Greek Islands by motorbike
A little blog about what camera kit I like to take with me when touring by motorbike
Beautiful rock formations at the end of Sidari beach, close to Canal d’amour (Corfu).
Touring a destination by motorbike is an incredibly good way to pack a lot into a small amount of time both in terms of photos, and new experiences., I can thoroughly recommend it. It’s also worth going back to a location a second or third time, so you can properly explore the area and feel like you’ve visited it properly rather than rush off to chalk up another location.
Depending on whether you’re riding all the way from your home country, or renting a bike on arrival also dictates how much stuff you can carry with you.
I’ve said before that I don’t like my equipment to get in the way of my photography, but also that I don’t like my photography getting in the way of my travel and holiday time.
I knew that the Greek Islands, would be very beautiful, and was already thinking crystal blue waters, sunsets and stunning beaches. Beaches ring alarm bells to me when it comes to changing lenses too, so it was going to be a simple set up.
I took just one camera and one lens with me. The Sony A7CR is a full-frame high-resolution (60MP) camera, compact in size and weight but high in performance. The standard 24-70f2.8 GMII lens would have been lovely, but it’s too heavy and large for this compact setup, so I took a more compact, but just as capable 24-50f2.8 zoom lens. Using crop mode, I can achieve a 75mm FOV too, so I’ve got my focal lengths covered. With 60MP I’ve got plenty of headroom for further cropping if needed.
With plenty of sea and sky, I figured that it would be nice to have a polariser too. Using a 67-82mm magnetic step-up ring, I was able to attach KASE polarising filter and lens cap so I could decide if I needed a polariser or not and remove just the cap, or the filter as well.
People who know me, also know I favour prime lenses (fixed focal length), but for travel, especially where there’s going to be lots of landscape shots involved, a prime lens is a hinderance as it’s not always easily possible to zoom with one’s feet and be in exactly the right place.
We like to mark off places visited and it’s become a bit of a habit. There are still a few more locations to explore, particularly on the south of Corfu, but I think we did pretty well with 3 island and over 20 locations.
I usually like to shoot film and prime lenses on manual cameras but I have to say, on this holiday, the Sony performed flawlessly and I didn’t miss my rangefinders or film cameras.
It got out of the way of my photography by giving me the control I needed without too much menu intervention to get there, whilst being small and easy to carry so as not to be a burden during my holiday.
I captured the essence of the places we enjoyed, but had plenty of time to be in the moment and enjoy them without worrying about huge amounts of camera gear to be looking out for.
The GMaster Sony lenses are incredible, and despite efforts to make them smaller and lighter in the latest versions, other than prime lenses, the GMasters are still a bit large.
The 24-50f2.8G lens, is almost up with the GMaster for quality. It has the same number of aperture blades as the 24-70 which I really like for the sunstars. Optically it’s superb, though relies a little more on in-camera electronic correction profiles to sort the final images than the GMaster lenses. These can also be applied to RAW files in Lightroom which is what I usually do. It’s small and light and paired with the A7CR, it’s a powerful combo.
I’ve previously used the small f2.8 G primes in 24mm and 40mm. The 24-70 performs better optically and give a little more reach than that pair. Not being it’s no burden to carry around and of course I don’t ever have to change lens which is a massive bonus.
The KASE magnetic filter kit gave me options for creative photography, thought I didn’t use anything other than my polariser on this trip. Even with 82mm filters, it didn’t seem to affect portability of the camera/lens combo and took no more space than the lens hood would have done which I had to leave off.
