed, I'd pick the Xpro. But I'd probably run an xt2 as the second body.

The lensmate thumb grip is excellent and I use it all the time. Contrary to the previous comment, I cannot detect ANY negative leverage on the hot shoe. I guess if I did studio work most of the time and I was continually worried about it then I might be more careful, but that piece is solid and doesn't seem to have any adverse positioning with the hot shoe. I can't speak for other brands, but for the lensmate, I would use it without any concern.