As some of you might have heard or seen on Flickr, Facebook, Tumblr or Twitter, I’m planning to go to Shanghai at the end of the year. With a long-distance trip like that, certain things need to be thought of – which flight to take, the visa, where to stay, what to see, clothes to bring, stuff like that.

For me, all of this pales by far to the trouble that I have deciding what photography gear to bring. Basically within my friends there are two schools of thought when it comes to this – some travel very light, just a compact camera and maybe, just maybe a small DSLR with one lens, while the others bring a huge backpack with a complete transportable studio, two or three cameras and more lenses than I can think of with them.

Basically I know I’ll bring my small compact Exilim. It’s going to be winter anyway, so I’ll be wearing a jacket and the tiny compact camera won’t take much space. But… well… it’s compact and I do like to take pictures with a real camera.

I do have a rather awesome Nikon D70s – it’s a bit old, but it’s basically the Toyota Hilux of Nikon cameras. It’s really reliable, works satisfactory in all kinds of conditions¹ and has a battery life that most other cameras can only dream of.

I have this wonderful end-70s Contax 139Q, fresh from an overhaul, looking sharp and ready to be used. Given that I haven’t used it in quite a while, that it just looks bad-ass and that it really really takes nice photos, the temptation to bring it with me is quite big.

And then the latest addition to my camera line-up. The Contax G1. You can’t really see it on this rather crappy picture, but boy, this is one wonderful and just stunningly well designed camera. Sometimes I just sit there, marveling at the sleekness of that thing. And the three lenses are just amazing, too. Rather fast, extremely sharp Zeiss primes.²

The one problem with the Contax cameras – besides their overwhelming awesomeness – is that they’re both analog cameras. As much as I love shooting film, changing the films all the time and my inability to completely suppress the little accounting in the back of my head, who tells me how much the development will be, might really not be something that I want when navigating a foreign city.

After having complained about this conundrum and my general unwillingness to just bring everything in a big backpack to Teymur, he, being the good friend that he is, decided to add on to my further mental anguish by offering to lend me his GF1.

The GF1 is basically the same size as the Contax G1 and it’s digital.³ The 20mm pancake is awesome. Just read this field test. OMG.

So, what to do? At the moment I’m leaning towards bringing both the D70s with the 50mm and the 18-70mm⁴ and the G1 with all three lenses and deciding each morning when leaving the hotel what to take with me. Which means I’ll have the same problem over and over and over again every morning. Bummer.
And good ideas and suggestions?

1. Mine survived both the tropical jungle with high temperature and humidity and sub-zero temperatures and even a not too graceful drop into the snow high up in the Swiss alps. And it’s still working like on it’s first day. [↩]
2. Also, and I’m not ashamed to admit this, I’m pretty proud that I got the whole set for way under the current eBay price. [↩]
3. By the way – I did get to play a bit with Franz’ GF2 the other day and was underwhelmed. The touch screen is pointless and everything that I like about the GF1 seems to be taken away. At this point, I’d rather get an Olympus Pen than the GF2. [↩]
4. Hah, I haven’t even mentioned the lens issues, yet, have I? [↩]