Rediscovering The Joy of Travel
Recently I have switched from Nikon D810 to Fujifilm X-T1 to purposely rediscover the joy of photography and light travel. Here’s what happened.
There are hundreds of articles of photographers switching from Canon to Nikon, or from DSLR to mirrorless or from mirrorless to a smartphone. This is not one of them. While I did switch to a new system, I did so of the purpose of achieving my goal of travelling light.
My last trip to Russia-Germany-Iceland I packed a combined 60 Kg of stuff — promo swag, things for the family, and also photo-equipment. In total, I was hauling around a 20kg photo bag, and another 7kg photo bag with a drone.
Carrying around Nikon D810, a bunch of lenses, adaptors, battery packs, big RRS tripod, DJI Phantom drone is not something anyone can honestly enjoy, so when I got home, I reevaluated what I needed for my travel.
As the result, I put together this lightweight set:
- Fujifilm X-T1
- Fujinon 10–24mm f/4 (16–38mm equivalent)
- Fujinon 23mm f/1.4 (35 mm equivalent)
- Fujinon 56mm f/1.2 (85mm equivalent)
- Gitzo 2542 tripod w/ Acratech GP-s
- Small set of LEE filters 0.6 grad, 10 stopper & step-up rings
There are a few similar mirrorless systems on the market, but I choose Fujifilm for two practical purposes — organically, a lot of our team has bought or switched to Fujifilm, so there’s a chance to share lenses or accessories, and as Fujifilm is a title sponsor of the global photowalk, I got myself a loaner for a month, which I plan to replace with my hard-earned set when the loaner is due for a return.
Basically, I looked into what I usually shoot, and discovered that most of my landscape photos are wide-angle. Anything that I shoot in the city is around 35mm and most portraits are obviously in 70–135mm range, so 85mm is a sweet spot.
Now, for my last two trips, 4 and 12 days, everything I have is in a carry-on, as opposed to multiple bags, where tripod alone was so massive, it only fit in a big check-in luggage.
Travelling with such a kit makes me way more mobile. I feel less lazy carrying around a lighter, but still sturdy tripod with me, and I feel that having a camera that doesn’t hurt my back or neck is a good camera.
