The exciting conclusion to “Inheriting a bag of mystery camera gear”

Nearly a month ago now (yikes!) I mentioned that I would be receiving some inherited camera gear. It arrived a few weeks ago but I only just got around to shooting it now, partly because I wanted to try a particular photographic technique for shooting the gear. A couple years ago Joe was trying a blackwater technique that produces some really nice reflections and is pretty spiffy for doing product shots. I wanted to do the same but I didn’t have any of the equipment to do it. After trying Joe’s gear that he had left behind in Rochester I set out to make my own setup for it and today using Nate’s Profoto strobes I finally got the chance to shoot some of the goodies from the bag.

Inside the dusty old Tamrac bag was a collection of batteries & film but the pieces of interest were the Canon EOS A2 with a 35-80mm lens mounted, the Canon Elph APS point & shoot camera and the two additional lenses. Those lenses were the Canon 75-300 f/4-5.6 IS and the Canon 100mm f/2.8 macro lens. I used to own a copy of the 75-300 IS but sold it quite a few years ago and I own the replacement for the 100 2.8 macro, the 100 2.8 USM macro lens.

As far as what I’ll use or keep, the only thing I think I’ll use is the 75-300 IS. It could be quite the handy travel telephoto lens and I had been thinking lately about how I wished I still had the one I sold. Score! Problem solved. I suspect I’ll sell the 100mm f/2.8 macro since it’s redundant for me and I know a few people who would like to have a lens like that. Everything else will eventually find a home on a shelf as part of my museum of retired camera gear.

Check out the other two shots of the major goodies below. I was lazy with the lighting, I would have done a bit more with it to get things exactly the way I wanted but I really just wanted some quick shots of this gear and to give my new blackwater setup a test to see if it would do as desired. I’d declare it a definite success.