Ever since I bought my 5D, it’s kind of kept growing. A portrait grip was quickly added, and the mid weight 3rd party lenses were slowly junked in favour with Ls. All this added up to one thing. Weight. Backbreaking amounts of it. The 5D, 24-70L & grip tip the scales at over 2KG. This is before the bag, flash, spare batteries, a 17-40L, tripod and anything else you dare to chuck in on the day.
All this weight has had me looking at some of the lightweight competition coming up through the ranks, the Fuji X100, Canon G1X, even the EOS M. However I’m trying a bit more sensible on the wallet approach, one many photographers gone along. I’ve pulled the plastic fantastic 50mm out, stripped the grip off, and pared the 5D back to the purist basics, which halves the weight, bringing the scales down to just 1kg. I’m going to try & shoot light for a bit and see how I get along.
Other inspiration for this? Well a colleague walked in last week, “are you interested in some old film cameras?” and proceeded to pull out a few old plastic compact cameras. Then this
a classic Olympus OM10. My eyes lit up. It didn’t work, but still I have a small cheap classic camera display and thought it’d look nice on there. But my work of fixing laptops, curiosity got the better of me, I stripped the bottom plate off, tinkered. It lives. It has film in it. So I’ve now two full frame cameras on the go with a 50mm 1.8 lens on the front. Though very different beasts.
What am I going to shoot, who knows, today, it’s mainly been the new arrival Oliver…
Hopefully I’ll be back in a month with some updates, and if I pull my finger out I’ll finish the roll of film in both the OM10 & 500N too, so we can see the results from those too…
I’m with you all the way.
After my ‘photographic break down’ i sold every piece of kit i had – 2 x 5D2 bodies, BG, multiple L lenses, 430EXII & 580EXII – along with a host of other stuff.
After an absence of a few months, i was ‘instructed’ to spend some of my ill gotten gains from kit sale to purchase a simple/ single camera option. I tried the Canon G1X – what a horrible camera. Then i tried the Fuji X-Pro 1. Now i realise this is no cheap piece of kit – but a single X-Pro 1 and 35mm f1.4 lens has become my saviour.
The body is the same size as your newly acquired OM10, but with all the digital benfits and IQ of a 5D2 – and then some. As for the bokeh of that lens at f1.4 – amazing. Same as low light – i’m sure there is a need for flash with this camera, but i’ll let you know when i find it.
How refreshing to work with a single body and lens – back to basics just as you say.
Not sure I could ever be so drastic as I do enjoy shooting a wide range of subjects. It’s nice though that the market is now progressing & more of these high end niche cameras are out from others besides Leica. Interesting times ahead. Shame both Canon & Nikon have launched their junior range at the other end of the market with so many cut backs.
If the experiment works I could see myself adding a few other F1.4-2 light weight primes to the setup to give me a bag that gives a few light weight options, or the full on bejeesus setup depending on what is on the agenda for the day. Of course if the market matures further in another 5 years this could all change again.
I have used a Canon Powershot G10 for some time, and before that others in the series. However, wanted to move to a DSLR and did that two weeks ago with purchase of a Canon 650D, including kit lens EFS 18-55mm. Obviously not up to the build quality of the 5D, but a big saving in weight, and budget dictated no further up the range. Out of curiosity this morning I put the camera on the scales, with lens, battery, card and strap and it came to 852g. Pleased with the camera and It is reasonably comfortable to carry. On the subject of ‘old’ cameras my first SLR was a Pentax MX with 50mm lens, which I still have. I must put that on the scales sometime!
I’ve got a G9, it’s my eBay camera. I took it out for a week or so after my shunt last year but never truly happy with the results from it when you’ve got the 5D to compare it too. To be fair, I’d be mighty unhappy really if it did bearing in mind the price difference.
I had the 400D for a few years, corking camera, I thought with that & grip & the rather lovely Tokina 12-24 on the front it was nice & chunky at 1kg.
I did some further weight research last night with the scales. The OM10 pictured was around 600g, so I’d expect the MX to be something similar. The 5D grip with a battery weighs 450g on it’s own! The 24-70mm with lens hood weighs 1100g, so 5D, grip, 24-70 = nigh on 2.5kg. The 5D with 50mm 1.8 & 1 battery just tipped the scales over 1kg. Doing the old weigh them in each hand trick, 5D/grip/24-70 vs OM10 = bloody nora. OM10 vs 5D & 50mm F1.8, you can tell there’s a difference, but that extra 400g doesn’t scream at you. On the shoulder at least for 5 mins can’t tell the difference.
I think there’s definitely going to be some merit in the lighter newer 5D or a 6D for me, with some lighter primes.
To add my tuppence worth, I have a Nikon D80 with a selection of lenses and until last week carried a Nikon D5000 as my lightweight alternative. I have now replaced this with a very pocketable Fuji XF-1. No it does not have interchangeable lenses but I wanted something to really ‘slip’ into a trouser pocket. I have been both pleased and surprised by it’s performance especially in low light, it has a 1.8 – 4.9 4x zoom lens (25 – 100mm equivalent) have yet to use the small built-in flash.
The downside is that compared to my little Nikon D5000 it will be a bit of a learning curve, but why do all modern cameras insist on putting fancy filters and other editing functions in the camera?
Yes I’ve looked at the predecessor the X10, looked nice, but keep looking at the bigger sensor stuff. I’ve got a similar sized Canon G9 and it lacks a certain something. So I keep looking at the X100…
Since I posted the blog, I’ve also been revisiting the original 24-70 F2.8L or 24-105 F4L quandary that’d only been answered because somebody offered me the 24-70 @ 6 months old, so another blog post is also due very soon…
Cameras full of filters etc appeals to the marketing I think, it’s all a list of things it can do nobody really uses except to show granny. Guess maybe an appeal to those without a computer. At least like scene modes etc in the main you can choose to avoid them.
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