Michael S. Liberman
Gear
The transition from DSLR to mirrorless is complete. In 2022 I sold the D750 and remaining F-mount lenses and since then acquired several more Z-mount lenses and the Z8 camera. Reflecting those changes, here is the current set of gear, including mirrorless, drone, and flashes – but scroll down to read about my photo equipment background and how I got to this point …
Z Mirrorless Bodies
Nikon Z8 48 MP Z Mirrorless Camera
Nikon Z6II 24 MP Z Mirrorless Camera
Z Zoom Lenses
NIKKOR Z 14-30mm f/4 S
NIKKOR Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR
NIKKOR Z 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR S
Nikon Z Teleconverter TC-1.4x
Z Prime Lenses
NIKKOR Z 20mm f/1.8 S
NIKKOR Z 35mm f/1.8 S
NIKKOR Z 50mm f/1.8 S
NIKKOR Z 85mm f/1.8 S
NIKKOR Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S
Support
Gitzo GT2541 Series 2 Carbon Tripod
Markins Q-Ball Q10 Ballhead
Peak Design Travel Tripod
Gitzo GM5561T Traveler Monopod
Joby DSLR Wrist Strap
Amazon Basics Wrist Strap
Luma Labs Cinch Camera Strap
Flash and Lighting
Godox AD200Pro TTL Pocket Flash
Nikon SB-800 AF Speedlight
Godox XProN TTL Wireless Trigger
Godox X1R-N TTL Wireless Receiver
Westcott Rapid Box 26″ Octa Speedlite
Westcott Rapid Box 1×2′ Switch Strip
Westcott Light Stands
Drone
DJI Mini 3 Pro with DJI RC Controller
DJI Goggles Integra with RC Motion 2
Action Cams
DJI OSMO Pocket
GoPro Hero 3+ Black
Post-Production
iMac Pro 3.2 GHz 8-Core Intel Xeon W
MacBook Pro M2 Max
Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic
Adobe Photoshop
Final Cut Pro
Camera Bags
Like many photographers I am obsessed with camera bags. You can never have too many! But I did do some recent downsizing. I sold the Think Tank Photo SubUrban Disguise 10, Urban Disguise 50 Classic, and Urban Disguise 35 V2.0 and I donated the LowePro Mini Trekker. Here is the previous camera bag lineup …
… and the updated camera bag list:
- LowePro BP 250 DroneGuard
- Think Tank Photo Airport Accelerator
- Think Tank Photo Airport Essentials
- Vanguard Kinray Lite 45
- Westcott Gear Bag
Photo Equipment Background
I’ve had a number of cameras over the years ranging from 35mm still cameras to digital single lens reflex cameras to point and shot cameras to standard and high-definition video cameras. Here is a look at the various still cameras I’ve owned dating back to my high school days.
My first camera was a Canon AE-1 with a 50mm f/1.8 lens – a college graduation gift from my parents after “borrowing” the camera for the three previous years. The AE-1 was my Dad’s camera and he replaced it with a Canon A-1. (I still have both cameras.) I shot with the AE-1 and 50mm for 15 years eventually adding a standard zoom lens and a telephoto zoom lens to go along with the 50mm. The AE-1 was a great starter camera – an excellent way to learn about the exposure triangle and to be efficient when shooting film on a limited college budget. I brought the AE-1 to grad school, family vacations, and some business trips early in my career.
In 1999 I replaced the AE-1 with a Nikon N80 paired with the Nikkor 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5D zoom and the Nikkor 70-300mm f/4-5.6D ED zoom. I picked up a Lowepro Mini Trekker backpack to carry everything around. (I still have the N80 and the Lowepro!) I brought this set of gear to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the inaugural United States Grand Prix Formula One race in September of 2000.
I made the transition to DX digital in 2003 with the Nikon D100 DSLR. In December 2010 the D100 was replaced with the Nikon D7000 DSLR (used for the 2011 Greece and Turkey photos and video). I made the move to a full frame DSLR in October 2012 when the D7000 was replaced with the Nikon D600 (used for the 2013 Galapagos Islands photos and video). In March 2015 the D600 was sold and replaced with the Nikon D750 DSLR (used for the South Africa, Peru, Cuba, India, Southeast Asia, and Brazil trips).
After keeping the D7000 as a backup body for a number of years, I traded it in to purchase the Nikon Z6, beginning the transition to mirrorless in March 2019. I took the Z6 to New York, but in the midst of the pandemic the Z6 didn’t do much travelling. And then I traded in the Z6 for the Nikon Z6II in December 2020. Although I still had the D750, the Z6II was the camera of choice for the spring 2022 trip to Israel.
Over the years I’ve also had an assortment of point and shoot cameras, beginning with the brilliant Yashica T4 Super D film camera, purchased in 1999. I sold the T4 on eBay six years later in 2005 and made most of my money back. Now it sells for much more. I replaced the T4 with a Canon PowerShot S50. The S50 always struggled with white balance, wasn’t particularly well constructed, had a terrible menu system for camera settings, and eventually fell apart. Although by this time I was firmly entrenched as a Nikon shooter, this experience has kept me for looking at other brands.
In 2007 I bought a Ricoh GR Digital II with 10 megapixel sensor and 28mm fixed lens. In many ways the GR Digital II was like the T4 – easy to use with outstanding image quality. I brought the GR Digital II to China and and on the London-Paris trip. I enjoyed traveling with a smaller camera and the challenge of working with a fixed wide angle lens. The GR Digital II is small enough that I brought it as a second camera to Peru, along with the D750, for use shooting time lapse sequences.
