We recently went to Cairns in Queensland on a birding trip – more about that later – part of the deal on the flight was that we were limited to carry on luggage only. We’d been able to increase my allowance from 7Kg to 14Kg. At first glance this looks easily doable, but the devil is in the details. The main bag could weigh a maximum of 10Kg and measure 56 x 36 x 23cm. The second bag had to be able to fit under the seat in front of you. This pretty well meant that my camera equipment had to be 4Kg in a small bag. I can tell you this caused weeks of furious activity in terms of weighing equipment, doing test packs, looking online at small bags, studying various videos for how wildlife photographers pack for flights, and an inordinate amount of worry.

 

 

For our last two trips where we flew (Darwin and Broome) we had the luxury of checked baggage which meant my photographic kit could weigh 7 Kg and fit in a photo backpack  that went as carry on. For the last few trips I’d settled on the following equipment:

 

Olympus EM1x	1003g
Olympus EM1 mk ii	620g
Olympus 12-40mm f2.8	428g
OM System 100-400mm f5-6.3	1462g
6 batteries	420g
12 SD cards	140g
Manfrotto 209 table top tripod	500g
Camera Bag	1780g
Monopod	900g

 

This all came to 7.25kg. Clearly something would have to go. The other headache was that my bag wasn’t small enough to fit under a seat. I did countless test packs and made countless changes. Two days before our flight I was still  plagued with doubt and indecision. In the end at literally the twelfth hour I made a radical decision and then spent the whole 5 hour flight worrying about whether I’d done the right thing.

 

 

So what did I leave behind? All of the above except batteries and SD cards. I took instead a totally untested combination. A brave decision or totally bonkers? Well in the end it was the right decision. So what did I take?

 

Panasonic Lumix G9 mk ii	714g
Panasonic Leica 100-400mm f4-6.3	1130g
Leica D-Lux Type 109 compact camera	475g
24 SD cards	280g
Batteries	350g
Think Tank Digital Holster 50 v2.0	370g
Think Tank Speed Changer v2.0	300g
Think Tank Thin Skin Belt v2.0	230g
Think Tank RU Hot? Water bottle holder	120g

 

Total combined weight 3.83Kg so a 3.42Kg weight saving. So in practical terms I reduced the load by nearly half and importantly it would fit under the seat in front of me.

 

 

 

Before we talk about the camera and lens choice let’s address the carrying system – it is a a modular belt system which means it is easy to configure for the job in hand. I’ve been using these since the late 1980’s after a trip to the island of Santorini in the Mediterranean. The bag I used for that was heavy without any load, configured badly and the designers had obviously never heard of the concept of ergonomics. At one point on a walk across the island I could have quite happily thrown the the bag and its contents off of a cliff and into the sea. I quickly bought a belt and series of pouches that were made by the now sadly defunct Camera Care Systems. After twenty or so years I started using the Lowe Pro Street and Field System which was originally designed for working professional photojournalists. After a while Lowe Pro made changes to the system and it was no longer as extensive or flexible and I moved over to the Think Tank System. It’s basically a series of pouches and camera holsters that can be used singularly or in various combinations using a waist belt and/or straps. These are great when working events as all the weight is carried on your hips, they are easy to work out of and means you can walk through crowds without knocking anyone flying with a big photo backpack. The major down side is that unlike a backpack there is nowhere to stuff a jacket or anything else.

 

 

So how did it go? The short answer is very well.  Not having a backpack while I walked through the rainforest in high humidity was heaven. The only downside was that it often caused my trousers to migrate south towards my ankles, so I was walking around hitching them up all the time.

The Panasonic G9 mk2 and the 100-400mm lens worked flawlessly even in quite dim conditions. The new 25Mp dual gain sensor produces lovely files that are a pleasure to work with and the high ISO performance is much better than my Olympus EM1x. There were a couple of aspects that initially caused concern. The first was that the G9 mk ii RAW files are really large – about twice the size of those from the 20Mp EM1x which meant that I’d have to take a lot more SD cards. Normally I take 12 64Gb  V60 SD cards and that is all I have of them. I didn’t want to go out and buy a load more as the current price of memory cards is very high. I had a load of 64Gb cards in the slower V30 rating which would mean that the camera buffer would take longer to clear. I took the slower cards but didn’t end up using them. The second was that my EM1x has a built in GPS and tags the files with the location while the G9 mk2 doesn’t. So I had to manually annotate the EXIF with the GPS co-ordinates when I got home. It was only a minor inconvenience.

 

 

The Leica D-Lux Type 109 camera was a little gem. The fast standard zoom did everything I wanted. I really should use this camera more.

 

The trip went really well, probably one of the best we’ve ever done. I’ll post some stuff about it a bit later.