gdanmitchell
Offline
Upload & Sell: Off
|
 Re: GFX 100s for travel | |
flash wrote:
Until the OP really gives us some more information on what they shoot, how far they walk and what they do with the images this is an impossible question to answer. Does he/she have physical limitations? Airline restrictions? Zooms or primes? All we can assume is that weight, being a mention in regard to his Sony gear, is a major factor.
For walking and travelling, personally, I have a weight limit. I know how much weight I can carry and be happy. Then I look at what type of photography I'm doing and fit in my kit around that. For that reason almost every trip I do has a different kit. Travelling to Iceland and Tanzania will result in two very different kits. I have both those trips booked for next year.
For me, most of the time, a GFX or X2D kit works well. I love the files and I'll carry the weight. My base kit is currently a GFX100S with 20-35, 45-100, 100-200and an 80mm. That's just under 4kg. That's well under my personal threshold of 5.5-6kg (plus bag and tripod). I'll go all day and night with that kit. But if your threshold is 2kg then my kit's not going to work for you. It's also unsuitable for my Tanzania/Uganda trip. So I need to add/change up to get the right kit for me. If the 55mm 1.7 is out then I can add that. I'll need a couple of fast medium primes for the mountain gorillas and I REALLY want to use the miniMF sensor for them. Plus a XH2 and 150-600 for Tanzania. Plus an XT-5 and a small set of backup lenses, which can stay locked in a safe unless I need them. If the 55mm 1.7 isn't available the whole GFX kit stays at home and I make other plans. I'm not taking a 150-600 to Iceland either. Also while I always take backups, i don't always carry them. Mostly they're locked in a hotel safe. And I might switch from zooms on one day to primes the next.
Travel photography is fluid. It changes for each place and for the ideals and goals of the individual photographer. Gear needs to be fluid as well. I can give you a fixed list for what I carried to weddings, when i shot them. Portraits? Easy. Even commercial underwater shooting and architecture has a fixed kit. But not travel. I don't think I've taken the same gear on any two trips I've ever done. I have four base kits and I work from there to customise to the trip I'm taking.
Gordon
I think we're converging on the idea that we need to know a lot more about the OP's photography, at least if we go with a "traveling to do photography" idea about "travel photography," and not the "photography white I'm traveling" idea.
I think what you are talking about is more like "traveling to a place where I can do wildlife photography. Recently I traveled to the east coast of the US to photograph New England fall color — that was "traveling to a place where I could do landscape photography." Like you, I carried a lot of gear: a complete FF system with multiple (large) lenses, a solid tripod, and a second body and lenses for backup and a short stay in an urban area where I planned to do some street photography. All of that meant carrying an overhead bin-sized camera gear bag plus squeezing a tripod into checked luggage!
But when I "travel" — for example we have a two-month jaunt around a large swath of Europe in our future — I have a different approach. I go with a APS-C Fujifilm body and a small set of primes. The entire kit fits into a shoulder bag and can go under the seat on flights... and the bag also holds a small laptop and other incidentals. Almost all of the photograph will be done without the tripod, I don't want to be burdened by a lot of gear weight, I don't want to "look like a photographer" (with big camera and large camera bag). This is closer to the "photography while traveling" approach — though I do take my street photography seriously while traveling.
So, I'm with you on needing more information. I will say that nothing we've heard so far suggests that "travel to do photography" approach and a plan to carry large amounts of gear — in fact, the OP is pretty specific about NOT wanting to carry too much stuff.
Dan
BTW, regarding your travel weights, when I read what you wrote I thought, "That seems light!" by comparison to some of teh loads I carry for certain purposes. So I looked up your gear, or at least what I think you use.
GFX 100x: 900kg
20-35mm lens: 725g
45-100mm lens: 1005kg
100-200mm lens: 1050g
80mm lens: 795g
4475kg
I'm guessing that you also take more than one battery, a charger, and bags to contain all of this stuff. A solid tripod of the sort I'd expect to use with this gear would add perhaps another couple of kilograms or more, right? That's starting to edge close to 20 pounds of camera gear... and filling a large-ish camera backpack or similar! Start adding in that second camera and lenses and...
... well, I think we're squarely in the "traveling to do photography" zone and pretty far from "travel photography."
|
