Matching the best camera system to the occasion

Before Covid, my primary photography genres were Birds in Flight and Street. Since then, my interests and skills have expanded to cover Landscape, Macro and Astro photography. I’m not a professional photographer, so I mostly take shots by travelling to a specific location for a specific purpose, either locally in the UK or on major planned trips abroad. Often the location will offer multiple genres, and increasingly I dither on what is the best camera to take with me. It’s all about matching the camera system to the occasion, and I have got my thoughts together on this sufficiently to write them down.

The hierarchy of trip importance

For me, there is a descending hierarchy of how critical the camera system is to the trip

1. Once in a lifetime photo-focussed trip – for example the 2023 trip to the Lofoten islands to shoot the aurora, where photography was the sole objective. The main genres were astro at night and landscape during the day, but opportunities were there for BIF shots also.
2. Once in a lifetime travel-focussed trip – for example, my 2024 trip to Taiwan, where travel experiences were the most important, but there were many great photography opportunities across landscape, street and BIF
3. Photo focussed trip– an example is my landscape project on English piers and bridges, where BIF and street opportunities are always present, or a BIF trip to Bempton cliffs, where there are also great landscape opportunities, particularly at sunset.
4. Travel focussed trip – where photography is purely an incidental, and the camera system cannot take up too much space. A great example was the 2023 trip to New York, where I took some great street and river shots, but the main focus was NYC arts and performance.

System factors to match the importance

For the once in a lifetime photo trip, you probably want the best system possible, and also a backup camera in case the main one fails. At the time of the Lofoten trip, I had both a Nikon Z7 system, and an OM1 system. I agonised over which to take, but in the end went for the OM1 because at the time there was not a fast wide astro prime lens for the Z7 (the main goal), whereas there were multiple ones for the OM1 (I took three). Because there were eagles in the area, I lugged round the Olympus 1.2 kg 300mm f4 lens, and the 1kg 40-150 f2.8 as well and also bought an EM1 Mk iii as a backup. There turned out to be zero BIF opportunities, so I wasted a lot of space and weight on these extra lenses.

Since then, the Viltrox 16mm f1.8 has appeared for the Z7, and I have bought one. Which camera would I take next time to the Lofoten or similar? Probably the Z7 if it was astro and landscape only, but what if a lot of BIF was also possible? I don’t have a long telephoto for Nikon Z and the Z7 is slow with outdated focus technology for birds. I could either buy a Nikon Z8 with a long telephoto, and have the Z7 as a backup, or take the Z7 system plus a lightweight Olympus system for BIF with a lightweight travel lens as a backup. The former would be expensive and very heavy, but a single system. The latter would still be landscape optimised, cost nothing, but be inelegant and not much lighter. This was an unresolved question, which I have now answered here.

For the once in a lifetime travel trip – I wanted the best combination of the smallest, lightest system with the best possible quality at that weight and size. I specially bought an OM system OM5 for the trip, and combined it with the lightest, most versatile M4/3 lenses I could find, with no backup camera. This worked absolutely brilliantly, and I got a raft of portfolio quality images, across landscape, long exposure seascape, BIF and street from a tiny system that weighed next to nothing and easily fitted in the overhead bin on planes. A nagging question while out there and on my return was did I lose anything by taking light M4/3 lenses rather than the heavier Olympus Pro lenses? I’ve done a lot of testing since, and my conclusion is, no, I lost almost nothing in sharpness and image quality, to my amazement.

For the photo focussed trip that’s not once in a lifetime, I will just take the system that’s the best for the main genre. The Z7 for landscape, the OM1 for birds, and the OM5 for street. For UK trips where space is not an issue, I will probably throw everything in.

For the travel focussed trip, such as going to our place in France or visiting family in the Yorkshire Dales, 90% of the time I will take the amazing OM5 OM-3 system, and just sling it in the car. But for New York in 2023 I took the lovely little Nikon 1 V3 and 3 lenses and got some great street shots and the best river shot I have ever taken. So for a minimal and lightweight system, it will be the Nikon 1 for a “barely there” street system.

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