There comes a point in a photographer’s life when the question changes from “What camera should I buy?” to “What camera can I actually carry?”
For years, I had happily accumulated photography equipment under the assumption that more equipment somehow meant more photography. Bigger cameras, bigger lenses, bigger bags. If a lens weighed about as much as a small dog, that was apparently a sign that it was a serious piece of photographic equipment.
Then I got older.
Suddenly, the equipment that had once seemed perfectly reasonable began to seem slightly ridiculous. Carrying a camera bag for any distance became an exercise in reconsidering my life choices. A long lens that had once been an exciting new acquisition now looked suspiciously like something I should be charging rent for. Mobility was becoming a consideration, and I started looking for ways to make photography physically easier. That meant shopping.
I began investigating lighter cameras and lenses, which turned out to be an excellent way to spend enormous amounts of time on the internet without actually taking a single photograph. I read specifications. I compared weights. I watched reviews. I looked at photographs taken with different systems. I convinced myself that I was being sensible and practical. Naturally, I also discovered that every camera manufacturer had apparently designed a camera specifically for me. The more I looked, the more attractive the mirrorless systems became. They offered smaller bodies, smaller lenses, modern features, and considerably less weight than the DSLR equipment I had been accustomed to carrying around. Eventually, I kept coming back to Fujifilm.
And then I found the Fujifilm X-T5. The X-T5 seemed to hit a particularly appealing balance. It was substantially smaller and lighter than the equipment I had been accustomed to carrying, but it didn’t feel like I was giving up the things that had made photography enjoyable in the first place. It was still a serious camera. It still had plenty of controls. It still looked like a camera rather than a sophisticated electronic doorbell. So, after all the research, comparisons, second-guessing, and completely unnecessary amounts of internet browsing, I bought one.
The Fujifilm X-T5 didn’t magically restore the mobility I had twenty years earlier. It didn’t make hills flatter or trails smoother. It didn’t make camera bags lighter by some mysterious photographic technology. But it did make the prospect of taking a camera with me considerably more appealing. And that mattered. The goal wasn’t really to find the perfect camera. I had spent enough years doing photography to know that the perfect camera exists primarily in advertisements and in the imagination of photographers who haven’t bought it yet. The goal was to find a camera that removed one of the obstacles between me and photography.
The X-T5 did that. It was lighter. It was smaller. It was capable. And, most importantly, I was more likely to pick it up and take it with me. That turned out to be more important than having the biggest, fastest, most impressive collection of equipment sitting in a closet. After decades of photography, I had finally learned something that probably should have been obvious from the beginning: The best camera isn’t necessarily the one with the most features. Sometimes it’s the one you’re still willing to carry.