Fall 2019 Road Trip; Part II Addendum; Mid-Road Trip Comment About The Gear I Decided To Take

This is all I am carrying in my camera bag.  What I joy to go light this trip!  (click to enlarge)

Just a quick comment on the gear I decided to take on this road trip...  You can read about what gear I took and why, here.


After years of carrying around heavy bags full of large, bulky gear, I cannot describe what a delight it is to only carry a micro4/3 camera body with two zoom lenses.  This kit is small, lightweight, not bulky and has covered 100% of what I've wanted to photograph.  Also, I can honestly say that I have not yet encountered a single situation where a camera with more pixels or a larger format sensor would have made a difference in the final image.  But remember....as I've written a few times in the past...larger sensor cameras show much more of a difference in image quality when photographing "around the edges."  Around the edges means very low light/high ISO, fast focus lock-on and tracking, maximum dynamic range, etc.  Not much of what I photograph any longer are such subject matters.

One of the best aspects of this small, lightweight kit is that I have not hesitated to pick up the bag each time I have left my vehicle or my hotel room so I have never missed an opportunity for a photograph.  With a larger, heavier kit, as I've carried in the past, often I left the bag behind because I didn't want to be "bothered" by carrying a large, heavy bag full of gear.  The bulky and heavy bag got in the way more than was helpful in making my gear available if I needed it.

One aspect of micro4/3 that is often characterized as a negative—more depth of field for a given aperture, distance and focal length—actually became a nice benefit.  In situations I encountered where there was very low light and I also needed a lot of depth of field, the micro4/3 format allowed me to use a wider aperture to achieve adequate depth of field, which translates to a lower ISO (use of a tripod was not allowed).  A full frame camera, which has better noise characteristics at high ISOs (a benefit), would have required me to stop my lens down two more stops to achieve the same depth of field.  Those two additional stops then require 4X the ISO to get the same exposure.  In these kinds of cases, the smaller format with deeper depth of field is a big plus.

So far, I have absolutely no regrets in taking what gear I have chosen to take on this road trip.  At the end of the road trip, I'll revisit this topic and give you my summation as to what I would have done differently, gear-wise.  So far, nothing.

UPDATE: I updated my iPad to IOS 13 and miracle of miracles happened!  I can now scroll through my entire blog text on Blogger.  The Apple gods must have heard my cries for change!  In the future I can travel and blog without having to take my laptop and all of its accessories with me.  Hooray!  Another way to lessen my travel load.

Join me over at Instagram @dennisamook or my website, www.dennismook.com. 

Thanks for looking. Enjoy! 

Dennis A. Mook 

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