After years of tweaking and simplification, my digital photo workflow, from ingest to Web output, is now built exclusively around Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic. My digital video workflow uses Final Cut Pro for digitization, editing, and output encoding. In January 2020 I replaced the Mac Pro workstation with an iMac Pro workstation and in April 2023 I expanded the iMac Pro with 16 terabytes of external SSD storage using an Sonnet Echo I Desktop, with a Sonnet M.2 4×4 PCIe Card outfitted with four Sabrent 4TB Rocket NVMe PCIe M.2 2280 SSDs.
Photo and Video Equipment Timeline
The following timeline shows acquisition dates for photo and video gear dating back 40+ years. The list is subdivided into categories showing 35mm film equipment, video camcorders, DX format, FX format, and the most recent Nikon Z System Mirrorless gear. If I sold something along the way that’s indicated by the dates following the item. Otherwise I still have it.
| 35mm Film | |
| May 30, 1982 | Canon AE-1 SLR 35mm Camera |
| May 30, 1982 | Canon FD 50mm f/1.8 SC Lens |
| January 15, 1995 | Canon FD 75-200mm f/4.5-5.6 Telephoto Zoom |
| March 3, 1995 | Canon FD 35-70mm f/3.5-4.5 Zoom |
| July 1, 1999 | Yashica T4 Super D 35mm Camera (sold Nov 17, 2005) |
| September 18, 2000 | Nikon N80 SLR 35mm Camera |
| November 11, 2011 | Canon A-1 SLR 35mm Camera (my Dad’s camera) |
| DX Format | |
| November 15, 2003 | Nikon D100 DX DSLR Camera (to Nephew) |
| March 2, 2005 | AF-S DX NIKKOR 17-55mm f/2.8G IF-ED Lens (sold Nov 4, 2013) |
| December 11, 2010 | Nikon D7000 DX DSLR Camera (traded in March 22, 2019) |
| December 28, 2010 | AF-S DX Zoom Nikkor 12-24mm f/4G IF-ED (sold Nov 4, 2013) |
| FX Format | |
| September 18, 2000 | AF NIKKOR AF 28-105mm f/3.5-4.5D IF Lens (to Nephew) |
| September 18, 2000 | AF NIKKOR 70-300mm f/4-5.6D ED Lens (sold Aug 6, 2013) |
| January 3, 2002 | AF-S NIKKOR 18-35mm f/3.5-4.5D IF-ED Lens (sold Aug 6, 2013) |
| July 1, 2002 | AF NIKKOR 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6D ED VR Lens (sold Aug 6, 2013) |
| March 20, 2010 | AF-S NIKKOR 50mm f/1.4G (sold Dec 15, 2019) |
| March 12, 2011 | AF-S NIKKOR 24mm f/1.4G ED (sold Jun 20, 2022) |
| March 19, 2011 | AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II (sold Jul 13, 2022) |
| October 16, 2012 | Nikon D600 FX DSLR Camera (sold Apr 2015) |
| March 24, 2013 | AF-S NIKKOR 24-120mm f/4G ED VR (sold Mar 9, 2020) |
| February 9, 2014 | AF-S NIKKOR 16-35mm f/4G ED VR (sold Mar 9, 2020) |
| March 31, 2015 | Nikon D750 FX DSLR Camera (sold Jul 13, 2022) |
| August 3, 2017 | AF-S NIKKOR 200-500mm f/5.6E ED VR (sold Jul 13, 2022) |
| Z Mirrorless | |
| March 22, 2019 | Nikon Z6 Mirrorless Camera (traded in Dec 9, 2020) |
| March 22, 2019 | NIKKOR Z 24-70mm f/4 S Lens (traded in Dec 9, 2020) |
| September 6, 2019 | NIKKOR Z 14-30mm f/4 S Lens |
| September 6, 2019 | NIKKOR Z 35mm f /1.8 S Lens |
| October 27, 2019 | NIKKOR Z 50mm f/1.8 S Lens |
| November 11, 2020 | NIKKOR Z 85mm f/1.8 S Lens |
| November 26, 2020 | NIKKOR Z 24-200mm f/4-6.3 VR Lens |
| November 28, 2020 | Nikon Z6II Mirrorless Camera |
| November 11, 2021 | NIKKOR Z MC 105mm f/2.8 VR S |
| May 8, 2022 | NIKKOR Z 20mm f/1.8 S |
| July 18, 2022 | NIKKOR Z 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR S |
| July 21, 2023 | Nikon Z8 Mirrorless Camera |
| October 3, 2023 | Nikon Z Teleconverter TC-1.4x |
| Video and Audio | |
| May 8, 1999 | Sony TRV-103 Digital 8 Camcorder |
| July 1, 2002 | Sony DCR-PC101 Mini-DV Camcorder |
| February 12, 2007 | Canon HV10 HDV Camcorder |
| April 3, 2013 | GoPro Hero 3 Action Camera |
| September 3, 2013 | DJI Phantom Drone (traded in Aug 24, 2019) |
| October 14, 2013 | GoPro Hero 3+ Black Edition Action Camera |
| November 28, 2014 | DJI Phantom 2 v2.0 H3-3D Drone (traded in Aug 24, 2019) |
| March 22, 2017 | DJI Mavic Pro Fly More Combo Drone (sold Jun 24, 2022) |
| January 19, 2019 | DJI OSMO Pocket Handheld Stabilized Camera |
| May 25, 2022 | DJI Mini 3 Pro Drone with DJI RC Controller |
| November 1, 2022 | DJI Wireless Mic System |
| May 14, 2023 | DJI Goggles Integra with RC Motion 2 |
Originally published April 16, 2013. Revised April 12, 2015; August 29, 2017; May 2, 2021; October 22, 2023.
