A Great Camera and Lens Combo for Backpacking
Hopeful grins at a trailhead, slippery steps wading through icy creeks, breathless pauses on switchbacked vistas, calm evenings tent-side, and achey mornings summoning the grit for a new day’s mileage – backpacking brings a variety of different scenarios where you might want to document your experiences for memory. Some where you have the luxury to take your time lining up a shot, some where you don’t, some where you wish you could include the whole wide open space of the world in your frame, and some where you’re more concerned with zooming in on certain details. Because of this you can easily find yourself packing a lot of camera gear while justifying the need for all of it, but space and weight are critical commodities in your backpack and being picky about what camera bodies, lenses, and accessories you bring on your trips can benefit your experiences in several ways – although, leaving gear at home can sometimes feel like abandoning a puppy, or a litter of puppies, depending on how woeful your gear acquisition syndrome is. Here I’ll be sharing my own personal favorite choices for this dilemma, and what the benefits of these choices are, so that you can consider for yourself if they are a great combination worth choosing for your future trips.
The Combo
To get right to it, if you’re looking for an efficient-yet-versatile setup for backpacking, then I recommend trying out pairing a 40mm lens with your camera body – which specific camera body might be most optimal for you we’ll get into shortly, but let’s discuss the lens first.
The Lens
I believe there are several compelling reasons to choose a 40mm lens for your trips, some of the most notable being they can be significantly compact in construction for a number of common lens mounts, they provide what many claim is a most “natural” rendering of your view in terms of the human eye, and they, in my opinion, sit in the Goldilocks zone of focal lengths – not too wide, not too zoomed – for many of the scenes you may encounter while backpacking.
In terms of compact construction – saving space and weight in your pack – 40mm lenses can be a solid choice because they are available for a number common lens mounts in what is commonly referred to as “pancake” form. As the term suggests, these forms of lenses are much shorter than your average lens. Two that I have used personally are the Canon 40mm f/2.8 STM…
The Canon 40mm f/2.8 STM is a lens compatible with Canon's EF and EF-S mounts (although on EF-S cameras, being crop sensor cameras, the resulting images will appear zoomed in more, aka they are cropped). Image from Canon USA.
… and the Fujifilm 27mm f/2.8 WR…
The Fujifilm 27mm f/2.8 WR is a lens that is compatible with the Fuji X mount, which is found on Fuji's APS-C (crop sensor) cameras – meaning that in terms of full-frame equivalence, this lens translates to roughly a 40mm field of view. Image from MPB.
… both of which I’ve been impressed with in terms of build quality and image quality. However, Canon and Fujifilm aren’t the only camera brands that have 40mm pancake or near-pancake lenses compatible with their camera mounts. We’ll get into specific camera body recommendations later, but, for now, if you are looking to use a camera with another common lens mount – such as with Sony or Nikon – here are some options in your realm:
But regardless of what brand of equipment you go with, let’s get into what a 40mm lens can provide for you, beyond just more space and less weight in your backpack. One is that, at this focal length, the perspective is very similar to that of the human eye; things appear with an amount of depth, distortion, and proportion that would often feel natural to the way we see (at least this rings true for me, and is a common claim out in many photo communities as well). This characteristic of “what you see is what you get” can be helpful while you’re moving along a trail, allowing you to respond quickly to general scenes as you see them, and getting photo results that can feel somewhat like “as if you were standing there”.
And this gets into my next point, which is that 40mm sits in a “standard” range of focal lengths, and, in my experience, is often just wide enough to work for “big” landscape scenes, while not being so zoomed out that you can’t also work with the details of your surroundings (moments at camp, getting close up on wildflowers, etc). If you’re used to using zoom lenses, and zooming in and out to adjust your framing, a prime (fixed focal length) lens may take some getting used to, but personally I don’t mind – even prefer – having to be more active, having to physically move around more, when composing a photo. I often find that the limitation of not being able to zoom my focal length reduces the amount of decision making, declutters my mind a bit, and frees me up to focus on other aspects of creativity. I also invariably end up discovering more potential compositions by having to move around.
Of course, 40mm isn’t going to be optimal for everything, and if you have very specific goals in mind (i.e. trying to photograph wildlife from 100 yards away) then you likely already know you’ll be bringing different, more specialized gear for those needs. But, for a lot of situations, I’d say that a 40mm prime kicks ass, and if I could only bring one lens it’d be that (and, per this blog post, I often choose to only bring that). The 40mm lenses I mentioned previously are also fast enough in terms of their relatively wide apertures that it makes shooting handheld very feasible in a wide range of lighting situations, meaning that you can get away without packing a tripod in many cases. In a recent trip where I knew I wanted to make some self-timed photos of the hiking group I ended up bringing a Joby GorillaPod, but if you don’t mind spending time hunting for a nook on a rock, tree, or discarded backpack to balance your camera in then (or don’t care for photos of yourself) then you can certainly forego it entirely.
