 Is my medium-format film kit too heavy for backpacking? Well, that's what we're going to find out today. My name is David Patton. When I started photography, I wanted to make art. I wanted to be a landscape photographer. But with a family to feed and bills to pay, I decided it would be better to be a working photographer than a starving artist. So I took a job as a photojournalist. 25 years and thousands of assignments later, it was time to go back to my first love. It was time to follow my passion. Come along on my journey to become the best black in my photography I can be. Whether it be film or digital, I will be sharing what I learned through my successes and my failures. In hopes to inspire and educate. This is my journey. This is Brighton Yash. So recently, I think I stated one of my goals for 2020 was to do some backpacking. Get a little more adventurous. Get out there a little more remote areas with my camera for a little bit more of the adventure experience. But I've been thinking, well, am I going to have to leave my medium format gear behind? I've never weighed it. I don't know what the total weight is of my kit. So I thought, well, I'm going to make a video today. We're going to figure that out. It might be some people out there that are kind of playing the same kind of thing. What will it take for them to backpack with their medium format gear? So I've got my little scale. And we're just going to weigh my items. I've got a Pentax 645N, a 75mm, a 150mm, and a 45mm. So I'm going to start with the camera body. It actually has a roll of foam in it, but it carries six batteries. And I think that's where most of the weight is, six AA's. So we'll start with this on this little scale here. And we've got the weight coming in at 3 pounds, 5.4 ounces. OK, I wouldn't call that light. But that's not too bad. On the 75, I don't expect this to be too heavy. 9.4 ounces. The 150 comes in at 1 pound, 0.4 ounces. And the 45 is 1 pound, 3.1 ounces. OK, let's shally this up and see what the damage is. 3.5 ounces. And that's not right. That's not 10 pounds worth of gear here. I'm going to have to do a little conversion from my math here, from pounds and ounces. I'll be back. OK, I've crunched the numbers here. And we've got this basic kit weighing in at 6 pounds, 1 ounce. That doesn't really sound that bad. Now that's not counting any extra batteries. That's not film. So if I carried 6 more batteries and a pack of film and really a 5 pack or something of a 120 film isn't really going to be that heavy. So we're looking at around 7 or 8 pounds max, I'm guessing. Which isn't really that light. So for comparison's sake, why don't I put together my similar kit that's digital and see what the weight is on that. See how close they are. I'm back. And this is my kit for backpacking, which is what I'd be using. But what I realized when I started putting this out is my 20's on the camera here being used for the video. So my kit comprises of a Nikon D810, a 20mm which is on that camera right there. A 50mm and a 85mm 1.8G lens. And the 20 is also a 1.8G lens. So I went ahead and weighed the 20 while off camera. The 20 comes in at 13 and a half ounces. Not too bad. It's pretty light. Let's crunch those numbers. Math isn't my strong suit. We all have to crunch the numbers. My film kit is only a couple pounds more than my digital. Interesting. I hope I expected it to be a little bit further apart in weight. A few pounds... You know, that might be doable. I got six pounds versus four, a little over four. So for this video I set out to just determine if my medium format kit was going to be too heavy for backpacking. And if it's only a couple pounds more than my digital kit in its medium format, I'm inclined to think that it's not too heavy for backpacking. I wouldn't say it's ultra light backpacking, but I think it's doable. We're only talking a couple pounds. Maybe I'll just lose a couple around the waist and call it good. Well, thanks for coming along on this little test to see what my medium format gear weighs. This is the first time I've ever actually been wanting to do this for a while. It's the first time I've ever actually sat down and actually weighed the gear, any of my gear. So it's been some good information that I can use. My 35 millimeter digital kit is actually pretty light, but my medium format film kit isn't really too bad either for what it is. It can get a lot heavier in a two and a quarter camera with lenses. So I hope to see you out there on some adventures this year. And I hope that this one can come along. So I think I'm in today's video right here. Until next time, thanks for coming along for the ride.