Photography and travel are synonymous. Photographs are those almost free souvenirs that help us to remember where and what we were doing. They’re our go-to memory joggers and for many of us modern day travellers they’re now also our travel diaries!
Over the past ten years I’ve travelled almost exclusively with a large digital SLR (in the case of travelling to Africa, 2 SLRs), resplendent with multiple lens to help capture “just that moment”. My SLRs have certainly enabled me to capture some pretty impressive photos and I haven’t regretted carrying the weight. However, for my last trip I did the unthinkable and left the SLR at home and just used the good ole iPhone.
So why the sudden change… Why did I, a “dyed in the wool”, “will only travel with my SLR”, decide to ditch the rig and head out with just my phone for my memory diary? For starters, tech has come a long way in the past ten years. Ten years ago, the cameras in phones were pretty average and the software for editing said photos wasn’t much better. If you took a “mean shot” with your phone and wanted to blow it up to display on the wall you could go as big as A4 before the grainy-ness, grained out any image. But these days, as the mega-pixels have gotten bigger and my desire for displaying said “mean shots” has waned, I’ve considered the wisdom of carting around the gear.
So to SLR or to Phone… Lets start with me telling you a bit about my SLR journey and how I manage to “cart the gear”. SLRs are heavy.. don’t kid yourself into thinking “but it doesn’t feel too heavy”.. dangle it around your neck for more than an hour and then tell me how light your camera weighs! If you want to lug around an SLR you do need to have the right carrier. I’ve always attached my camera holder to my waist belt of my day pack. I definitely shout “tourist” from a mile away to any wannabe thieves but I’ve hardly ever had a sore neck/ shoulder/ back from lugging around the camera.. and I’ve never had anyone try to steal any of my gear– it is fastened to my waist so it isn’t super easy for someone to unclip it, grab the gear and do a fast get away.
Many SLR tourists, have specially built backpacks for their camera gear.. I’ve always shied away from these types of carriers as they really don’t suit “quick” photography.. Great if you are happy to spend hours and hours setting up for “just the right shot”– in fact, almost necessary if you are really fair dinkum, but pretty hopeless if you are just wanting to happy snap your way around the world. Considering I’ve always considered myself a happy snapper I’ve stuck to something easy to carry and also easy to grab for that “perfect shot”.
The next thing to discuss with SLRs is the lens or lenses in many people’s cases. For most entry level SLRs you will find that camera stores often bundle two lenses in with your camera.. Normally you will get some sort of 35-55mm lens and often a 50mm-200mm zoom lens. The first thing to know is that having multiple lenses is a pain in the you know what.. For starters, you have to carry multiple lenses and secondly you run the high risk of dust entering into your camera body and getting on the back of the lens/ sensor/ mirror etc. I’ve always invested in an all-in-one lens or one that i will be happy to shoot most of my photos with. In the early days I invested almost as much as my first camera in just one lens an 18mm-200mm.. The purists will tell you that your photos won’t be “quite as clear” as you would get with specialised lenses (and they’re probably right) but again if you’re not going to be hard core into your photography I guarantee you’ll be fine with just one. My current rig has me using a zoom lens on one camera body and a 14-75mm for most of the day to day on my other camera body. So at the moment for most trips I’m taking just one of my cameras and running the gauntlet on only being able to take wide angle/ close-ups and not being able to take photos of images at distance.
So back to my thinking around moving away from my Nikons and back to the old iPhone. Firstly, one of my favourite photos was shot on a phone not on my big gear. Secondly, maybe its time I took my own advice! I’ve been asked by many people over the years about whether they should invest in an SLR for photography. I always counter this question, with a question of my own, “why do you want to buy a SLR?”. If they answer, they’ve always loved photography and they want to learn how to do those really cool time lapse photos, or they want to get into portraiture/ macro photography and are willing to invest in a course to learn how to use their camera then I tell them to go right ahead and invest in an SLR. Most people though will answer me with “I want a good camera to just take good photos of the kids/ holidays/ events etc”. Generally, in that case I’ll ask them questions like “and what do you plan to do with your photos? Are you going to blow them up and display them around your house or do you plan to just look at them on your computer?” More often than not this is where people will sheepishly admit that they really only want to take good photos for FB/ Insta etc or that they want to keep photos as a memory of key events.
And that’s the rub.. When it comes right down to it, most of us just want to take photos that we can proudly show to our friends and family about key events in our life. Photos aren’t really developed and displayed anymore around the house. In most cases they are now just pictorial diaries of key events that we share visually via the net. Which is why, I’ve now finally decided to take my own advise and put away the SLRs (I haven’t quite got to selling them yet but ask me in another year or two) and just carry my phone.. The newest phones have decent lenses, photo developing software is now application based (so you can edit on the fly) and you can buy clip on lenses (by some of the top lens makers no less) for your phones to enable you to have some zoom capabilities so for the majority of us “happy snappers” we just don’t need the gear!