My Effort to go Smaller, Lighter and Less Expensive; What Really is my Motivation?

Silky water in spring mountain runoff in Glacier National Park, MT
Nikon D800E, Nikon 24-120 f/4 VR lens, Gitzo Traveler tripod

In the past several years, I have pursued several quests in my life.  Some have been successful and some not so successful.  One overall quest I have endeavored to achieved is to simplify my life. That hasn't worked out very well as I am incessantly involved with different things such as photography, traveling, learning, friends, grandchildren, cosmology, particle physics, archaeology, and many other pursuits.  I seem to stay to busy and too involved to simplify to the level I desire.

One way I have been trying to simplify my photography is to go smaller, lighter, less expensive with less gear when I go out to photograph.  At the same time, I insist on not compromising on quality in my images. After this recent road trip, and analyzing my images, I started to question why I want to downsize.

On the surface, I say "I'm in my 60s and I'm tired of lugging around large, heavy gear as well as taking too much gear whenever I travel, wander, or otherwise go out to photograph.  All of my past gear has been too big and heavy and more readily tires me."  But is that the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? Thinking about it, I'm not sure it is.

As I have previously mentioned, on this recent road trip, I took two "kits" of photographic gear.  On the one hand, I planned to use my Nikon D800E, four excellent Nikon lenses, a Nikon 1.4X tele-converter and lots of accessories for the camera for "serious" work. That is, contemplative work which I would also plan to submit to my stock agency for use by their customers around the world.  Quality has to be top notch.  Anything less than excellent would not be accepted by their editors.  This kit is big, heavy and expensive.

On the other hand, I took my Olympus E-M1 and one lens, the Panasonic 14-140mm f/3.5-5.6 (commonly called a superzoom with a 35mm equivalent of 28-280mm) to do casual work and to use to "record" the journey.  You know the kinds of photographs–the "I was here" photographs that serve as a record of the trip as well as photographs of my traveling companions.

I made about 2200 exposures, about 85% of them with the Olympus.  Why?  Why did I mostly pick up the Olympus for just about everything rather than stick with my plan?  After all, my plan was made for a reason.  Was it due to weight, size, or another similar factor?  Was it laziness?  At this point, I'm thinking convenience and laziness.  It was much easier to grab the E-M1 off the console when getting out of my van rather than opening the back hatch and getting the Nikon gear out.  Easier.  More convenient.  Lazy.  Dangerous words and actions, in my view.

Okay.  What about compromising image quality?  If I was going to use the E-M1 shouldn't I have taken my best lenses instead of "conveniently" only carrying a superzoom?  Absolutely.  Not that there is a lack of sharpness or accutance with that Panasonic lens.  I am happy with the quality of the images I made with that combination of camera and lens., but it isn't my best, therefore, some compromise has to occur.

But there is a difference in the images between the two camera systems.  There really isn't a practical difference in sharpness or detail, as I had previously tested the two cameras using excellent lenses against each other by having custom 20" X 24" prints made.  You would have to get a magnifying glass out to see a practical difference.  We are really past the point of a sufficient number of pixels to handle any but a few extreme uses for our images and with complex computer design, most all lenses are excellent, especially when compared to lenses designed even to 25 years ago.  But in other subjective measures such as color reproduction, high ISO noise and the ability to pull detail out of the deep shadows or bright highlights, there are differences.  More about that in the near future.

So, where am I going with this?

I took the Olympus to use as a walk around camera and the Nikon to do "serious" or commercial work.  But I did serious work with a less than top quality lens with the M4/3 camera, which I shouldn't have done.  The images are very good, but compared to the Nikon, not as good, in absolute terms, due to the lens.  I ended up practicing lighter, smaller and less expensive with a "one camera and one lens that will do everything" attitude and I shouldn't have done that.  I should have stuck to my plan.  The plan was developed for a reason.

Getting back to why I seem to want to downsize, is it because I'm now older and after a day's worth of shooting, get more tired?  Or is it because it is laziness creeping in?  I'm thinking that it is a bit of both but more on the side of laziness.  I actually caught myself thinking, "if I can get away with a smaller camera and one lens, that is less hassle than carrying a large, heavy camera with several high quality lenses..."  "Get away with...?"  We should never use that terminology when we are serious about anything we are doing.  That, my friends, is a recipe for lower image quality, compromise in one's standards and even more laziness.  Mea culpa.  Never again.

It seems that I may have gotten somewhat complacent over the years, with the wonderful quality of smaller, lighter, smaller format and less expensive cameras and have forsaken the work ethic I had developed over years and years of trying to achieve the best I could with my photography.

In the future, if I take the smaller Olympus, which I have proven is very capable of professional results, I will take only my best lenses, use a tripod when necessary, practice perfect technique, work hard at getting the best image I am capable of and hold my standards as high as ever.  I won't be lazy and trust the equipment to bail me out while only taking one super zoom lens.

How about you?  What is the reason you have or are looking at smaller sensored cameras?

Thanks for looking.

Dennis Mook

Many of my images can be found at www.dennismook.com.  Please pay it a visit.  I add new images regularly.  Thank you.


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