Here are some photographs I’ve made with a 40mm lens (full-frame equivalent) to give you a sense of the characteristics:
The Camera Body
Before considering buying a new camera, my first recommendation is to (likely) use the camera body you already have, if you do have one. The lens is the somewhat more important variable in this combination, so if you already have a camera body with a lens mount that can accept one of the 40mm pancake options out there, then consider sticking with that unless your camera body is notably bulky and heavy.
I will give two very specific recommendations for camera bodies based on personal experience, both of these, for me, checked the boxes of being relatively small, lightweight, but still feature-rich and enjoyable to use.
From left to right: Fujifilm X-Pro 3 (APS-C digital camera), Canon Rebel G (35mm film camera)
First, is the Fujifilm X-Pro 3, which is an APS-C (crop sensor) camera in Fuji’s X lineup. Paired with the Fujifilm 27mm f/2.8 WR (that I previously mentioned my favor for, and translates to a 40mm in full-frame equivalence) this has become my go-to digital setup for backpacking. Both the body and the lens are slim, well-constructed, and have good weather sealing (a must if you are anything beyond a fair weather hiker). The X-Pro 3 has the added bonus of having highly customizable and – in my opinion – beautiful in-camera image profiles that you can apply to your photos. These profiles are mostly geared towards simulating the look of analog film. You can use the default simulations or save custom ones of your own. There’s an active community of people who come up with and share their own recipes for these simulations, aimed towards achieving the unique looks of specific film stocks. I greatly enjoy shooting with film, so being able to approximate that look, while cutting down on post-processing time is a nice bonus with this camera. Even if you’re not a fan of the look of film, or you want to have full control in your post-processing, you can still shoot in raw format with this this camera.
The second camera I’ll specifically share a recommendation for is the Canon Rebel G. This is a 35mm film camera, so it certainly won’t be for everyone, but whether you’re just getting into shooting film or consider yourself an expert, I believe the Canon Rebel G is an unsung masterpiece in terms of being a backpacking camera. I could wax poetically for a long while about this camera, but to give you the highlights of why I recommend this camera:
A lot of its construction is plastic, so it’s noticeably lightweight
Despite being lightweight, I wouldn’t say it feels flimsy
For its production era, its packed with features (3 autofocus points, different drive and shooting modes, a self timer, and exposure compensation, just to name a few)
For what it is, it’s [comparatively] stunningly inexpensive (and common) – so if you ever break it or it stops working, it likely won’t be too devastating to replace (as of writing the time I’m writing this blog post)
Paired with the Canon 40mm f/2.8 STM, this is my go-to analog setup for backpacking. This combo is something I’ve shared as a recommendation to others before, and have heard similar praise from those who have tried it out.
Both the Fujifilm X-Pro 3 and the Canon Rebel G are light enough that I have worn them on a neck strap for miles at a time without noticing, but they are so slim, even with their paired lenses I mentioned, that I often don’t even use a neck strap; most often I just keep the camera in a fanny pack set across my shoulder straps, and if I want to have it out and secure in-hand I typically just use a wrist-strap (such as the Peak Design Cuff, or even PD’s wrist strap meant for mobile phones). Depending on your backpack and storage options, you may be able to tuck such a setup into a hip belt.
Additional Notes
It’s also worth noting that without needing to pack multiple lenses and other, excess accessories that you can likely get away without having to use a camera or packing cube for your minimal camera and lens combo, to keep them safe in your pack; it’ll likely be just fine stowed in a spare wool sock, beanie, or jacket when you’re not making photos. Just keep it dry, of course.
I’ll admit, that if your only goal is as little weight as possible, with as little space taken up, then there are even more optimal options out there in terms of cameras. For example, if you go with a non-interchangeable lens camera, such as those where the entire lens assembly retracts inside of the camera body when not in use, or even just using the camera almost all of us pack – our phone’s camera. Those are great and viable options in their own rights, but if you already have an interchangeable lens camera body that you enjoy, or just prefer the benefits of an interchangeable camera body, then these recommendations I’m sharing in this post could be up your alley.
Happy Trails
Pairing down my camera gear for backpacking trips was something I struggled with (what if I hurt my 6x17 panoramic medium format film camera’s feeling by not bringing it with me on a trip? 😬), but after giving this combination a chance, the benefits have made it easy to not look back. This combination is one that frees up a ton of space and cuts gobs of weight while also being versatile and effective in a wide array of situations. For me, the net effect is that I’ve had more enjoyment on trips, often being more at-ease when making photos, and having to mentally disassociate less due to hauling heavy gear up and down elevation. It’s a combination that won’t check all the boxes for every single scenario, and if I’m looking to accomplish something very specific, or am just feeling masochistic and want to haul something like a large format camera around, then I’ll bring more specialized gear for those situations, but by and large I’m a fan and would highly recommend giving this setup a try if you’re looking to minimize your pack while maximizing your enjoyment.