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 Making do with smaller lenses doesn’t mean giving up quality. The 70-300mm filled the frame for a gorilla close-up. |
Then, there’s you yourself. Can you really carry around a 30-pound camera bag all day anymore? (If you’re under 30, you don’t have to answer that last question. If you’re over 30, you’re beginning to get the idea. And if you’re over 50, you know exactly what I’m talking about.)
Use It Or Lose It. I remember reading years ago about a solo adventurer, famous for scaling Everest alone without oxygen and other superhuman feats, who was so fanatical about saving weight and space on his treks that he cut the handle off his toothbrush and shaved most of the sole off his hiking boots to save a few ounces. His theory was that the ounces he shaved off wherever he could would add up eventually to pounds less that he’d be required to carry.
Planning for two recent assignments brought up memories of that interview I read a long time ago. One would involve flying on bush planes in Africa—total weight allowance on these small aircraft was 24 pounds per person. That’s everything, including clothes, cameras and computer gear. The trip to Peru involved taking the train to Machu Picchu with a recommended per-passenger load of one bag of 14 pounds or so!
Truthfully, I had been looking to lighten my load even before these assignments, but they provided the perfect impetus to get it done. So here’s what I came up with.
Cameras & Lenses. I’ve been a DX-format guy since the beginning of digital (yes, I’m sorely tempted by the excellent high-ISO/low-noise performance of the FX-format D3, D3X and D700, but not by the size of these superb cameras), and the D300 has become the digital equivalent of my all-time favorite Nikon film camera, the F100. Both cameras are rugged and do everything I need them to do and nothing I don’t. But even the D300 is a tad hefty when we’re talking about the severe weight restrictions I’d be facing. Enter the D90—similar size sensor, SD instead of CF cards and a good bit lighter, smaller and cheaper. Yes, it’s not as rugged or as full-featured, but I was willing to make that compromise. I had one body (I’m intrigued by the HD D-Movie function and will write about that in a future column), so I added another and decided to leave the D300s at home.
Lens-wise, I passed over my usual trio of a 12-24mm ƒ/4, 17-55mm ƒ/2.8 and 70-200mm ƒ/2.8 VR—all excellent and stalwart optical performers—and instead took the 16-85mm VR and 70-300mm VR Nikkors. These are smaller, lighter variable-aperture lenses, and I carry them occasionally as spares or backups to my main glass.
I’ve had a long-standing dislike of variable-aperture lenses, but these new VR lenses have helped me overcome my old prejudice. Their ability to allow handholdable shots with lower shutter speeds, along with the excellent high-ISO performance of the D90 and D300, have softened me on their usefulness. Still, I do like to shoot in low light, so I supplemented them with the excellent new 35mm ƒ/1.8 Nikkor and my old trusty 85mm ƒ/1.8 Nikkor, two very small, lightweight primes. As a backup (in case one of my lenses was dropped or stolen), I threw in the excellent, lightweight, all-purpose 18-200mm VR. All told, my bag was about half its usual weight.
What I gave up with this solution, besides size and weight, was also the 12-15mm wide-angle range. I was worried about that, and had the lens been an 18-85mm instead of a 16mm (with wide-angle lenses in this range, every millimeter counts), I probably would have brought it along. But the 16mm is just that much wider, and I found I didn’t miss the wider range much.