LF means heavy hiking. What's on your "not necessary" list?

[Drew Wiley]

I'd prefer to have my ashes scattered over the Silver Divide up in the hills, but if I were cremated would probably just end up in the kitty litter box. I think my
happiest days, photographically, were when I only owned one camera, one lens, and carried only one type of film. But when you're a long long ways from the
nearest Snap-On Truck, it's advisable to not put all your eggs in one basket in terms of potential equipment damage. I always carry a spare of my favorite filter,
for example, because I've been known to drop them. Lenses can get fogged or worse in inclement weather, which I seem to be attracted to. Always two pairs of
sunglasses or risk snow-blindness if you drop your first pair. And extra grain magnifier or suitable reading glasses - dropped one of those off a cliff once too.
Gosh - the headaches I went through two summers ago repairing my friend's expensive Zeiss lenses with a Swiss Army knife and notched stick, and then whittling him two whitebark pine prosthetic legs for his Gitzo tripod after taking a bad slip in the stream. Lucky he still had one lens that wasn't dunked, merely
ring-dented. Stuff like that happens.

[Corran]

With regard to lens choices, I do think we all "see" differently.

I absolutely see wide angle, all the time. I think it comes from years of marching band where I had to be very aware of everything in the periphery of my vision to keep the form. Or maybe not and I just see that way.

Also, photography in the dense underbrush of a swamp is very, very different from the Rocky Mountains. I hear the term "mountain vistas" bandied about a lot, but we don't have those down here.

Clyde Butcher is of course famous for his usage of a 90mm...on 8x10!

[Drew Wiley]

You're applying a stereotype, as if all of us were mindless postcard types. I know people who use nothing but wide angle lenses in the mountains, and I routinely (but not exclusively) use long lenses in dense forest and brush. But it is a convenient fact that many of us tend to gravitate to what is most comfortable in focal length. I generally see and compose things in narrow perspective, suitable for longer lenses. My "normal" for 35mm film is an 85mm lens, for example; so just extrapolate that for sheet film sizes. I do own relatively wide-angle lenses for certain applications, but rarely hike with them unless I'm anticipating a cave or tunnel etc.

[Corran]

With regard to lens choices, I do think we all "see" differently.

You're applying a stereotype, as if all of us were mindless postcard types.

Sometimes I wonder what you are reading, because it doesn't seem to be what I wrote.

[Tin Can]

Sometimes I wonder what you are reading, because it doesn't seem to be what I wrote.

+1

[Drew Wiley]

You used the term "mountain vistas" and equated that with a particular kind of lens choice. That's equivalent to "scenic turnout", aim there.

[StoneNYC]

It's funny, in order of what I use most for landscape work,

with 6x7 I tend to prefer ...

43mm
65mm
150mm

In 4x5 I tend to like ...

90mm
300mm
150mm
(I used the 75mm so little that I sold it!)

But in 8x10 I tend to use...

450mm (which I always feel is too short, now I have a 600mm but I haven't used it enough to conclude how often I pull that lens, however I suspect the 450mm will start to see very little use and the 600mm will be my new go-to lens).
300mm
150mm
210mm
(I've considered finding an even wider lens as when I used the 150mm on an 11x14 I borrowed I just loved every shot, so I might look for a 120/110mm or maybe 90mm that covers 8x10).

This doesn't really make any sense, it's totally bizarre.

If I often went wide just for the larger format based on detail, that would make sense, but I love the wide on my 6x7 also, so that just seems weird.

It may also be the environment I'm living in as Corran said, grand vistas exist here but are often less than grand, not very intricate and often boring. But water and the ocean can work well. So can a lot of nice scenery, but often I can't "get" to it because it's on some private land or some other reason where a long lens works best. So perhaps if I lived in the Midwest I wouldn't need the long and would be often shooting wide for that grand-scape.

We're on a tangent, not necessary? Hmm maybe that small tin of loose leaf tea I bring, always important to have afternoon tea

[Vaughn]

Drew -- lucky, or immune perhaps. Twelve years in the Yolla Bolly wilderness (and a week-long trip or two a year lately) without treating water...luck or perhaps immune, tho I avoid areas with cows. Years in the Trinities and in the Grand Canyon, too (but treated water from the Colorado)...but treat most of the water in the Trinities these days.

But what I leave behind. The Rolleiflex/cord if I am taking LF. Too bad, the dang thing is fun.

[Drew Wiley]

Giardiasis is definitely nasty and has to be treated. It won't go away on its own. I've never had it. Otherwise, we had a saying about being "used" to the water. Due to the relative drought this year with low water flow, I'm certain I'll carry a water filter with me heading out of Cedar Grove in Kings Canyon in Sept. That is a popular trail known for Giardia risk in the main stream. I generally try to get water from side streams coming down the cliffs anyway. But I did decades of hiking in the Sierras before ever owning a water filter. It probably helped that I prefer quieter country; but none of my friends ever got sick either, and some of them spent entire summers in the high country. Nobody in their right mind would drink water from any creek that has car camping sites. I'd like to visit the Trinities some day if I can find some relief from the heat. They don't have the altitude of the Sierras obviously, so the trailheads tend to be much lower. My heat tolerance certainly isn't what it once was.

[David_Senesac]

Surprised at all the posts on this thread. What isn't necessary? Well for many years I slept in a bivy instead of a tent just to save a few pounds to keep carrying weights below 75 pounds and still fit in some fishing gear and lots of enjoyable food and snacks. For all the years I've been rambling about in the Sierra backcountry, only a few times ever saw any others with large format camera gear. And until this last decade and one-half of the digital camera revolution, rarely even saw anyone with large tripods. And how that has changed in just a few years now.

I'm a little guy 66" 140# and for years my packs that included about 25# of large format camera gear were often about 70#. An image along Mono Creek from about a decade ago coming off a week long trip in the Silver Divide of the John Muir Wilderness.



The orange piggy back daypack on the back of my red backpack contained all my 4x5 photo gear except for the big Gitzo seen hanging on the side. And back in the late 90s was the 6x7 Pentax, and before then a decade plus of 35mm SLR gear where I carried too many fixed prime lenses for my own good. Much like Drew's related it somehow has kept my body strong into my olde age much in the tradition of Normal Clyde.

But then last year as I officially reached SS retirement age in order to reduce weight began carrying a mirrorless digital camera system because now with focus stack blending and stitch blending I can still make large sharp images. Recent work this year.

Spring 2015 Wildflower Trip Chronicles

Summer 2015 Trip Chronicles

That has reduced my pack weight for a week long backpack down to about 55#. The thing about carrying heavy weights is once one reaches a certain comfortable threshold, adding another 10 pounds is much more difficult than say adding 10 pounds to a 35 pound pack. At my current weight once again move around like a frisky young-un. I haven't abandoned 4x5 film work in the front country because there are some situations where only a single capture can capture a unique moment in time. Also find the view camera process enjoyable.

In any case continue to journey into our California landscapes with the next big trip set for early July when 3 of us night hike over Duck Pass into Fish Creek areas of the John Muir Wilderness for a 9-day big lake fest.