{"id":587173,"date":"2026-08-08T16:24:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T16:24:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/587173\/"},"modified":"2026-08-08T16:24:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T16:24:16","slug":"steve-mccurry-i-use-this-one-lens-95-of-the-time-with-one-camera-body-and-ive-given-up-using-a-bag-legendary-photographer-reveals-his-current-camera-setup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/587173\/","title":{"rendered":"Steve McCurry: “I use this one lens 95% of the time, with one camera body, and I’ve given up using a bag” \u2013 Legendary photographer reveals his current camera setup"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steve McCurry is probably one of the best-known living photographers \u2013 famous for his National Geographic shoots and that mesmerizing shot of the Afghan Girl, which he shot in 1984 on Kodachrome using a Nikon FM2<\/a> with a Nikkor 105mm lens.<\/p>\n

Aged 76, McCurry is still very actively shooting new images today. And when I bumped into him at the recent Leica SL3-P<\/a> launch in Germany, I was amazed to find out that the legendary Magnum photographer almost always uses just one lens today: a Leica<\/a> Vario-Elmarit-SL 24-90mm f\/2.8-4 Asph zoom.<\/p>\n

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“I do about 95% of all my shooting with that one lens, whether it’s corporate, advertising or personal work”, he explains.<\/p>\n

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In fact, he hasn’t just gone down to using this one fast standard zoom; he has also stripped down his whole camera kit.<\/p>\n

“In the really old days, I used to have a camera bag with all my stuff,” he recalls. “Then I went from that to a photo vest<\/a> with two cameras, both with fixed lenses, lots of film and maybe a third lens.<\/p>\n

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“My system now is a 24-90mm lens, one body, a few cards and a couple of batteries. I have no bag, nothing \u2013 just cards and batteries in a pocket.”<\/p>\n

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Steve McCurry in front of his iconic photo, Afghan Girl, in 2017 (Image credit: Getty Images)<\/p>\n

McCurry switched from Nikon<\/a> with the launch of the Leica SL2<\/a> back in 2019 \u2013 but it wasn’t a move that he made on a whim, or simply because Leica was keen to have him on board.<\/p>\n

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“I did a very careful analysis,” he explained. “I took my Nikon, I took the Leica, and I shot test pictures in the studio and went on the street. I took some of my assistants out. We did some portraits. We did kind of a chart, and we did this over some days.<\/p>\n

“It became evident that the Leica lenses were crisper, sharper, had better resolution. It just became obvious that that was a direction that I should go in, after all that careful analysis.<\/p>\n

“What really matters is the print. I print every day in my Pennsylvania studio. Every day we’re printing for books, for exhibitions, so printing is really an important thing. I need a lens that’s really going to make pictures that result in great prints, and that’s what I’m achieving with this SL series.<\/p>\n

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“I look at a lot of my pictures from before Leica and after Leica, and I’m noticing that with the Leica SL series, I could make much bigger prints for exhibitions than I ever could with film or with the Nikon”.<\/p>\n

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Steve McCurry (right) and DCW’s Chris George at Leica’s Wetzlar HQ (Image credit: Future)<\/p>\n

Despite his former love for Kodachrome<\/a>, McCurry doesn’t chase after the old color slide film look with his digital cameras.<\/p>\n

“When I work with my retoucher, I’m just trying to get the picture to look like what I saw when I was shooting. I’m never trying to achieve a Kodachrome look or a film look,” he explains.<\/p>\n

“I’m just trying to get it right and capture something that feels genuine. It’s not really about the color; it’s more about the emotion, the storytelling aspect of the picture. So for me, yeah, I love good, rich color \u2013 but it has to support the story”.<\/p>\n

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Take a look at the best Leica cameras<\/a> along with the best Leica M lenses<\/a> for rangefinders and the best Leica SL lenses<\/a> for mirrorless.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve McCurry is probably one of the best-known living photographers \u2013 famous for his National Geographic shoots and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":587174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[307,304,305,306,308,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-587173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=587173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/587173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/587174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=587173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=587173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=587173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}