Gear for travel over the years

gdanmitchell wrote:

The OP's mention of the Pentax system brings back memories. Decades ago we (my wife and I) took the tiny ME and MX bodies on long Sierra Nevada backpacking trips and other kinds of travel, using a few of the excellent little Pentax lenses that were available for the system. Those were beautiful travel cameras in their day.

Later on I inherited a Rollei 35 from my father. For those who don't know the camera, it was not much larger than a pack of cigarettes and it had a retracting lens — 35mm focal length if I recall. It was the smallest high quality 35mm camera I ever saw. (It since ended up in the hands of one of my sons... who collets and uses old Leica's. But I digress.)

When it comes to "travel cameras," we are fortunate to have so many great options today. I can do things with the gear that I travel with today that I couldn't have done with that older gear. One of the BEST things is that we don't have to carry and manage all of that film! On one of our long (two-week) backpacking trips, my wife and I carried something like 30 rolls of film. Today? Memory cards.

Ah yes, the little Rollei 35 ... I think it came in a variety of lenses, one was F3.5 another 2.8 ...

Fabulous design! These days I would - of course, right?? - complain that anything above F2.0 FF isn't going to be on my list. Any list.

The ME had fabulous long time shutter auto function, important when you shoot slides!

I typically carried 20 rolls on any given trip that went past 2 weeks, then reduced the slides to 200, 4x50 magazines to bore what appears to be now ex-friends with endless shots of doors in Greece, courtyards in Italy, tiles in Portugal and temples in Thailand ... *sighs*

But good fun it was anyway.

The F3 a notch above the ME for sure though ...

Nikon F3 + 24mm, Portugal 1986.

Deed