selfaware soup

What I Use

This is the gear I use to do my work, for my entertainment, art, and everything else. Everything on this list is something I would recommend based on my needs, preferences and abilities.

Probably not all of it is going to be the right thing for everyone but it works well for me. I’ve used each piece extensively and stuck with it. Your mileage may vary.

Some of the things here are already quite old and I tend to buy things from the second hand market already. They are either only available on places like eBay or there’s newer versions of them.

Contents

• Photography & Video
  • Cameras
  • Software
  • Accessories
• Computing
  • Devices
  • Software & Services
• Music & Audio
  • Instruments & Accessories
• Transportation

Photography & Video

Cameras

• Yashica Mat 124G, a twin-lens reflex that shoots 120 medium format film in 6x6 frames.

  It is lightweight and the top-down viewfinder makes it great for portrait work because I can keep my face unobstructed in order to have a personal exchange with the subject. It has a built-in light meter that’s of limited use as it only goes to ISO 400.

• Rolleiflex SL66, another 120/6x6 camera, fully mechanical.

  It’s an SLR with a top-down viewfinder and brings some unique features: integrated bellows and retro-mountable lenses for macro photography and a vertical tilt mechanism for manipulating the plane of focus. It’s very heavy though so I use it mostly in more stationary situations or on a tripod/monopod.

  Lenses:

  • Planar 80mm/2.8
  • Distagon 50mm/4

• Canon P, a 35mm rangefinder, also fully mechanical.

  This is my go-to 35mm film camera. It’s very no-nonsense and feels great to operate while being relatively light. Due to the M39 lens mount there’s a huge array of lenses available for it.

  Lenses:

  • Canon LTM 50mm/1.4
  • Canon LTM 35mm/2

• Praktica BC1 electronic, a semi-automatic 35mm SLR.

  This was my first decent camera. I got it in 1999 and use it to this day. The integrated light meter is pretty good and lenses for the B-mount system are cheap. It’s a bit heavy though.

  Lenses:

  • Pentacon Prakticar 50mm/1.8
  • Pentacon Prakticar 135mm/2.8

• Canon 5DS, a 35mm full-frame DSLR

  This is my digital workhorse. I use it for digital photography and for scanning my analog negatives. The 50MP resolution is ridiculous and a lot of very high quality lenses are available for reasonable prices today on the second-hand market.

  Lenses:

  • Canon EF 100mm/2.8 USM Macro
  • Canon EF 24-70mm/2.8 USM L

• Polaroid NOW, instant camera

• Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K, a cinema camera that can shot RAW video in 4K and supports Micro-Four-Thirds lenses which opens up a wide set of options.

  I use mine with an adapter for old Canon FD lenses.

  Lenses:

  • Canon FD 50mm/1.4
  • Canon FD 24mm/2.8

Software

• Darktable
  A RAW photo editor that’s available on Linux (among other platforms). Since I mostly do only adjustments and crops of photos and not much detail editing, I can do most of the work in there and even when I occasionally need more, there’s a ton of plugins that will do it.

• Kdenlive
  For editing video. It’s an open-source video editing application that covers everything I need.

• imagemagick
  For batch processing jobs like making thumbnails of images for a website.

• FFMPEG + Handbrake, for converting video formats

Accessories

• Cullmann Magnesit 522T + Cullmann CB-6 Ball Head
  A basic tripod that’s lightweight, sturdy, and has done a great job for me since forever
• Voigtländer VC Meter II
  A tiny light meter than fits flash shoe, great for mechanical cameras that don’t have their own meters
• Essential Film Holder, for scanning negatives
• black and white paper backdrops
• two RGB LED light panels

Computing

Devices

• Desktop PC runnning Debian Linux

  I prefer desktop computers as my main machines because I can set them up with a large screen and the peripherals I want in a permanent way. In 2024, after using Macs as my main computers fo 17 years, I moved back to a custom built Linux PC.

  By now it has replaced other home entertainment devices too and I use it for media playback and gaming too via a long HDMI cable to my TV, elominating the need for a game console or a video streaming box.

