The Camera Gear I Actually Use: Coming Back to Photography With a Sony A7 V and One Lens

I didn’t start photography with an A7 V. I came back to photography with one.

There was a time when I had considerably more camera gear than I do now.

I’ve owned a Sony A6000.

I’ve owned an A7 II.

I’ve owned an A7R II.

My lenses included the Sony/Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 and a 70–200mm f/4, among others.

And landscape photography was my thing.

Not something I was trying to learn. Not something I picked up because I needed another hobby.

I genuinely loved it.

I loved getting out somewhere interesting, finding a composition, waiting for the light and coming home with an image that looked the way I saw the scene in my head.

Then I had kids.

And anyone with young kids probably already knows where this story is going.

Sometimes Life Changes the Hobby

Landscape photography requires something that’s surprisingly difficult to find after becoming a parent:

Time.

The best light doesn’t give a shit about your schedule.

Sunrise happens when sunrise happens.

Golden hour doesn’t move because somebody needs dinner.

A landscape location might require hours of driving, hiking, scouting and waiting around for conditions that may never materialize.

Before kids, I could do that.

After my kids were born, getting out specifically to shoot landscapes became considerably harder.

Eventually I made the decision to sell my camera gear.

Not because I’d stopped loving photography.

Because that season of my life didn’t leave much room for the way I loved doing it.

And for quite a while, that was that.

Coming Back

Years later, I’m in a different place.

My kids are older.

We travel.

We go places.

And I’ve realized photography doesn’t have to compete with being their dad.

It can become part of it.

So I started buying camera equipment again.

But this time I didn’t rebuild the entire collection I’d once owned.

I bought a Sony A7 V and a Sony FE 24–70mm F2.8 GM II.

One body.

One lens.

And that was intentional.

Why I Came Back to Sony

I wasn’t choosing a camera system for the first time.

I’d already spent years using Sony cameras.

I knew the ecosystem. I’d owned the A6000, moved into full-frame with the A7 II and eventually used the higher-resolution A7R II.

So when I decided to come back, Sony was the natural place for me to start looking.

The technology had obviously moved a hell of a long way while I was busy raising small humans.

The A7 V gives me roughly 33 megapixels on a partially stacked full-frame sensor, Sony’s current subject-recognition autofocus technology, in-body stabilization and up to 30 fps electronic-shutter shooting. It’s also a considerably more capable hybrid stills/video camera than anything I previously owned.

But I didn’t choose it because I needed the largest specification sheet Sony could produce.

I chose it because it sits in a sweet spot for what I want photography to be now.

And that’s different from what photography was for me before.

I’m Not Only Photographing Landscapes Anymore

Landscape photography is still something I love.

I’m absolutely going back to it.

But now I also want a camera that can photograph my kids, travel, cars, motorcycles, everyday life and whatever else happens to be in front of me.

That’s where the A7 V makes considerably more sense for me than simply chasing maximum resolution.

Thirty-three megapixels gives me plenty of room for detail, cropping and prints.

Modern autofocus gives me something my old landscape-oriented shooting didn’t demand nearly as often:

the ability to keep up with subjects that don’t stand the fuck still.

Landscapes are generally pretty cooperative.

Children are not.

Why the 24–70mm F/2.8 GM II

The lens decision followed the same philosophy.

I’ve owned primes.

I’ve owned telephotos.

I know what having multiple lenses gives me.

But I didn’t want to immediately rebuild a giant camera bag.

I wanted one lens that could handle the overwhelming majority of what I expect to photograph right now.

That’s the 24–70mm f/2.8.

At 24mm, I’m wide enough for a lot of landscapes, travel and environmental photographs.

Through the middle of the range, I’ve got everyday photography, family, street and travel covered.

At 70mm, I can tighten things up for portraits and details.

And I have a constant f/2.8 maximum aperture throughout the range.

Sony’s second-generation GM also made the lens smaller and lighter than the original while retaining that constant f/2.8 aperture.

Is it everything?

Of course not.

I’ve owned a 70–200 before. I know exactly what I’m giving up when I stop at 70mm.

I’ve owned the 55mm f/1.8. I know what a faster prime can give me that an f/2.8 zoom can’t.

That’s precisely why I’m comfortable owning neither one right now.

I’m not guessing about what those lenses do.

I’m deciding whether I actually need them back.

My Camera Bag Got Smaller. My Photography Got Bigger.

That’s probably the biggest difference between photography then and photography now.

Before, photography often meant going somewhere specifically to photograph it.

Now photography can mean bringing the camera along while I’m already living my life.

That’s a subtle difference, but it’s a huge one.

If we’re traveling somewhere, the camera comes.

If we’re driving through the mountains, the camera comes.

If the boys are doing something worth remembering, the camera comes.

And if I get an opportunity to disappear into the mountains and photograph a sunrise again?

You better believe the motherfucker is coming.

I haven’t replaced landscape photography.

I’ve expanded what photography means to me.

The Rest of My Current Setup

It’s almost comically small.

Sony A7 V.

Sony 24–70mm F2.8 GM II.

MacBook Air.

Adobe Lightroom.

And an iPhone, because sometimes the camera you have with you beats the considerably better camera sitting at home.

That’s it.

No giant collection of lenses.

No lighting system yet.

No equipment closet.

Not because I don’t know what those things do.

Because I’ve already been through the stage of owning a bunch of camera equipment.

This time I want the kit to grow with an actual reason behind every purchase.

What I’ll Add Next

Eventually there will be more glass.

There will probably be lighting.

There will be accessories.

And because landscape photography is still part of me, there are some obvious directions the kit could eventually grow.

But I’m not interested in filling a camera bag simply because there’s empty space in it.

When I repeatedly find myself needing more reach, I’ll start seriously looking at telephotos again.

When I repeatedly need more light or shallower depth of field, maybe a fast prime earns its way back into the bag.

When I want to get serious about a particular kind of photography that requires specialized equipment, I’ll buy the equipment.

The difference is that I’ve owned enough gear to know that buying another lens doesn’t automatically make you want to take more photographs.

Life has to leave room for photography too.

Photography Came Back Differently

Selling my old gear after becoming a dad wasn’t the end of photography.

I didn’t know that at the time.

It was just a pause.

And when I finally came back to it, I didn’t come back as the same person who owned the A6000, A7 II and A7R II.

My life changed.

My priorities changed.

The subjects standing in front of my camera changed.

So the equipment changed too.

There was a time when I’d drive somewhere because I wanted to photograph the landscape.

Now I might photograph the landscape because I’m already there with my kids.

And someday those photographs are probably going to matter to me considerably more than whether I had the perfect lens in my bag.

So, yes, my current photography kit consists of an expensive camera and one expensive lens.

That’s it.

Not because I’m new to photography.

Because I’ve been doing this long enough to know I don’t need to own everything at once.

The A7 V gives me the camera I want for the life I have now.

The 24–70 GM II gives me one lens capable of covering an enormous amount of that life.

And Lightroom gives me somewhere to finish the images.

Everything else can earn its place later.

Because this time I’m not building a camera collection.

I’m getting my photography back.

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

The gear did its job. Five stars are for the photographs I haven’t taken yet.