Travelling light.

 We are just back from an amazing trip to Paris! The weather was cold, windy and sometimes rainy, but the City of Light did not disappoint! We ate some awesome meals-the best of them in the tiniest of restaurants-shopped the January sales and got into museums without booking ahead. The first week was unseasonably warm, with temperatures in the mid 50°Fs but with liberal amounts of rain. The second week was much colder but drier. We walked in all weathers, which helped to mitigate the wonderful food. Now we are home and it is snowing. Talk about a reality check!

You probably know that Paris has a very efficient transportation system. The Metro can whisk you from one side of Paris to the other in 20 or 30 minutes, plus there are buses, which are all electric. For a little over $30 per week, you can travel anywhere you like with a travel pass that is valid on the Metro, the suburban RER trains and the buses. It even works on the little funicular railway up the steep hill to Sacré Coeur. We Americans are used to driving our cars and taking our "stuff" with us. When you are travelling by public transportation, you have to be much more selective about what "stuff" you carry. I took my big digital SLR on vacation with me, along with three lenses and I took just over 500 pictures with it. But I didn't take it with me everywhere and I only used one of the lenses, the multipurpose 24-70mm zoom lens. As we made our plans each day, I would consider whether to take my camera with me or not. The day we went to the Louvre, for example, I left it at home and I'm glad I did. Not only did it pour with rain while we waited outside to get in, the place is huge and packed with visitors, even on a wet Monday in January. What I used instead, on the days I left my camera behind, was the humble cell phone. I took around 225 pictures with my phone and some of them are pretty amazing. 

I believe that a good photographer can take a decent picture with any kind of camera and I am actually reconsidering the wisdom of always taking the big camera. I wrote a short while ago about taking time to photograph your life and that goal is not incompatible with using a smaller camera. I saw a lot of my fellow tourists carrying smaller, sophisticated, mirrorless cameras that weighed a whole lot less than my beloved 5d Mkiv. Now, I'm not going to trade it in any time soon, but I'm seriously thinking of getting a "travel camera" to take on future trips. Cell phones do have limitations, especially if you want to print your pictures. The newer mirrorless cameras have a lot of features that both cell phones and DSLRs lack.

There's one big problem with my plan: choice!  There are so many to choose from and each new camera that comes along has features that the last generation lacks!  So, while I save up for my Travel Camera, I'll be doing a lot of research!  Stay tuned for further updates!