Your Gear Weight – A Pressing Issue!
I got a comment from my dear friend, and sister Catherine Martin about gear and I wanted to expand on the issue of the weight of your gear! Why is weight a factor? Let’s set some ground rules, if you are young, under 50, and in good physical condition, weight is much less of a factor. If you are like me and not in tremendous condition and well over 60!!!, it is!!! Only you know how much you can carry without being uncomfortable.
Here is what I’ve learned about trying to carry too much weight: It’s not fun, that’s the short description, the longer version is; when you wrestle to with too much weight, too big a bag, or giant backpack, it makes making images work, sometimes hard work! The more you have to think about those things the less you will enjoy shooting and the more your vision will slip as you struggle with fatigue. For me, it’s just not worth it. I love the fast f 2.8 glass and they make spectacular images, but I’m not willing to trade the joy of shooting for that! Fortunately I don’t have to sacrifice image quality for back health! Today some great alternatives exist. Every camera systems has lighter alternatives to the heaviest gear.
Below is an illustration of the two prime zooms from Nikon the 14-24 and 70-200 both f 2.8 maximum aperture, and the 16-35 & 70-300 f 4 and f 4.5 respectfully. The difference in weight? The f 2.8s are virtually twice the weight of the f 4 lenses!!! Multiply this by all the other gear in the bag! You got it, lots of extra pounds!
The Bottom Line: If you are young and strong, and love to haul a lot of weight around, by all means go for the fastet glass, it sure has advantages, but if you’re not, think about the less heavy alternatives, it will make your shooting days a lot more pleasant and your images will be better when you’re not having to stop shooting in prime light to go and try to find a tube of Ben-Gay!!
Just imagine how much less a Nikon Series 1 V2 and a couple of lenses would weigh!!!!
Blessings,
the pilgrim
This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 20th, 2013 at 4:47 pm
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Good advice Bill. A few years ago I went on a long hike in Yosemite with all my gear on my back. I’ve never done that since then. It made for a miserable day. The worst part is I didn’t need the heavy 80-400 zoom I was carrying. I got it out one time just because I had carried it and was going to use it.
Since then I tend to leave the heavy zoom back in the car when going on longer hikes and use a 1.4x teleconverter to get the extra reach I need.
It just makes things a lot more pleasant!
Thanks for this good reminder Bill. As a journalist with Wycliffe Bible Translators I need to pack “light” for travel, like two weeks at a time kind of travel. My main two lenses are the 16-35 and the 70-200, and a 100 macro for B-role shots, all Canon primes. I have more lenses but I think less is more. Check out Karl Grobl’s work, http://karlgrobl.com/blog/, who is a great photog and I believe only uses two lenses. I agree with Ken Rockwell on one particular point- you will take better shots shooting with what little you bring with you, forcing you to be creative with what you have rather than wasting time changing lenses all day, which = missed shots.
I agree with you, less gear means more attention on the subject! Thanks so much for the link, I love Karl’s work and will visit his sight often!
Loved reading this post Bill. I think those 2 photos of the lenses on the scales tell the whole story. Almost 3 extra pounds! Weight is totally an issue for me when it comes to walking around with my camera, lenses, and tripod. I think about all of us on that His Light Workshop and Tour with you through Red Rock Country. It was a huge decision for me to think about what lenses to take knowing that we wouldn’t be back for hours. I wanted to make sure I had what I needed but I didn’t want to lose the sense of adventure and spontaneity because of too much baggage – so I took my 12-24 wide-angle, 70-300 telephoto, and 18-105. Then I took my 35mm just because I love that lens so much – but I hardly used it. I mostly used the wide-angle and sometimes the telephoto (for wildlife) because of where we were. I did use the 18-105 for some shots of our group. I definitely wouldn’t have wanted another 3 pounds of lenses. I would have missed a lot of shots. The 70-300 telephoto was wonderful on my D7000 for taking the photos of the deer in Zion. Thanks Bill for this great blog post to help think through important decision about gear for our photography.
You are more than welcome! I did a shocking experiment not to long ago, I went into my master folders where I keep my favorite images going back ten years. What I found shocked even me, some of my favorite images were from equipment I now hold in low regard!!!! The determining factor was almost always, SUBJECT. – LIGHT. – & COMPOSITION!!!!!! No matter how much I did or did not regard the gear, it was seldom a large factor! So much for my vast wisdom………… So, bottom line, the best images happen when you’re out there shooting, not on the couch reading test reports…….
That’s exactly right. The point is being out there in the beauty of God’s creation and capturing those images! And by the way, Carl Turner just emailed me the announcement of the D7100. I’m sure it’s going to be a beautiful camera. I’ll look forward to hearing more about it.
Me too!
Once you see it and use it I’ll be looking to you to tell us all what it’s all about 🙂 I love my D7000 so I’m not looking to replace it. Right now I’m looking at the D600 in my future someday. But I imagine the D7100 will be beautiful. And that would be something to discuss someday – how do we handle new gear coming out when we love what we have – there is a balance, because at some point getting the new release of gear is a definite upgrade and we have to go for it.
The question should always be, is my current camera meeting my needs, and in what way would the new model improve my images?,
I am not in good physical condition, but when I want to take some heavier equipment to someplace like the zoo, or an easily accesible trail, I use an off-road jogging stroller that I bought for $25 at a yard sale. I have adapted it to hold my gear, it rolls very smoothly and even has the cover if it starts to rain. This obviously wouldn’t work in all situations but it has worked for me most of the time.
Sounds like a great plan!
You may have addressed this elsewhere but I’m wondering if you shoot mostly in RAW or Jpg. Also I would love to see you do a session of your work flow sometime. Thanks and keep up the good work and the spirit led words.