Matt Zefi is a filmmaker and nature photographer who has spent the last year living full time on the road documenting wild spaces around the United States. “Gear becomes even more important when there’s no camera store down the street to pick up an emergency piece from, which means my kit needs to be reliable,” he says. “It gets rained on, snowed on in harsh Wyoming winters, tossed around on Alaskan bush planes, coated in moab dust, and shaken on hundreds of miles of washboard roads. That's the sort of field testing everything in this bag has passed through. I film and photograph wildlife and landscape work across the U.S., and I take professional client work anywhere it takes me, from Alaska to the Amazon Rainforest.” Keep reading as Matt shares what you’ll find in his bag.
Shop This Kit:
–Camera: Alpha 7 V, Alpha 7CR
–Lenses: 28-70mm f/2 G Master, 600mm f/4 G Master, 16-35mm f/2.8 G Master II, 70-200mm f/2.8 G Master II, 14mm f/1.8 G Master, 55mm f/1.8 ZA
–Accessories: Sony TOUGH CFexpress Type A Memory Cards
Cameras
Alpha 7 V: I preordered the Alpha 7 V at launch and it’s been my absolute go-to. My all-around body for everything: films, client work, wildlife, landscape, all of it.
33 megapixels is the sweet spot for how I work. It's enough resolution that I can crop into a distant animal and still deliver a file I can print, but not so much that a two week shoot fills every drive I own. It’s capable of 30 fps burst photos and while I don’t use that 100% of the time, having the Speed Boost allows me to easily toggle it on when it matters most. The Pre Capture feature also allows me to start taking photos by half pressing the shutter button, and then once I fully press the shutter, it saves them so I never miss a moment.
What I value most is that it doesn't make me choose. I've been on shoots where I'm rolling video on a grizzly bear, then switching to still thirty seconds later. The video capabilities are especially impressive, and having 4k/120p to get slow motion footage of once in a lifetime wolf behavior has solidified this as one of my favorite Sony cameras to date.
Alpha 7CR: Okay I know I said the Alpha 7 V is one of my favorites, but if you’ll allow me, I’d also like to put the Alpha 7CR in that category as well. This is my lightweight travel and vlogging body. I used it on the Camino de Santiago where I walked over 100km across Spain and Portugal with just this camera and I was grateful for its compact size.
It's the camera that solves a specific problem: I want full frame resolution without full frame bulk. Paired with the Sony Zeiss 55mm f/1.8 or the 16-35mm G Master II, the whole kit fits into a small pack, and I can just always have a camera on me.
Photo by Matt Zefi. Alpha 7CR. 28-70mm f/2 G Master. 1/250-sec. f/4.5. ISO 250.
Its ability to fit in small spaces allows me to get unique angles as well, plus I often choose it for any car mounted shots that I want to get since most suction mounts can handle its weight. And since the video side can do 4k30p and slog 3 with impressive dynamic range, it can blend easily with my other Sony bodies.
Lenses
28-70mm f/2 G Master: This is my number one all-around lens, it almost feels illegal. A constant f/2 across a standard zoom range in a size you can actually carry, and it combines about three prime lenses into one slot in my camera bag. I use it for everything: photo, video, client work, my own films. If I had to choose one lens, it would be this one, and that’s often the case when I’m traveling as well.
Photo by Matt Zefi. Alpha 7CR. 28-70mm f/2 G Master. 8-sec. f/2. ISO 2500.
I don't need to stop to think about whether I should swap for something faster or wider, and in documentary work the swap is valuable time. It stays on my camera 70% of the time. Also, sometimes I like to take portraiture of friends and family, which is another area it excels in.
600mm f/4 G Master: Well, it’s a lens that needs no introduction. The sharpness is unmatched, the subject separation at f/4 at 600mm is unlike anything else, and the autofocus locks onto an animal quickly while it moves through grass and brush. I’ve gone back and forth on the 600 vs the 400mm prime and I ultimately made the decision by seeing which focal length I used the most on my 200-600mm and by and large, it was 600mm. It's incredibly important to not disrupt or change the course of wildlife in any way and having this focal length lets me work at a distance.
16-35mm f/2.8 G Master II: My go-to for landscape and vlogging! For landscape it's wide enough to put a mountain range and a foreground in the same frame without distorting either. For talking to camera it's wide enough to feature me and the place I'm standing in, without having to extend my arm out to an uncomfortable degree. I had the mark one of this lens, but the GM II is shockingly light.
