One camera, one lens (not the usual thread)

[pfoto]

I take two MPs (one 0.72x and one 0.85x) and three lenses; 24, 35 and 85 in a small satchel. Seems to cover most eventualities.

 

[35mmdelux]

Travelling all my photo life -- one camera one lens.

Beginning in 2006 -- Leica M7 & two lenses (28,50); Contax T2 (backup).

Today? Probably Leica MP & 35mm Lux, Plaubel Makina, and Epic PS.

[EDITED for clarification]

 

[raid]

I enjoy taking with me two cameras or even a third small camera.

On certain days, it is more appropriate to have a pocket camera and on other days it is more important to choose a specific lens on a full sized camera. This is important to me. I don't thinkof it as back-up but as having alternate choices available to me.

 

[John Robertson]

I used to take just a Leica 111g, and 28mm Orion lens. If it broke would buy a good (i.e. Kodak or Fuji) disposable. Once forgot my cameras, bought a Konica panoramic, and in the Lake district got some lovely shots!!
Now I often just take my Foca Standard with its 35mm lens.

John.
P.S. Have either you or Frances processed Ilford SFX in T.Max??

 

[besk]

I always carry two cameras of some sort when traveling a distance from home.

Had a Nikkormat to jam in 2005. My wife is from Belarus (Eastern Europe.) and has an apartment there. I go there every two years or so for a few weeks and we travel around from there.

In 2005, I took the Nikkormat with a 50 lens to leave at her apartment "just in case" and to keep from hauling it back and forth in my luggage. However, it was not working upon arrival.
I also had a Rollei TLR and an Epic as my main cameras.

A Olympus Epic is so small it is hard for me to understand how a person can not have room for one as a back up.

 

[Chris101]

Like anything mechanical, a camera will only break when you really need it not to. So I only take multiple cameras to non-reproducible sessions. To shoot a mountain, or factory, it will look pretty much the same tomorrow as it does today, so I take one camera. For photographing a wedding, a meet and greet, or the arrival of a statesman, I will take 3 or 4 cameras, a bunch of lenses, lights, reflectors, and a laptop!

I prefer to have less camera/lens choices, and spend less time fussing over what equipment to use. My photography is improved by simplicity.

 

[Doug]

In pleasure travel, for me the main pleasure is in photo opportunities and interaction with the people, often in combination. For my wife it's the shopping, and also we both enjoy getting around and seeing the sights. She has her little Nikon digicam.

I don't take another camera as a backup, but I usually have three cameras. A tiny Canon ELPH with APS b&w film on my belt for occasional use. Two main cameras for different purposes or film or focal lengths. One good combo has been a Fuji GA645Wi with its 45mm close-focus lens plus a Bronica RF645 with 65mm.

Last Fall in Puerto Rico and St Thomas I had two Contax G2 with different lenses on (& the little Canon of course). I'd have the bag in the trunk and grab whichever camera suited the opportunity. But on a walk around Old San Juan I carried the bag with both cameras and four lenses, switching shoulders as discomfort mounted. Should have carried just one camera and another lens.

This Spring for a guided tour of Malta and Sicily I took a Leica M8 with spare batteries & cards, two card readers, and a spare M body because this was my first trip with a digital camera and I was not at all sure of reliability. (Again the Canon in its pouch too.) It ran fine though, and I only used that one body and two of the four lenses I brought. The "backup" body stayed safely in a roll of bubble wrap in the bag left in the hotel. BTW, we had his'n'hers cell phones and Apple laptops along plus a USB backup hard drive. After the busy tour we kicked back and recouperated on Lanzarote. All quite interesting and the M8 performed flawlessly, so now I wouldn't hesitate to take it alone.

There have been other times I've had only one camera on an overseas trip; one time a Fuji GS645S, another time a CLE+40mm, a couple times a single Pentax 67. On a road trip more gear can come along; to San Francisco, Palm Springs, and Yosemite a couple years ago I had a P67 (for landscapes, mostly with 75mm lens) and both Bronica RF bodies, one with color for people shots and the other with Tri-X film. Good to have a bit of different gear to handle a variety of opportunities.

 

[Matt White]

Unfortunately, in these wonderful days of "airline security", I find "whatever I can carry" can be remarkably limiting.

Travel with children: they get a full baggage allowance but only need to carry small clothes and a Nintendo DS. Up to the age of five or so, they're still naive enough to believe it's a privilege to carry Dad's stuff through security checks in their Barbie and Power Rangers rucksacks. Once they get older and wiser, they're still easily bribed into porterage with Coke and chocolate.

 

[Johann Espiritu]

I take my M7 and two lenses (28 and 50), one mounted on the camera and one on the Leica M lens carrier (eliminates the need for a bag - an awesome accessory).

Some rolls of film in the pocket, and a Leica Minilux for backup...

 

[lemalk]

I take a digital P&S (D-Lux 3) just in case.
Of course, it doesn't give me the same quality as my RF or DSLR, but the moment captured imperfectly is better than missing the moment entirely.

How I wish that would've always been the case. I'd give anything to have pictures (or snapshots, even) of what now seem like important moments in the past.

 

[lawrence]

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?

The reason is that even 'good quality' cameras can fail. For the RFF meet up in Berlin in April I took an M6TTL, not expecting any problems, although the thought had crossed my mind to take the M5 as well. Anyway, the damn thing developed a wind-on problem and the shots that did come out were double exposed (althogh, as it happens, I do quite like three or four of them). Fact is that if something is mechanical or electronic it can fail and there is a law that says if you don't have a backup then failure becomes more likely. Over the years I have normally carried two cameras, so natually on the trip I decide to take only there has to be a failure.

