I’ve always loved photography. We all like to keep our happy moments (journeys, encounters, people) perhaps because we sense that memory, over time, also grows weary.
On my first bicycle trips, I was already beginning to worry about space. I didn’t want to carry more than necessary: movement was enough for me: the wind on my face, the sound of the wheels on the road. I stopped only to eat or to take the occasional obligatory photo. Back then, my phone was enough. I enjoyed photographing and sharing my journeys, but I didn’t yet feel photography as a passion.
Until I moved into an empty apartment.
I wanted to make it my own by hanging collages with images from my routes, and that’s when I discovered something: the photos from my phone (this was more than seven years ago) didn’t have enough quality to enlarge them. I didn’t yet understand light or color (those hours I now spend in front of the computer after a weekend of mountains and dust) but I began to suspect there was something more behind a good image.
I kept traveling with my phone out of sheer convenience, until camping changed the way I saw things.
At the end of the day, I would pitch my tent, prepare something simple for dinner, and sit on my mat (or on an improvised bench) to read as the evening faded and the sky began to fill with stars. I would spend long moments with an augmented reality app, identifying constellations and imagining stories in each trace of light.
It was then that I knew I also wanted to keep those moments: my tent glowing in the night, the silence, the vast calm of the open land.
I have nothing against phone photography. Today, mobile cameras offer magnificent results and are perfect for styles like portrait, urban, or street photography. But there are areas where they fall short: night photography, macro, wildlife, or sports. Capturing the Milky Way or star trails requires bright lenses and long exposures (between 10 and 15 seconds for stars as points or light painting, and up to an hour for full trails). Of all that, I knew nothing back then. I just wanted to capture a piece of sky.
So I took the leap and bought my first camera: a mirrorless Olympus1, to which I added a bright lens (Panasonic Lumix G 20mm f/1.7 ASPH). I wanted to learn, to play, to make mistakes. And from that moment on, there was no turning back.
I had my conditions clear: it had to be small, light, and durable, a camera that could coexist with bikepacking gear. After reading and comparing, I chose the Micro Four Thirds system 2: compact, balanced, and with a range of lenses well suited for travel. I found a second-hand Olympus E-M10 Mark III, and although I thought it was huge when I first got it, I soon realized its true size. Today, it seems tiny compared to full-frame or APS-C cameras.
The true test arrived as I crossed Germany and Switzerland by bike3. I bought it for that trip, and the experience was eye-opening. Shortly after, I upgraded to the OM-5 (my current companion) and added a wide-angle and a compact telephoto lens.
If you’ve made it this far, perhaps you share the same doubts I once had.
That’s why I’m leaving you some personal notes (more lived than technical) that might help you decide.
You can see the advantages directly in the Deriva Lenta gallery: the color, the texture, the play of light.
The downsides, I’ll tell you here:
I don’t like cameras with a viewfinder that sticks out from the body : when carried on my back, it ends up poking me and becomes uncomfortable. My solution was to improvise a neoprene cover cut to leave the lens exposed; that way, I can stop, release the stabilizer that keeps it steady while I ride (an essential accessory), and shoot within seconds. With practice, the process becomes almost automatic.
I won’t deny that changing lenses can be a hassle: it interrupts the rhythm of pedaling and requires a small ritual of pause and care. But for me, that pause has become part of the journey. I carry the lenses in a waist pack, along with the camera (when I get tired of carrying it on my back) and a mini tripod. Ideally, a versatile all-in-one lens would be perfect, but I prefer the sharpness of primes: I usually carry three, two bright ones and a short telephoto. Everything fits in the waist pack and, although it forces me to stop, I experience it as a way of seeing with greater calm.
Changing lenses, in the end, is also changing perspective.
I’ve learned to travel without haste, and each photograph becomes part of the journey itself.
Perhaps your phone is all you need.
Perhaps you prefer a larger setup.
As for me, for now, I’m at peace with mine.
And you, what do you take on your journeys? What led you to choose your camera?
If you’d like to share it, I’ll be reading you in the comments or in Deriva Lenta’s photography community on Telegram.
Because the beauty of the road also lies in how we choose to see it.
Would you like to follow Deriva Lenta’s journey?
These reflections appear without a calendar, just as the thoughts that give rise to them arrive.
If you feel like receiving them as they emerge, the slowletter is where they continue.
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