Do any of you that shoot with 2 camera bodies?

When walking about, I only take one camera! Weight, and keeping cameras from banging into each other! Or keeping one from falling off my shoulder while the other is being used.

When shooting weddings, I tried to have two cameras with me...such a hassle keeping them from banging into one another, or worring about setting one down to have it stolen! I after one try, I kept a second body only as a spare locked away. Easier and quicker to change film backs or change lenses, than the constant hassle of two cameras on my person at the same time.

For most of the last 12 months I have officially been working from home, but the amount of work my employer sends me varies a lot. There have been weeks where I'm doing 9 hour days and weeks where I do nothing. So I've taken to walking to get myself out of the house and to keep myself in some semblance of shape...I've also had some news on the health front which means I need to keep myself active and not gain any weight. I'm the lightest I've been in 30 years but still too big for the doctors. So at least twice a week I go walking for a good couple of hours or three. There's parks if I go South towards the town centre and countryside if I go North away from town. Plenty to see and photograph, even if only to document 12 months of changing seasons. Maybe another year of this wouldn't be so rewarding, though the views are still worth the walk. Likely by the time we get to mid March and the anniversary of me starting this, I'll be back at work full time (indeed I was September to mid December, but walked at weekends).

I don't think I've gone out a single time with less than two cameras. I started out with a digital compact and Nikon F601M with B&W film....but in the end I've used some 18 film cameras encompassing 7 film formats - 135, 120, quarter plate, Polaroid 600, Polaroid Pack, reg 8mm, super 8mm. One of the most gratifying moments was when a bystander saw me filming swans and geese in a local park with a 50s Quarz 8mm camera and commented "Nice to see an old film camera being used"....he was significantly younger than me too. I've also seen other people out and about with a variety of cameras - several Canon and Pentax SLRs as well as the usual digital stuff. Local camera shop reports sales of film are still too high to keep up with, though this lockdown they've certainly had fewer mail/online orders they're keeping going with camera repairs.

I will probably do it in the future, when I will use a medium format folding camera (if I will get it reapired).
For the moment I do have 2 "Minola" bodies for use ... one is X-700, the other is SRT-101 or 102. I usally do preffer the X-700, because of the lightmeter (the SRT used Mercury batteries and I couldn't find an adapter for lowering the voltage and the Zinc - Air batteries...), but well, once the SRT saved me. I was at a meeting of mates from the 5th-8th grade - 20 years of graudation (1997-2017). I borrowed my X-700 to somebody. He gave it back to me with some batteries, but dern batteries, the didn't worked. So I sprunged into action the SRT (since I did use the flashlight, I didn't needed the lightmeter) and saved the evening. Well, 2-4 of my formers mates made fun of me becaused I used a film camera, but guess who was the only one to post pictures with the meeting. Some of them took digital images, but not even today...
Well, it was quite of a revenge for 20 years later. At the ball from the end of the 8th grade (it wasn't a prom ball, because it was held in May, before the schoold ended) my mother didn't gave me money for a film and I was dumb enough not to ask my grandapernts (both side of the family) or my father (my parents are divorced). So I didn't take no pictures. A girl mate camed with a camera, but the person who had to process the film, managed to ruin it... In the end, my dumbness and that person = no image memories of that event.

Oh, when wrtinting the above I remembered that there where times when I used to bodies: a "Zorki" 4 (rangefinder) and a compact film camera. Because I din't had a separate flash. After I got the flash, I only used more advanced film cameras.

I shoot with a pair of Nikon F4 bodies and the following auto focus Nikkor trinity zoom lenses:
20-35mm f/2.8
28-70mm f/2.8
80-200mm f/2.8

Nikon F4 and Nikon F4s by Narsuitus, on Flickr

I've done similar but with a pair of F3's, one with the MD-4 and the Trinity's second cousins, 18-35 3.5-4.5, 24-85 2.8-4 and a first cousin 28-200 2.8.

I use the Nikon N75 with Portra 400 with the Tameron 28mm to 300mm AF zoom. I use the Nikon F100 with Tri-X 400 with the Nikon 28mm to 200mm AF zoom. They share for the Nikon 20mm to 35mm AF zoom.

Two definitely for travel. I once had a camera break on me, but only one on me at a time for shooting.

jwd722 said:

I've done similar but with a pair of F3's, one with the MD-4 and the Trinity's second cousins, 18-35 3.5-4.5, 24-85 2.8-4 and a first cousin 28-200 2.8.

Click to expand...

Duh... I meant 80-200 f2.8.