Camera advice for ultralight hike...

[Village Idiot]

Sony Nex-5N/7 or Canon G12/Gx1

The Sony is going to have a better sensor than the Olympus cameras, but when I last looked about 3-4 months ago, the lens selection was pretty sparce unless you were purchasing and adapting legacy lenses.

I own an E-P3 and found it pretty useless until I purchased lenses other than the kit since the aperture on it is variable and a pretty terrible range. I have owned the Oly 45 f/1.8 and Lumix 20 f/1.7 for about a week and have used the camera more in that week than I have since purchasing it. The down side is that I spent as much on two lenses as I did for the camera. Legacy glass would have been much cheaper and offered up several fast primes that would have done the job if the other lenses wouldn't have been in my budget.

 

[kidchill]

I'm digging the Sony, especially that sensor size with a weight of 10oz...Not too shabby. My only concern is the size with the 18-55mm lense. Shouldn't be too much of a problem though. I'd go prime, but I like to have a little wiggle room for composition. Granted, I'll mostly be shooting landscape in the woods and street shots in town. I just gotta find the right case. I'll have to see if I can find somewhere local to try it out first.

 

[Alex_B]

I'm gonns be attempting a thru hike of the Appalachian trail this year. I currently have a D300 with various lenses. I'm trying to keep my pak weight as low as possible. Any suggestions for super point n shoot cameras or possibly m4/3's? I'm slightly leaning towards the m4/3 'cause I feel like its a better compromise between weight and pic quality. I'm not saying that point n shoots can't produce decent pics, but the sensor is so much larger on the m4/3s. Thanks for any insight.

For 14 day-long hikes far away from cabins, trails and any kind of civilisation, we use a Lumix DMC-LX5 as a third camera. Not perfect, but sturdy enough for those situations where you are afraid to use your SLR or simply have only one hand free ... and still with decent image quality.

On a side note, as first and second camera on those hikes we use two 5D mk2 ... but that is just us, we are crazy

 

[Alex_B]

oh, and my favourite light-weight tripod:
Gitzo GT-921 Basalt

... perfect for most situations where you do not want to lug around several kgs. Of course limited when it comes to wind or heavy lenses, you have to balance the camera well then.

For panoramic shots I prefer heavier tripods though.

 

[kidchill]

I'm gonns be attempting a thru hike of the Appalachian trail this year. I currently have a D300 with various lenses. I'm trying to keep my pak weight as low as possible. Any suggestions for super point n shoot cameras or possibly m4/3's? I'm slightly leaning towards the m4/3 'cause I feel like its a better compromise between weight and pic quality. I'm not saying that point n shoots can't produce decent pics, but the sensor is so much larger on the m4/3s. Thanks for any insight.

For 14 day-long hikes far away from cabins, trails and any kind of civilisation, we use a Lumix DMC-LX5 as a third camera. Not perfect, but sturdy enough for those situations where you are afraid to use your SLR or simply have only one hand free ... and still with decent image quality.

On a side note, as first and second camera on those hikes we use two 5D mk2 ... but that is just us, we are crazy

Yah, 2 weeks is fine...This is 2,181 miles over about 5 months...the DSLR is just plain too heavy for that kinda hike...

 

[Alex_B]

I'm gonns be attempting a thru hike of the Appalachian trail this year. I currently have a D300 with various lenses. I'm trying to keep my pak weight as low as possible. Any suggestions for super point n shoot cameras or possibly m4/3's? I'm slightly leaning towards the m4/3 'cause I feel like its a better compromise between weight and pic quality. I'm not saying that point n shoots can't produce decent pics, but the sensor is so much larger on the m4/3s. Thanks for any insight.

For 14 day-long hikes far away from cabins, trails and any kind of civilisation, we use a Lumix DMC-LX5 as a third camera. Not perfect, but sturdy enough for those situations where you are afraid to use your SLR or simply have only one hand free ... and still with decent image quality.

On a side note, as first and second camera on those hikes we use two 5D mk2 ... but that is just us, we are crazy

Yah, 2 weeks is fine...This is 2,181 miles over about 5 months...the DSLR is just plain too heavy for that kinda hike...

But on that trail you will not be on more than 14 days without restocking food? The question is usually not how long the whole trail is, but for how many weeks in one go you will not be able to buy any food or fish any fish

I usually hike with 20 to 24 kg in my backpack with tent and all you need for temperatures well below freezing point plus food for 14 days.

Those 20 to 24kg variation depends on the actual nature of the trail, if there will be bridges or if I have to ford rivers without, any snow expected or not and so on.

On top of that there will usually be 5 to 7 kg photographic equipment.

 

[kidchill]

Good God Man!!! 20-24kg? That's insane! I guess you missed the "ultralight" requirement of my post! LOL Yah, I refuse to carry that much weight. Resupply will be every 3-5 days. I'm looking at a base weight of 15-17lbs or about 7kg. But, 14 days at 1.5-2lbs a day is already a good 14kilo+ just for food. How many miles or km you cover a day?

 

[Alex_B]

Good God Man!!! 20-24kg? That's insane! I guess you missed the "ultralight" requirement of my post! LOL Yah, I refuse to carry that much weight. Resupply will be every 3-5 days. I'm looking at a base weight of 15-17lbs or about 7kg. But, 14 days at 1.5-2lbs a day is already a good kilo+ just for food. How many miles or km you cover a day?

For something like your extremely long hike I would try to reduce weight further, but as you said yourself, 14 days of food makes 7 to 10 kg (or 15 to 26 lbs) alone if you do not want to lose muscle over the weeks.
My equipment is what I consider light-weight, but I do not walk without a storm proof tent (if you ever spent some nights in extreme storm above the tree-line, you will know why) and a good down sleeping bag plus a down matress (Exped, helps on very cold ground, learned that from some native Sami people in Lapland) and a light down jacket. In that sense I do not travel ultra-light.

I have to say though, that my 20 - 24 kg are for mountain hikes north of the Arctic circle, spring and autumn, where the climate is unpredictable. I have been in situations where if I had been traveling ultralight, I would have suffered from pneumonia as a consequence, or simply had tent and clothing badly damaged.

7 to 18 miles a day, depending on the landscape and the weather conditions. I am not extremely fast when the backpack is still heavy of course, and if there are no trails and no bridges you can slow down considerably. Not to speak of swamps, dense woods, and worst of all, rubble from collapsed mountains and glaciers.

The worst so far was half a day for just one mile .. but that was almost to be called free climbing with a backpack

 

[spacefuzz]

I sypmpathize with Alex, In the Sierras for the winter / spring I usually have a 35 lb pack with 8 lbs of camera gear. Its just not the type of place you want to f**k up by skimping on gear.