  I run KDE Plasma as my desktop environment and most software I need on a regular basis comes with that. Some notable examples that I like in particular:

  • Eliza (music library and player)
  • Okular (document viewer with really good annotation support)
  • Dolphin (excellent file manager)
  • Kate (a great text editor)

  Specs:

  • AMD Ryzen 9 7900
  • 32GB DDR5 RAM
  • AMD Radeon RX 6600 GPU
  • two 1TB NVMe SSDs

  Peripherals:

  • Ducky One 3, mechanical keyboard (white, full-size)
  • Logitech MX Master 3S, ergonomic wireless mouse (white)
  • Roccat Taito desk mat (black)
  • HP Z27 monitor + Fully Jarvis monitor arm
  • Brother HL-3152CDW color laser printer
  • Logitech Brio webcam

• ThinkPad X13 gen 2

  This is my computer on the go and at university. It’s from 2021 but I bought it in 2026 for about 300€ off of eBay with a freshly refurbished battery. I just had to swap out the unlit German keyboard for a US layout with backlight. It also runs on Debian with KDE PLasma. I get 6-8h of battery life from a single charge which I can easily top off with a small USB-C powerbank.

  Specs:

  • Intel Core i5-1145G7
  • 16GB RAM
  • 512GB SSD

• Synology DS416play
  My network storage that serves as media archive and one of my backup destinations. Pretty old by now but recently upgraded to 16TB capacity and still doing great.

• Nothing Phone 4a
  The phone I use every day for communication, casual photography, music, podcasts, etc.

  Notable apps:

  • PocketCasts, podcast client
  • VLC for offline media playback, mostly music
  • Signal, for encrypted messaging

Software & Services

• Zen
  My main web browser on laptop and desktop computers. It’s based on Firefox, can use Firefox extensions, and syncs with Firefos accounts so switching from Friefox was really easy.

• KMail
  KDE’s email client. It’s a little frustrating to set up initially but then it works realy well, especially on a system that runs KDE anyway.

• ZSH
  I finally switched to ZSH from Bash in 2026 and so far it’s been going really well. The differences aren’t too stark but I especially like how it does auto-completion with visible lists of suggestions.

• Kate
  After a while on Neovim I went back to a GUI editor as my default and Kate is just awesome, especially thanks to it’s really good LSP integration.

• a VPN service
  For being sneaky online, accessing geo-locked content, avoiding tracking. The particular service I use can change based on prices and other circumstances.

• Nextcloud
  I set up my own Nextcloud instance for syncing files between my desktop, laptop, and phone without depending on some corporate service that does who-knows-what with my data and it also covers a few other functions like web bookmarks and RSS reader. It’s also neat to quickly share a file through a public share link.

• KeePassXC
  An open-source password manager. It uses the KeePass database format that’s compatible with a lot of other apps.

• Uberspace
  A small german hosting provider focused on fair prices where I host my websites and other things that need some kind of server that’s publicly reachable.

• FastMail
  I’ve been with FastMail as my email provider since around 2012 and never had any issues. I mostly use offline email clients but their web UI is also pretty good.

• Hover
  Where I bought all my domain names

Music & Audio

• Audacity 4
  My main audio workstation software for recording, editing, mixing, etc.

• MuseScore
  For writing sheet music and composing

• Focusrite Scarlett 18i20
  A rack-unit audio and MIDI interface with tons of inputs, outputs, and routing options. It connects my computer to any analog audio device like instruments, headphones, microphones, etc.

• Tascam DR-07X
  A small handheld field recorder for capturing audio through stereo mics. Good for recording things outside, interviews or podcasts without needing a full computer

• Beyerdynamic Custom One Pro, studio headphones

• Apple Airpods Pro
  For on-the-go audio and noise control. City life would be near impossible with out that for me.

Instruments & Accessories

• Epiphone EB3 (red)
  An SG-style passive bass guitar with jazz pickup placement

  Plugged into:

  • Ampeg BA-110 practice amp
  • Zoom B1 Four, bass multi-effect pedal, tuner, and headphone amp

• Harley Benton fretless bass (black/orange)

• Yamaha CP88
  A stage piano with mechanical key action

• Moog Slim Phatty
  A classic analog monophonic synthesizer

• Lyra 8
  A drone synthesizer with rather strange controls that is played by hand

• Strymon Bluesky
  A small but capable reverb pedal that handles line level and guitar signals

Entertainment

• LG 48C1
  OLED TV with really good picture quality and one of the few that was even available in “smaller” sizes (under 50 inches) so it would fit the viewing distance in my room

  It serves only as a display device and is not connected to the network. I don’t use any of its “smart” features.

• Onkyo HT-R494
  AV receiver and 5.1.2 surround system

• TEAC TN-175
  A pretty simple but decent turntable

Transportation

• “Marlene”, my cargo bike and the only bicyle I use currently:

  It’s a Bullitt, the plain aluminum version, with an 8-gear hub and belt drive, and I fitted it with a cruising handlebar for a more upright position.

• a public transport ticket for local and regional trips in all of Germany (excluding high-speed trains)