raphaelfranco

Everyone, thanks so much for your replies. Because I'm from the US, the insurance policies I looked into were always prohibitively expensive. I know there are usually much better options in the EU, but unfortunately they aren't available to us yankies. So short of finding a better policy, I'm at least going to put a small tracker in any of my equipment bags. But thanks a lot Andrew Reid for the reply about lenses. You may have guessed that some of my package I put together based on suggestions from your GH2 guide from back when. I think it makes a lot of sense to get the GX85 and wait for the GH5, and the sigma 18-35 + metabones speed booster seems for sure the way to go,,, but you wouldn't suggest a 25mm (meaning 50mm bla bla) prime? I hear you about Lumix glass, but curious if you suggest a better 25mm lens - was looking at the voigtlander but $$$ Thanks for again for the tips.

Last week I was traveling on the train from Amsterdam to Berlin. My bag with all my gear was in the compartment above my seat, I looked down to answer a phone call and when I looked up a minute later the bag was gone. The police on the train said it was a probably a team who had followed me on the train from the platform. Of course I felt stupid for losing it, but I also decided not to dwell on what I couldn't change and find my way back on my feet as efficiently as possible. I won't go into the whole story, but I have been shooting a documentary for the last 4 years on my GH2. Personal-view was a huge asset in helping me assemble the kit I have been using with what have felt like great results. But all my camera equipment, lenses, sound gear and my 16TB harddrive was in the bag. Thankfully I have a backup HD in NYC, so I only lost a few interviews and a couple days of work, but I didn't have insurance. So my gear is gone. I have actually taken the loss better than I would have expected. I've been able to keep a positive attitude, and a freelance job came out of nowhere the day my stuff was stolen so that I will be able afford to replace most of what I lost. In total I lost around $6,500 worth of gear. Now I need to replace it to be able to keep shooting. I will buy another GH2 for sure, but I also thought it would be interesting to post about what happened and hear if there are any suggestions from the community about possible upgrades, so that the misfortune actually becomes an opportunity to enhance what I was working with. Of course I will need something that can cut with my hacked GH2 footage, but a lot obviously changes in 4 years... so if any of you could put yourselves in my situation, what purchases would you make to update and replace your kit? Here are the lenses I lost: SLR Magic 12mm Lumix 20mm pancake Lumix 25mm 1.4 Lumix 12-35mm Olympus 45mm Olympus 40-150 Rokinon 85mm and the sound gear I had: Sennheiser MKH 40 Sennheiser wireless Lav kit w/ a Countrymen Lav mic Zoom H6 Many thanks for any suggestions.