Things to do NOW before your cameras get stolen!:

• Record your camera body, back, magazines, lenses etc. serial numbers
• Keep this list separate from your valuables (which might be stolen too)
• Keep a spare copy or two of the list off-site in case of fire, tornado.. (relative, at work..)
• Consider videotaping equipment and home contents, for insurance uses
• Keep records of what you spent on all this stuff, receipts, etc.
• Consider adding current replacement value insurance on these items...
• Check to see if you are insured for thefts away from home, etc.

See Turning Semipro Article postings on inexpensive professional photographer's insurance options, as well as related tax deductibility suggestions and ideas.

With that warning out of the way, here is your reminder to inventory your main photography equipment items. You can easily do this with a camera (even if you have to take *its* picture using a mirror). Videotape cameras are especially popular. You can videotape the items, while describing them and their costs - replacement as well as original. You can also use a camera to good advantage if you lack videotape, with or without a tape recorder. The tape recorder is just faster than writing serial numbers and information down. But the videotape is likely to be a lot more useful and convincing to the police and your insurance adjusters. You may also be shocked at the replacement cost of accessories such as filters and small items which quickly add up to hundreds of dollars.

One of the things we can help you with is some after the theft information and sample photos you can download for showing to police and insurance adjusters. The information on used Bronica prices should be very useful in settling replacement value issues. The various photographs at the Bronica Classic Camera Home Page site and its linked pages should also be very useful. Like they say, a picture *really is* worth a thousand words, at least when you are trying to describe an older Bronica 6x6 SLR to a police office who only uses throwaway one-shot cameras.

Unfortunately, your odds of recovering stolen equipment is usually very low (like one chance in ten or twenty), even with photographs and serial numbers. For this reason, you should consider insurance and other options.

See Backups in Practical Photography for some related ideas on how you can split up your equipment, recycle your older equipment, and generally setup so losses are limited. You generally need to have multiple bodies and lenses in order to be fully backed up, but you can often use your older equipment as backups (which may be worth very little as used and beatup equipment ;-).

My point here is that your losses may be more than just financial costs of lost equipment, including the loss of ability to perform various photography jobs and tasks due to stolen equipment taking much time and effort to replace. Backup practices may help reduce these followup losses by enabling you to continue to take professional photographs while waiting for insurance claims to process and trying to locate a replacement 40mm lens for your medium format setup! Another expensive option is insurance to cover lost business and related work loss costs. Finally, remember that you may be able to tax deduct some of your business losses over a period of time, and don't despair!!!