What's In My Camera Bag

What's In My Camera Bag... 2025 Edition

Over the past few years, I have owned and used almost all of the high-end mirrorless cameras from all the major brands, including Canon, Fujifilm, Nikon, Olympus, Panasonic, and Sony.  Each of them comes with a mix of compelling features as well as some irritating compromises, and none of them is perfect for all situations.  All of these cameras are capable of producing excellent results, so the question of which is the "right" camera system mostly comes down to personal preferences.  

In terms of over-all performance, the Canon EOS R5 II is easily the best camera on the market in 2025, especially when size, weight, and cost are factored into the equation.  However, Canon's current mirrorless lens lineup is somewhat limited compared to the competition, and I found Canon's premier RF 600mm f4L IS telephoto to be a little difficult to work with due to it size and weight distribution, so I decided to move back to the Nikon system to take advantage of their fairly extensive line of smaller and lighter telephoto lenses.  

It's not a perfect solution, though - Nikon's autofocus performance, exposure metering, and white balance detection are all a notch or two below the current Canon and Sony cameras, and the stacked imaging sensors in Nikon's flagship cameras have less dynamic range than the competition.  As a wildlife and nature photographer (and for any type of photography, really) the lenses are the most important part of the kit, so the camera performance trade-offs are still worthwhile.

 As of August 2025, my current camera kit for wildlife, nature, travel, and landscape photography is based on the Nikon Z mirrorless system:

Nikon Z9  45-megapixel mirrorless camera

Nikon Z8  45-megapixel mirrorless camera

Nikon Z6 II  24-megapixel mirrorless camera

Nikon Z7 II  45-megapixel mirrorless camera

Nikon Nikkor Z 14-24mm f2.8 S lens

Nikon Nikkor Z 14-30mm f4 S lens

Nikon Nikkor Z 20mm f/1.8 S lens

Nikon Nikkor Z 24-120mm f4 S lens

Nikon Nikkor Z 28-400mm f4-8 VR lens

Nikon Nikkor Z 105mm f2.8 MC VR S macro lens

Nikon Nikkor Z 180-600mm f5.6-6.3 VR lens

Nikon Nikkor Z 800mm f6.3 VR S lens

Nikkor Z 1.4x TC teleconverter

Other Equipment I Use:

Apple MacBook Pro laptop computer
Gitzo carbon fiber tripods
Arca-Swiss ball heads

Kase, Lee, and Zeiss filters

Dynamic Perception Stage Zero motion time lapse rig (now discontinued...)
Clik Elite, MindShift and ThinkTank camera bags (you can never have too many camera bags... )