I’m a bit of a volcano junkie. I’ve hiked them all over the world, from Guatemala and Chile to the Democratic Republic of Congo. Usually, I’ll hire a porter to carry my gear – it’s a great way to give a local guy a day’s income, and save myself the pain of lugging kilos of lenses and a tripod for hours uphill.
But for Ol Doinyo Lengai, an active volcano in northern Tanzania, that wasn’t an option.
Rising over 9,800ft / 3,000m above Lake Natron, Ol Doinyo Lengai is sacred to the Maasai, known as the Mountain of God. It’s also the only volcano in the world that erupts natrocarbonatite lava – a black, sticky paste that flows at a searing 932°F / 500°C.
While not as high as other volcanos I’ve climbed, it’s also stupidly steep – and completely terrifying.
We started at midnight to reach the summit for sunrise. That meant six hours of climbing by torchlight, scrambling up forty-five-degree slopes of compacted ash with no switchbacks, nothing to grab onto, and a very real risk of losing your footing and sliding straight back down to the valley floor, with nothing to break your fall.
There was no way I was dragging a DSLR and lenses up there. So I left the ‘big camera’ behind and took only my Fujifilm X100T – the precursor to the Fujifilm X100VI, a compact with a fixed 35mm lens and a small pouch that I could attach to my belt.
It was the perfect choice. I could easily whip it out to shoot climbers lit by torchlight or capture the vertigo-inducing views of the valley far below.
At the top, it handled the glowing sunrise and precarious crater rim beautifully. And when I needed the all-important summit photo, my guide could easily handle the simple task of pointing and shooting.
Would the DSLR have given me better image quality? Of course. But I probably wouldn’t have made it to the top with it. Sometimes, the best camera is simply the one you can actually carry up a volcano.
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