One camera, one lens (not the usual thread)

I don't do photography for a living but travel for pleasure. If it is to a place I may never see again then I take a back up body. Luckily my wife likes to snap too so having a back up is not a problem. OTH I have not had a body fail on a trip, touch wood.

Bob
 
Take Two. In 42 years of shooting film only one failure. My honeymoon I had only one Nikon F and two lenses. The F lost all speeds above 1/60th so I got very little. OK, I bought it used from Wall street photo in 76 and put several thousand rolls thru it in college but I never expected an F to let me down. Joe
 
sebastel said:
[ amateur_mode ]

i do not understand the possibly underlying paranoia. usually, cameras do not just fail. if you plan a trip to areas that put special requirements on your camera - well, then you should know about that beforehand.
and if your camera happens to fail in spite of your planning ahead, be happy if you have your credit card with you and a camera shop nearby.

[ /amateur_mode ]

[ professional_mode ]

if you get paid for taking pictures, having one or more replacement bodies with you is mandatory anyway, and the question should not come up in the first place.

[ /professional_mode ]
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That depends on where one is going. A few years ago, I took three cameras to Durango, CO for a rail charter trip. One day it rained, if if I hadn't had the Pentax 90WR weather resistent camera as the backup to my two SLR bodies I would have had less pictures at the end of the trip.

Now if I'm rained out a few blocks from home, I can go back another day or swing by the house and get another camera.
 
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So far, not a problem with mechanical cameras. Have had numerous "temporary" problems with battery-dependent cameras over the years (dead batteries).
I don't travel often, but generally carry one M and one or two lenses; Also an ultra compact digital P&S as backup - fits in shirt pocket.
 
Matt White said:
I take everything my baggage allowance permits. Not because I'm scared of breakdown, but because holidays are my most important and least repeatable regular photography opportunities, and I like to mix scenery, wildlife, people and whatever else is worth making images of. So I take whatever I can carry, and then choose day-by-day what gear to go out with, leaving the rest in hotel or apartment.
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Matt: very wise words. Unfortunately, in these wonderful days of "airline security", I find "whatever I can carry" can be remarkably limiting.

A cautionary tale, however:

Last year (ie. June 2007) I and my father went on a wildlife photography course organised through Australian Geographic magazine. I took a 2nd near everything. Lots of people (especially including Dad) pointed and laughed. Too much gear! 'Till Dad dropped his camera, with external flash on, and ripped the hot-shoe off. He took over my 2nd camera. Someone else's card reader failed. I had a spare, which I loaned them. Another had a shutter failure - but I had a film body as "2nd spare", so they could use that. I had hard-disk space (external), film (b&w and colour), spare USB, network and telephone cables, etc. etc. (most of which, one way or another, someone used).

None of which could have been found within a 200k (120mile) drive (and way worse in terms of road conditions). OK - it didn't help me because I had nothing fail or break (mostly by good luck rather than good management) - but I was amazed at how many things did go wrong. And also amazed that nobody but me had a backup plan ...

...Mike

(P.S. my usual and more "general" travel backup plan is an Olympus mju-II aka Stylus Epic which cost almost nothing, takes nearly no space and still takes a good photo. But for "one off" trips like the photo course / rainforest trip I do a little more.)
 
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ClaremontPhoto said:
I'd only ever take one camera.

So long as it was a quality camera.

Why buy a good camera, and then take a back up?
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Because even good cameras can break. And Mvrphy's Law says "at the worst possible time". And even smart people can do dumb things that break or lose a good camera.

Sure, don't plan on it. But if it really is a once in a lifetime photographic opportunity, well, then I'm paranoid enough to want backup.

...Mike
 
When I was living in Thailand in the 80s and regularly traveling around SE Asia, I only had one camera for most of the time - a Pentax Spotmatic, which never went wrong. But had it broken, I would have bought a new camera.

I did eventually splash out on a Nikon F3, and an Olympus XA2 for sticking in a pocket, and the XA2 was a lifesaver once when I was out walking in jungle in Malaysia and got caught in a downpour - I thought I had the F3 well protected, but when I later found somewhere to sit down I placed the camera on a table and was horrified to see a pool of water pour out from the Nikkor 35-135 lens. If it wasn't for the XA2 (which was stashed in my bag in my room), that would have been the end of my photos for the next week or so. (The Nikkor lens was ruined, but the F3 was fine).
 
mfunnell said:
Matt: very wise words. Unfortunately, in these wonderful days of "airline security", I find "whatever I can carry" can be remarkably limiting.
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I couldn't agree more. And, it is getting worse with the fees for checking luggage and the associated congestion of the onboard storage bins. Often I would check a bag of clothes, even if it was small, so I could take a bit more camera gear. Now I carry-on my bag and take only one camera/lens and a lens hood to keep the weight/bulk down. A couple of weeks ago I flew to a wedding and took a Retina IIIC as the sole camera for personal photography. The shots I got were great, but I didn't get as many pics as I should have/could have with another (heavier) camera. Maybe I'll return to Nikon F3/MD4 as my standard carry-about camera since I think I can do more with it. Unfortunately that is the camera that came up with a "false positive" once at airline security checkpoint for traces of explosives... which was a rather inconvenient experience!
 