Photo by Matt Zefi. Alpha 7CR. 16-35mm f/2.8 G Master II. 1/125-sec. f/5. ISO 320.
70-200mm f/2.8 G Master II: My favorite b-roll lens, and my close-range wildlife lens. If a subject is close enough to shoot at 200mm, it's going to look insanely good, and that's just been true every time. There's a compression and fall-off in this range that makes ordinary things look extraordinary. Most of the detail shots in my films come through it: hands, gear, steam off a cup, product shots, and everything in between. And it's remarkably light for what it is, which matters more than it sounds like it should when it's the third lens on your back hiking miles in the snow.
Photo by Matt Zefi. Alpha 7 V. 70-200mm f/2.8 G Master II. 1/640-sec. f/2.8. ISO 800.
14mm f/1.8 G Master: The widest lens I own and a favorite for astrophotography. f/1.8 at 14mm means short enough exposures to keep stars as points rather than streaks, and enough coverage to put an entire sky over a landscape. It comes with me on clear nights and in tight interiors, and it does both better than anything else in the bag.
55mm f/1.8 ZA: My first love. Years later it's still fantastic. It's the most affordable lens I own and one of my favorites, and the character it delivers, the bokeh and the way it renders, is something special. I’ve used it both for photo portraiture and 99% for video. It’s incredibly lightweight, so balancing it on a gimbal makes for some incredible shots. 55mm is one of my favorite focal lengths as well, it offers a sweet spot of compression, especially at such a fast aperture of f/1.8 letting in a ton of light.
Accessories
Shimoda Action X70: The only camera bag I’ve ever consistently used because of how much it holds. I can keep my 600mm with a camera mounted on it for those off the cuff moments.
Shimoda Filter Wrap: All my filters live in one place instead of four pockets. Plus there’s enough storage on this to carry other accessories like USB adapters and allen keys.
Photo by Matt Zefi. Alpha 7 V. 600mm f/4 G Master. 1/500-sec. f/4. ISO 800.
PolarPro Everyday Filters (Bloom + CPL): The polarizer and bloom combo of this filter makes it my go-to for both photo and video.
LensCoat TravelHood and Camo: I like to protect my lenses with a lens coat, mostly for cosmetic reasons since they're already so incredibly robust and durable. Plus the camo looks cool.
Peak Design straps and clips: A camera on my chest instead of in my bag is a camera I actually use.
Photo by Matt Zefi. Alpha 7CR. 28-70mm f/2 G Master. 1/250-sec. f/8. ISO 800.
Sony TOUGH CFexpress Type A Memory Cards: The Sony TOUGH cards are incredibly fast and easy to offload from. I’ve got 1TB which admittedly I purchased before the recent rise in storage cost.
Solar Panels: I travel with 800w of solar panels since I’ve been off grid for about a year, these panels power everything from hard drives, cameras, and drones.
AeroPress: I will only drink coffee from this device if we’re being honest.
Photo by Matt Zefi. Alpha 7 V. 600mm f/4 G Master. 1/800-sec. f/4. ISO 3200.
Filson Mackinaw Cruiser and Flint & Tinder Hudson Waxed Jacket: The elements can rapidly when you’re at 10k feet filming mountain goats so these have covered me for whatever the West decides to do that day. The Filson is heavy wool that still works when it's wet, and it's what goes on at 5am in Wyoming and doesn't come off until the light's gone. The other jacket is a waxed shell for everything milder, wind, rain and shoulder season. When it's genuinely bad the wool goes under that and I stop thinking about the weather entirely. The cruiser is actually from 1945 so I’d say it’s pretty durable.
Blundstone Boots: No laces are especially nice when the sun is rising at 5:30am and you’ve got to be 5 miles into hiking somewhere to capture it!
My Camper: This may not count as an accessory but having a home base for these adventures can make all the difference. I moved out of NYC and into this tiny 96 sq ft camper so that I can be more integrated in nature which in turn allowed me to live in places like Yellowstone and Glacier National Park for entire seasons. It’s much more efficient to photograph nature when you can see Grand Teton from your window and the neighbors are wild creatures like Grizzlies and Wolves.
See more of Matt Zefi’s work on Instagram at @mattzefi, on YouTube via Matt Zefi Studio and Matt Zefi, and at his website.
