Julia Jakovleva (@jzeppelina) is an outdoor photographer whose photography often takes her to lesser-known places. As she explores small villages and their natural surroundings, she tries to convey the beauty of these distant corners of the world through her visual stories. Julia keeps her kit light, just a single Sony Alpha camera and two Sony zoom lenses. And to extend her range and creative possibilities without adding bulk and weight she always has a teleconverter bag on her adventures. “With these two lenses and teleconverter I have 24-400mm of focal range fitting into my backpack," she explains. "That makes me ready for experiences and capturing visual stories that matter.” Continue reading to hear more about this gear and how it helps Jakovleva make photographic magic.
This photographer travels to remote corners of the world with her Sony Alpha camera, two zooms and a key accessory for creative options without extra weight.
Camera
Sony Alpha 7 III: Four years ago I shifted to Sony from my prior Olympus mirrorless system. I was looking for a full frame camera with a great dynamic range, efficient focusing, and great low light performance and the Sony Alpha 7 III was a perfect fit for that. And if I wanted to include human or animal characters into my shots, the eye focus and now also animal eye focus have been an amazingly helpful feature.
“I shot this at 24mm focal length as vertical panorama stitched from four horizontal images to fit desired elements into the foreground and background and to make it higher resolution image.” Photo by Julia Jakovleva. Sony Alpha 7 III. Sony 24-105mm f/4 G. 2-sec., f/7.1, ISO 200
Lenses
Sony 24-105mm f/4 G: This was the first Sony lens I acquired and its incredible versatility made it my most used lens of the past few years which would hardly ever leave my camera backpack. Its focal range applies to shooting a wide range of scenes, meaning carrying less weight (especially on the long hikes) and not requiring frequent lens changes which can be crucial in some conditions during the hikes, like abundant rain- or snowfall, wind with dust or sand or moments with quickly changing light.
“A young man passing through Puente de Perrault in Madrid.” Photo by Julia Jakovleva. Sony Alpha 7 III. Sony 24-105mm f/4 G. 1/125-sec., f/8, ISO 200
Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 G Master: I often love shooting close-ups and details of the landscapes and telephoto lens is a must for that. It’s wide open aperture also allows me to shoot portraits of dogs or people with the natural landscape where it provides beautiful compression.
“An isolated spot in Maspalomas dunes.” Photo by Julia Jakovleva. Sony Alpha 7 III. Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 G Master. 1/125-sec., f/11, ISO 100
Accessories
Sony 2X Teleconverter: Without compromising the weight on my backpack a lot, this fulfills my focal range up to 400 mm when used in combination with Sony 70-200 mm f/2.8 lens. This allows me to isolate more details of the distant landscape and even plan for the moon shots occasionally.
“An isolated fragment of the vineyard terraces in Douro valley which I shot at 400mm focal length.” Photo by Julia Jakovleva. Sony Alpha 7 III. Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 G Master + 2X TC. 1/400-sec., f/8, ISO 160
Smallrig L-Bracket: Having this attached to my camera makes it more efficient when I need to change from landscape to portrait mode.
Feisol Tournament CT-3442 Tripod + Sirui K-10 Ballhead: It’s a lightweight and steady carbon fibre tripod without central column which will serve me for a long time.
Nisi 100mm V5 Filter Adapter System: NiSi soft grad ND and regular ND filters 4, 5, and 6 stops. I use these filters for long exposures, to get an artistic interpretation of the scene, when I need to smoothen the fast moving clouds, water in the lake or waterfalls.
Peak Design Capture V3 Backpack Clip: It allows me hook my camera on my shoulder while hiking and keep it within my reach each time I see a potential shot.
Photo by Julia Jakovleva. Sony Alpha 7 III. Sony 70-200mm f/2.8 G Master. 1/640-sec., f/10, ISO 100
Peak Design Shoulder Strap: Helps to keep the camera secured around my body.
Macbook Pro With Lightroom, Photoshop & LR Timelapse: It goes with me on every trip so that I can do backup of my files in the end of every shooting day and do some quick selection and preliminary edits.
Energy Bars For The Hikes: In route to location in the early mornings there is often no time to have breakfast and crunching these bars on the go is a life savior.
Other accessories: 4 Extra NP-FZ100 Camera Batteries, Memory Cards and Portable SSD, Zeiss Cleaning Kit, Job GorillaPod, 3K Tripod, Double Battery Charger, Portable Case For SD Cards.
See more of Julia Jakovleva’s work on Instagram @jzeppelina.
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