Traveling. Light? 4 days, 4 Cameras

My wife’s cousin invited us to her wedding at an all-inclusive resort in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. I figured this might be a good opportunity for some fun photography, so I started thinking of what I could bring along which might supplement the work of the resort’s own photographer.

I broke down the four day trip, an easy three-hour flight from our home near Los Angeles, into three different photographic parts. First, I would use my digital camera (a well-worn Canon 6D with my super lightweight but ridiculously sharp 50mm f/1.8) for all the candid shots around the resort. Readers of 35mmc, however, don’t come here to hear about digital efficiency. Let’s move onto the self-flagellation portion of the story.

Packing light (not), meant for part two I brought my Leica M3, with a Summicron-M 50mm f/2 loaded with Portra 400. This would be for shooting when I had time to compose, could find interesting subjects and tasty Pacific sunsets. And for some artsy-fartsy, low-light wedding reception fun, I packed along my Nikon FE, with a Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 loaded with HP5 400 pushed to 1600. The third part of my packing insanity went to my trusty Olympus Mju ii loaded with Kodak Gold 200 which came along for snapshots.

I’ve had the Leica for just over a year, and am finally getting somewhat adept at using Sunny 16, and trusting zone focusing. What I’ve learned is when I trust the process, images are bright, sharp and well exposed. Despite experimenting with multiple film stocks, I have had the most reliable results shooting Kodak Portra400, exposing it at 200asa. For the times I’m not totally confident about the scene I’m shooting, the Keks KM02 meter I keep in the cold shoe of the M3 keeps me out of trouble.

The Olympus Mju ii goes nearly everywhere with me. This camera is capable of spectacularly good results. However, its faults are many and well documented. The first problem, which is more of an annoyance, is the camera’s inability to hold settings such as flash-off, and spot metering-on when the user closes and reopens the lens cover. Add to this the fact that at least on mine, the battery meter always shows full, even when the oddball CR123/DL123a battery is just about dead. Paying closer attention to the sound of the motor winder will serve you better. I have had this camera die on me without warning at least twice now. Finally, I try not to use the flash as I have found it to be excessively bright, blowing out anything but shots where I’ve used it for filling in a backlit scene. Rereading what I’ve written, this really sounds like a pretty poor review. But, then I get my scans back and always find at least one image that makes me say, “Wow.”

Finally, since the wedding was right at dusk, I figured I might get a few black and white shots of the wedding reception with the Nikon. The Nikkor 24mm lens is as sharp as anything else I own, and pushing HP5 to 1600 asa was fast enough to allow me to shoot some of these scenes at f4 or above. Truthfully, some of the really low light scenes didn’t work as well as I had hoped. And, I think this is because I need to practice a bit more. Perhaps shooting wide open at a 30th would have worked better where most of the scene was very dark, but where an overhead light was illuminating a subject’s face.

A reasonable question you may ask is “Would you do it the same way again in the future?” The answer is a qualified “Yes.” Since we stayed in one place for the entire trip, safe storage of the cameras not in use was never an issue. But, I fully acknowledge carrying four cameras is a bit excessive. I could have easily done most of what I accomplished with just the Leica or Nikon. The advantage of using the Nikon is the fantastic metering. I still think it’s my most intuitive camera, metering-wise. The Mju’s superpower is it fits in a pocket and punches way above its weight.

In 2018, my wife and I traveled to Costa Rica. On that trip, I brought the Pentax 645 my dad gave me. My neck and back will never be the same after hiking with that brick slung over my shoulder. Maybe I’m growing. After all, at least this time I only traveled with one film format.

As one final note, I get asked a lot about the consequence of sending film through X-ray scanning equipment in airports. Leaving Los Angeles, there was such a crowd, there was no way I could have requested hand checks; further most of the film was unexposed at that point. On the way into Mexico, their customs officers completely ignored my request to have them hand check my rolls of film. As a result, the whole camera bag with six or seven rolls of film got zapped. On the return trip, the security agents were very friendly when asked, and shepherded my plastic bag full of exposed film to the end of the line, making sure we were reunited after they’d examined them closely. In spite of the trip through the scanner in Mexico, I noticed no fogging or waves in any of the film. Perhaps this is more of a problem in checked luggage, which I believe is subjected to much more powerful X-ray, and for film faster than 400asa.

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