There is much to be said for traveling light. As expected, my kids have difficulty understanding the concept. We recently went to visit my wife’s brother and his family at their apartment in Manhattan, and for this one-night-stay the car was packed with games, stuffed animals, books, and toys. While we all have “stuff” in our lives, the concept of traveling light appeals to me more and more with each passing day. Unlike my daughters’ traveling gear, what I brought with me could fit into a grocery shopping bag. Included with my “stuff” was my wife’s Panasonic DMC-ZS3 digital camera.
For as much as I cannot live without my DLSR, I find myself more often choosing to shoot with this little camera. It doesn’t have the versatility or the image quality of my larger camera, but being unencumbered by a heavy camera bag and camera allows me freedom that I simply cannot find with larger gear. Besides, in cities like New York, if my $300 camera gets lost or stolen, I won’t hurt my wallet as much as if my larger gear disappears!
The camera we have has a 25mm – 300m Leica lens, so it is versatile. I find that the 12x zoom is the single reason I can carry the camera with me as a sometimes-substitute for my more professional gear. I can place the camera in my pocket, and with a fully charged battery and a 16 GB SD card shooting for an entire day (as long as I don’t use the flash too often) is not a problem. Although I much prefer the beauty of a still image, the camera also can record HD video, so should the mood strike me I can make movies of my travels.
This camera does require that I change my shooting process, but that isn’t at all the reason I often choose to shoot with it. I’ve never been one of those people who decide to shoot with prime lenses because zooms “made me lazy”. Zooms lenses simply do not have the ability to make a photographer lazy. In fact its just the opposite, the photographer has made the choice, however unconscious it may be, to be lazy. And it is certainly not that I’m lazy that I choose to shoot with this camera, but it is so portable, so convenient, so unobtrusive, and produces such nice images that I reach for it often, particularly in situations where I won’t have access to a vehicle for carrying 40+ lbs. of photographic gear.
We brought this camera with us on this Manhattan trip in order to take pictures of the kids and I can tell you that we made plenty of images of the four cousins having fun. As most people who have been to New York know, the city offers infinite photographic possibilities. As we drove to New York, I thought of things I wanted to shoot besides the kids, and settled on an urban landscape theme. Some of these images you see here.
Using a digital point and shoot, do I miss shots? Yes, sometimes. Like all cameras in this category, this one suffers from some shutter lag, so I do miss “action” images, but for static images I almost always get the image I expect.
Photographically speaking, traveling light doesn’t necessarily mean “bad images”. In fact, it can be just the opposite if one approaches it with a readiness to experiment and an open mind.
© 2010 James A. Fraser