There are other good reasons to carry more than one camera:

1. The best opportunities always happen when you are on frame 36
2. You can put different lenses on each body and not waste time switching lenses (much quicker to switch to the other body)
3. You don't have to go to the gym to work out any more (not that I've ever felt the desire to do this personally).

Of course there is the option to leave one body in the hotel, as has been suggested, but suppose you're miles away when the failure happens -- do you really want to go back to the hotel and waste most of the day? No, your time is too precious and opportunities too few to risk all this -- just carry a backup and have done with it.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Why buy a good camera and then buy a back-up? Well...

I've just got back from Arles. At the (quite good) hotel, the socket into which I plugged the M8 charger went off when I turned the bedside light off. After a 420-mile ride the previous day (Sunday) and visiting a LOT of exhibitions on Monday, I slept well and didn't wake up in the middle of the night to notice the problem.

So: Tuesday morning, I have one battery maybe one quarter charged, and the other maybe 50% discharged. I normally get through one-and-a-half M8 batteries on a reasonably busy day.

Fortunately I had also packed my Retina IIa so I was not deprived of a camera. I was also able to find another socket that stayed on all night...

Cheers,

Roger

 

[vincentbenoit]

Hehe... Film cameras do have a future - as backup for digital cameras.

Vincent

 

[Roger Hicks]

or would that be tasteless? All I have to work with these days is the little sigma miracle, and it is just as slow and thoughtful as the rf645... I would love to come back and hang out here again. I miss RFF.

Well, I certainly have no problem with it -- and I love the idea that it's as slow as an rf645. I mean, my Alpa has no RF, and there are TLR and even SLR users here. How do others feel?

Cheers,

R.

 

[Silva Lining]

Recently meeting up with my father on joint a trip to Ireland, my father remarked that I didn't appear to have that much photographic kit with me..., I had an EOS40D, Leica M6, Panasonic Lumix LX1 .....Actually that was me traveling light, I left the 'Blad and Texan Leica at home...!! Point is I always have a back-up as I can never choose which camera to take, so take as many as my method of travel and luggage will allow...just in case I fancy using the Fuji GW690 II....

I'm not pro, but always have more than one camera even if the second one is 'just' a LX1 P&S. In situations where I have to act 'Pro' - such as when I get roped into phtographing a wedding, I will always have a back-up for that particular situation.

 

[Silva Lining]

or would that be tasteless? All I have to work with these days is the little sigma miracle, and it is just as slow and thoughtful as the rf645... I would love to come back and hang out here again. I miss RFF.

Cool for me, heard a lot but not seen too much from the DP1...personally I'd love to see what miracles the Sigma can deliver.

 

[Roger Hicks]

BTW Roger, I just had a look through your website. Excellent. Made me want to set up a wet DR for the 35/4x5 again. I'm on the road for all of May through August every year and haven't found a simple way to pull off a portable film processing system.

Thanks for the kind words.

Consider a Nova Tent. Put an automotive air filter on the input blower and it doubles as an overnight film dryer...

Cheers,

R.

 

[amateriat]

I took my Pentax dSLR out for a walk once, and forgot to put in a memory card. I felt very silly.

Anyone ever forgotten the film?

Now, that, near as I can recall, I've somehow never managed to do (my lifelong M.O. has been to load the camera(s) before I leave or just as I'm heading out the door...wherever that door happens to be).

As far as the old what-to-bring-what-to-leave dilemma goes, I solved that one when I decided to ditch my steamer-trunk-sized SLR system* for a two-body, three-lens RF setup that fits in a sensibly-sized bag. This bag never gets unpacked, since there's next to no extra gear to sort (save for maybe a second flash unit if I feel the need for it). So I often take the whole kit, even if I'm just out for the day if I'm in a more-than-happy-snaps mood. As I've said before, it's quite a liberating feeling.

If I'm more into traveling light, or have other important stuff to do, then it's just one camera: either the Konica Auto S3 (hint to people here using small fixed-lens RFs like this: get a wrist strap for it and attach it to the lug of your choice, then let it dangle...fast, handy, and sometimes a conversation-starter), Ricoh GR-1, Konica Lexio 70, Konica POP, Holga 135, or, on the rare day I "feel digital", the little Casio EX-850. Once in a while I'll take two of the above with me, but mostly feel no need for it, as I've next to never had equipment failure without the camera giving me some kind of heads-up. And the few failures I have endured largely concerned the camera's battery, and that's an easy fix (at least with film-based cameras): bring a spare. They're small.


- Barrett

(*Well, there's still an SLR over here, but, to steal a Monty Python line, "it's a small one": Olympus OM-2n, with a 50 f/1.8 and Old-ish-but-good-ish Sigma 21-35 zoom, which I largely use as a Tinkerbell-class view camera these days. Finally, a good excuse for keeping and using my tripod and monopod!)

 

[sykotec]

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.

Put me in the amateur who takes backup category -

fortunately no problems with any gear, but a recent trip to Las Vegas (everyone - visit the neon museum boneyard!) meant the IIIf with Summitar and CV 15, and the Hexar Silver. Each has their strengths of course, but each was also the 'just in case' should only one make it. Airport security, amusingly, had a different 'routine' at each airpoty - my favorite was popping each roll of film from one compartment of the bag out of the cannister to swab it, yet ignoring the comparement with the other half of the film!)

 

[Russ]

I always take an Olympus 35RC as a backup. Fully mechanical, very small, excellent lens.

wallace

I too, prefer the OLY RC as a back-up. When about town, usually just one SLR and a wide to medium tele. When traveling for an assignment, I'll have no less than three SLR's, a few quality zooms or primes and a couple of poppers. And the indestructable Nikon FM is always included in that kit.

Russ