Before I get into sharing images and videos from our 2 week Europe trip, I wanted to spend some time discussing how I decided which camera to take! I’m going to talk a little about my thoughts on each model and share what I ended up going with!
OPTION 1: CANON 5D Mark III + Canon Powershot G7X Mark II COMBO
I am a proud Canon 5d Mark III user. I love the camera and use it for all of my commercial photography & stop-motion work. I usually use it for personal projects too, but for Europe, I was concerned about its size and weight. I knew we would be out and about, on our feet, walking all day, and I also knew that we were only taking one carry-on bag which wouldn’t leave much room to pack the body & lenses. The Mark III has great video quality also, but it’s not very agile and I find it clumsy for VLOG-style footage. For that reason, I have recently been using the Canon Powershot G7x Mark II, a high-performance point and shoot with a flip up “selfie” screen, as a video camera. I love this combo, but it is still sometimes hard to juggle 2 cameras when you’re on the go.
OPTION 2: Canon Rebel + Canon Powershot G7X Mark II
The rebel is the camera I learned to shoot with, and it is one of the greatest value cameras considering its price and image quality. It is also nearly half of the size of the Mark III! I highly considered it for that reason, but I realized I would still need a second camera for video, so this combo wouldn’t save that much space.
OPTION 3: Canon Powershot G7X Mark II Only
You may be asking, why not just take the point and shoot, Lish? That’s a great question, and I’m still asking myself the same question. The G7x is so convenient and so tiny, It can fit in a pocket! But then I remember that although this camera is amazing for my style of video, I thought I would miss having lens options and it doesn’t have the ability to shoot in RAW either.
OPTION 4: FUJIFILM XT20
The cool thing about mirrorless cameras is that they have the same, if not better specs than larger and more expensive DSLRs, yet they’re 1/3 of the size! This one still isn’t full frame, but it has the capability to add multiple lenses (which are also more compact) and it can shoot images in RAW format also. Because of our limited packing space and excess of walking and traveling, I decided to go with this model to cut back on the amount of equipment I was carrying and still be left with high-quality images and video. I didn’t own this model previously, but my cousin Ryan has a similar Fuji model so I felt more comfortable purchasing.
VERDICT & EXPERIENCE
Ultimately, I wish I had more time to play with and really learn the XT20 before the trip. I did watch a few YouTube videos, but once I go there, in the moment, I didn’t want to take the time to play with it to make adjustments as we were touring each city. If it was a dedicated photography trip, it would be a different story, but this trip was for fun! Because of that, I think I would have taken the G7x instead if given a second chance. BUT if it was solely a work trip, I would definitely take the Canon 5D Mark III + Canon G7X COMBO instead. Obviously there are hundreds of combinations and cameras that I could’ve picked from, but these were the 4 setups that I was considering based on my past experience.
What’s your go-to setup for travel photography? I’d love to know and compare experiences!
