second camera?

New_Zealand

New_Zealand

Veteran
Earlier this year I traveled across Aussie staying at backpackers and I had the 5d mkiii with the 50mm lens and the 70-200mm. It was a large camera setup that I had to keep with me at all times - showering, eating and even when I slept it was my pillow.

I hope next year to go on a vacation (wife wants to go on a cruise) but I don't want to bring the 5d mkiii with me due to some of the ports the cruise ship will stop at. I don't want to be carrying the 5d mkiii around for those to see it.

I would like to get a small camera that I can tuck in my jacket that takes good video and stills. Any thoughts or feedback?
 
Mirrorless anything, and don't be afraid of a crop sensor to downscale your lenses. An OMD-M1 or GH4 with a 20/1.7 and 35-100/2.8 takes up as much space as a 6" sub sandwich and can of soda (not sure of how to properly translate that analogy to Kiwi, though)
 
You carried a 70-200, which is big, heavy and VERY eye catching (regardless which version). IMO, too heavy to handhold for shooting video.

Surely 5D3 is a heavy camera (compared to mirrorless ones), but size-wise, not really that big without a protruding lens. And a smaller camera like GH4, once having a lens attached, is not really that small.

In such situations (multi-day backpacking in wild mountains, for example), when I wanted to go for "ultra-light," I used Canon 40mm f/2.8 STM on my 5D3. That lens is so small (near the size of a lens cap), feather light, very affordable and optically excellent. IMO, there is no need to go for a Sony, GH4, or some other system that costs $1000 or more, just so that you'd have a cheaper and lighter camera system to switch to.

If you really want something different than 5D3, I'd suggest you rent a complete system just for your vacation's sake. You vac can't go many weeks, right? If so, the rental cost of a GH4 or similar is not that much.
 
If your primary goal is to be discreet - then I have not yet seen any camera smaller than the GH2 with the 20mm "pancake" lens on it. This pairing is TINY. It will fit in the pocket of your jacket and it appears to others to not even be anything more than a snapshot camera.
Load Lee Powell's "flowmotion 2.2" high bit-rate patch and with that very sharp wide angle 20mm pancake lens you will get a very usable sharp image and a wide field of view.

In daylight that image can be cut (with some post matching) with any Canon DSLR, and will provide great detail - again; in the smallest and least visible package.

Set the stills mode to RAW and your stills will be right there with it all.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top