Let's talk about Gear

Choosing gear is about your budget, your goal and your passion.

I remember talking with a guy on a beach about photography and when he saw my camera he told to his woman I want a camera like that mine is not enough to do great pictures. But he already had a good camera and when I asked him what are you doing with your camera, what is your limits when you play with it. He cannot aswered to the questions.

Camera is about the kind of photography you need to do, and your vision of a shot. Why you need low light good camera when you work in studio with light.... why you need lenses f1.8 14mm when you do portrait... it's not about got a lot but doing best with what you've got and when you need specifics uses buy what you need.

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As underwater photographer I need wide angle to get pictures of whales or to do mid air mid water. Or macro lenses to get very close macro and f1.8 or 2.8 are greats to get great bokeh to erase bad background and to stay focus on the main subject.

So first use your material at their max before thinking to get better, and try to put yourself also at the max of creativity before thinking to get a better camera.

Another reason why I change for example my GH5 to a S1 Panasonic it's for printing with GH5 PPI is around 150 and S1 at 300 PPI. What it means I've got more details with a S1 than a GH5 on a computer you would not see the difference between the two but when you print in big format you will see the quality with a S1. At the opposite the GH5 is more for video than printing and get great stabilisation. So for video I use my GH5. Think about what kind of work you need a camera. The best is to get the 2 cameras for different works.

Buying a camera it's also about what kind of images you want to show. I choose to play with Lumix Panasonic to get a certain tone images. Nikon got is style, Canon also. I dont want to get the same images than Greg Lecoeur ou Renée Cappozzola I want to develop my own style. Using a camera is like using a pen or a paint. I'm not sure it's very cool to see someone looking your work and say oh another Greg Lecoeur or Paul Nicklen...

Choose your camera to define your own style. And dont forget to think outside the box.


Drone for Nature : Today drone is an important part of the gear you need. Give you different point of view and expande your creation. You can use to great landscape in photography or to make a point of the situation where you are in a video. It's a real important part of the gear. For me it's just impossible to image creativity without a drone. I play with a Dji mini 3 pro just arrive what I love in it it’s a 48 millions pixel camera at f1.7 and you can shoot horizontal or vertical directly with the drone. I never use the Zoom on it the closer you are the better it is. 

Bag : I try many bags with travel and boat (and salt) lot of them killed by blocked zip and I put the price on a LowePro 350l and I am really happy of this bag place for 2 lenses and one camera with a Dji Air mini pro 3, SD card, lot of possibilities of change. Really love this bag you can find it here : LowePro 

Housing :  Nauticam SR1 I love to get all function I’ve got on earth when I am underwater. Don’t forget when you buy a housing you also buy dome. What I love is I can change my lense without move my dome on the housing like I have to do on GH5 Housing Nauticam.  It’s always pleasant to feel secure with my camera when I am underwater. 

Lenses : 
Leica 16-35mm f4 : I really love this lense the most I play with for underwater and landscape a must have!!! 

Lumix 24-105mm : use this one long time but since I’ve got my 16-35, I used it less or when I don’t know what I will see underwater. I can play wide or macro with it 

Lumix 70-200mm : what a great surprise there my new tool expecting to shoot whales and dolphins at the surface And it’s a really great surprise!!! Really reactive on it and get some really great shot very close to action with a sharp image. Not frustrated as I could be with the 24-105mm not close enough at 105mm for big animals. Don’t use this one underwater due to near 1meter to get focus it’s a bit too far for me. 

Sigma 70mm f1.8 : love it on earth, less underwater very noisy for animal. But I now use it for portrait and it’s a good surprise but for me it’s not a really good macro lense I prefer to use my 24-105mm for that.