My travel companions

It's a big dilemma when I have to choose my travel companions.

On short outings, like weekend morning or afternoon, it's easy, I usually choose one of my last acquisitions, load it with a film and there I go.

If I know in advance the kind of subject or event, it's not that difficult either, I choose it, or them, accordingly.

When it comes to a more prolonged holiday, like now, that's a tough choice. I can't take them all, not even all I would like. Let me remind you that I have over two hundred cameras.

So what did I chose this time, not a big surprise, you have seen them at the top of the page, I'm going to explain my choice:

The Leica CL

with the Voigtländer Super Wide Heliar 15mm 1:4.5

For it's portability, reliability, looks and the ability of using this amazing lens, that gives me this field of view:



Great for landscapes, also to extreme close ups and a certain different way of seeing things.

The Pen F


One of my new toys. I had a misconception about half-frame cameras, quality wise, of course that one gets only half the information than a full-frame, but especially I suspected that I would get tired of the never ending roll. For an holiday it is the perfect camera:
The autonomy is great, an almost pocketable reflex of a wonderful construction and very pleasant to the eye.
With the 38mm 1:1.8, a gift from my very good transoceanic friend Juan Felipe I have the "normal" field of view and an very luminous lens:



Using the 100-200mm 1:5 zoom I have a restricted field of view:



but it allows me to "get closer" to the subject and have extreme shallow DOF if I want it. It's not a very bright or light lens but it's the reason why I have a Pen.

So I am covered from the extreme wide angle to a fairly powerful zoom, half-frame, full-frame, rangefinder, SLR, am I forgetting anything?

Of course I never leave without a medium format folder, in the present case the

Agilux Agifold

Although I have had it for some time, I'm using it for the first time. It's a big girl, with some interesting features, double stroke film winding lever, doubling as shutter cocking, uncoupled rangefinder and extinction light meter. I have no idea if the light meter works or how, I have no instructions for it and it's not the most intuitive gadget I have seen.

That's not a problem because I use the sunny 16 rule with some proficiency and for some more tricky situations I count on my vintage Seconic light meter



I use it also with the Pen F that is light meterless and the Leica CL overexposes violently in a non linear way, so I can't compensate using a lower ISO setting.

I only regret I brought my
 Fuji HD-R



and drowned it the first day I took it to the beach.

I disassembled it, flushed it under the faucet:

I had nothing to loose.



Then I thoroughly dried it with an hair dryer and sun dried it also. All the mechanics are sound but the electronics are kaput.

Following the advice of Nuno Dantas I placed the camera inners inside a bag with rice, the natural silica gel.



When I arrive home I'll take care of it, if there is anything to take care of.


The choice was made, I'm in the middle of my vacation and so far, apart from the drowned Fuji, I'm satisfied with it.

When I process the films I will see if the choice was the correct one or not.

All the pictures, in this article, except the "before" pic of the Fuji, were taken with my mobile phone Nokia 6210 Navigator

Stay tuned (o;