Travelling Light

I've done a fair bit of travelling with cameras in the last year, lugging cases onto planes, taking everything I might need to 'get the shot'.  As the trip to Madeira was for a break, rather than any specific photographic trip (such as the Yosemite and Svalbard trips last year), I decided to travel light taking the Olympus OM-D E-M10, along with lenses that cover the 18-300 mm range, with just an iPad for processing and publishing.

The total weight, including tripod and filters was about 3 kgs.  Compare that to the equivalent with my Nikon D810 and good quality lenses, tripod, filters and laptop.  That would weigh in at about 8 kgs!  Not to mention all those other essentials.  I'm not for a second suggesting that the two camera systems produce the same quality output, but unless I intended to create images that I was going to enlarge and need that critical quality the larger system offers, it was a no brainer.  All of the lenses combined for the Olympus weighed less than the lightest Nikon lens.  Don't get me wrong, I love my Nikon system, but as I continue in photography I have to question the amount and mass of equipment I own and wonder whether I can justify  it.

I have created images with mirrorless cameras that have been published in prestigious awards books.  They are not just the preserve of the dSLR or medium format enthusiast.  It is always my camera of choice when walking any distance; not for me the extra 5 kg of weight when hiking across the country.  And the images were well received by you, my fellow Blippers.  It just goes to show the quality of output possible from the many different types of digital camera available to us these days.