Over the years, I've collected and sold a lot of gear. I'm left with a number of outfits and formats that I like having, and from which, I would not want to part. This includes many lenses, a few camera bodies, a good darkroom, etc.

But this prompted me to think, what are the absolute essentials in all of this? If I had to trim down to just the minimum, what must I retain to keep photography worthwhile? Otherwise, I might just as well not bother?

So, here are a few things that come to mind.

This might sound silly to some, but I would have to have a densitometer. Without this, I wouldn't know what I could expect from film, the actual film speed, and the development times for this or that situation. In trimming down, I would have to do B&W photography, and I would have to have a densitometer to get the results I wanted.

As for a camera, I think a 4x5 with bag bellows capability. For lenses, I would want the two focal lengths with which I began, which are 120mm wide field and a 180mm Plasmat. It would be be nice if this camera could have medium format capability. But, this would probably not be essential.

In the darkroom, I would want to keep my Zone VI developing and enlarging compensating timers. Fill in with anything else, but keep these two timers.

These would be included on my list, what would be included on yours? And, why? I think that hearing the different perspectives would be really instructive.