I'll often take along two different types of cameras, for example a Rolleiflex and the SWC, not because I'm afraid of a failure but because I want to do somewhat different kinds of work. Of course if one failed I could work with the other.

Of course on a paying job or one of those once-in-a-lifetime trips I'd carry backups for backups.

-jbh-
 
In a recent trip to the Middle East, I took with me a Canon P and a Contax T2 as my "full size" and "light" cameras. I often would take with me only one camera and I left the other at home.
 
When I travel I mostly fly.

I take camera and film in carry on.

I have other stuff to take, too, like laptop, etc. Simply no room for much else but 1 body.

I'm with Jon. We put all this emphasis on the quality of our cameras, how light "travel combos" should be, etc. Then why carry a backup ?

Of course I imagine a pro having different requirements.

Roland.
 
ClaremontPhoto said:
I'd only ever take one camera.

So long as it was a quality camera.

Why buy a good camera, and then take a back up?
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Because nothing made by man is perfect.

Leica M2; jammed shutter. Hasselblad 500C; back screws loose/falling out (vibration on a motorcycle tour). Vivitar Series 1 lens, interior lens group unscrewed (same cause, different motorcycle). MR meter; corroded contacts. MPP Mk VII; light leak. Linhof Tech IV; broken ground-glass. Mamiya 645; defective back latch.

That's just me. Another friend shot an entire assignment with a Rollei 35 because the airline lost his main camera outfit for 5 days. Others have had cameras stolen, or dropped them, or even in one case stopped a bullet with one (fortunately a Nikon F).

Edit: It looks as if the amateur/pro divide is wider here than I had imagined. I had assumed that more amateurs took their photography as seriously from choice as professionals have to. Seems I was wrong -- which interested me. Thanks, guys!

Cheers,

R.
 
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Gumby said:
Unfortunately that is the camera that came up with a "false positive" once at airline security checkpoint for traces of explosives... which was a rather inconvenient experience!
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I think you used rather too few, and rather mild, words for how much fun that must have been :eek:

...Mike
 
It's funny: some people (like me) depend professionally on their laptop. If on a business trip, it would break, I might as well return home.

Ever seen anybody travel with two laptops ?

:)

Roland.
 
I used to carry three cameras when traveling---two Nikon bodies and a compact such as Olympus XA or a Rollei 35. Nowadays, I only carry one camera and one lens (Bessa R2 with CV25, Ektachrome 100 film) and a digital camera (Sony R1). I use these cameras as each other's backup. I also use the zoom lens on the digital camera as my tele lens, so I do not need to carry a tele lens for my Bessa. I also use the digital camera for indoor pictures, so I do not need to take a fast lens nor fast film for the Bessa.

With regards to camera breakdown, that has occurred to me only once. It wasn't the camera's fault, but an accident. I was at the start of a China trip a number of years ago and had the Nikon FM2 in my hand. I tripped and fell and landed with my whole body weight on the camera. It made a dent on the side of the top plate and jammed the rewind mechanism. I ended up using the XA for the rest of my trip.

The XA also came to my rescue on another China trip. But that was my fault. I was on the mountain top of Huangshan viewing sunrise. To my surprise, the batteries in the meter of the Nikon ran out of juice. Of course I didn't check the night before, and also left the handheld meter in the hotel room. SO I had to use the meter in the XA to take a reading so that I could calculate the proper exposure for sunrise. BTW, the sunrise pictures turned out fine.

Tin
 
ferider said:
It's funny: some people (like me) depend professionally on their laptop. If on a business trip, it would break, I might as well return home.

Ever seen anybody travel with two laptops ?

:)

Roland.
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Dear Roland,

Ever seen anyone lose all their data?

If I travel with a laptop, the data is backed up and I can use the jump drives/CDs anywhere. No-one gives a toss about letting you use their computer, and a new laptop doesn't cost much in the unlikely event that you have to buy one.

Getting another Leica is another matter.

Cheers,

R.
 
ferider said:
It's funny: some people (like me) depend professionally on their laptop. If on a business trip, it would break, I might as well return home.

Ever seen anybody travel with two laptops ?

:)

Roland.
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Yes. Really. Because they were going somewhere where buying a 2nd laptop (or any PC) wasn't a possibility.

...Mike
 
Roger Hicks said:
Edit: It looks as if the amateur/pro divide is wider here than I had imagined. I had assumed that more amateurs took their photography as seriously from choice as professionals have to. Seems I was wrong -- which interested me.
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I once took my personal photography as serious as my professional photography. As a pro I would carry triple-redundancy backup, and shoot triple-reduntantly. Only had two memorably significant failures (once it was a 'no man-made machine is perfect' scenario and another time it was a 'no man is perfect' scenario). As time has gone by, I take personal photography much less seriously and prefer more to enjoy the experience itself than photographically documenting the experience. But that's just me...
 
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