I shot an entire trip with just an oversized compact camera and a tiny mirrorless. This is what I learned

When I bought my first DSLR, I never looked back at my old compact camera – until, that is, I took a vacation years later and found myself shooting with a waterproof compact camera more than my mirrorless. The feeling of shooting with a smaller camera was liberating, so, as I planned a trip flying from Detroit, Michigan, to Los Angeles, California, I packed two cameras: an oversized compact camera and a tiny mirrorless.

I tucked the Fujifilm GFX100RF and the Fujifilm X-E5 with the 23mm f/2.8 R WR lens, which I had loaned out for the trip, into a camera backpack. At the last minute, my doubts got the best of me, and I tossed in my own X-T4 with a prime and a zoom, just in case, but neither one actually left the camera bag.

The Fujifilm GFX100RF and X-E5 aren’t exactly on the same playing field. The GFX100RF is a 102MP camera with a medium-format sensor and a fixed 28mm-equivalent f/4 lens. The X-E5 is a 40.2MP APS-C mirrorless camera, which I shot with the compact 23mm f/2.8 R WR kit lens. A better comparison would be matching the X-E5 with the Fujifilm X100VI, but I wanted to see how an oversized compact camera and an undersized mirrorless camera fared on the same trip.

Out of the two cameras that I packed, the so-called compact camera was actually larger than the mirrorless kit that I used. The GFX100RF sits a little taller and deeper than the X-E5, weighing about half a pound or 255g more than the X-E5 with its kit lens.

As I shot with the GFX100RF, I could almost forget that I was shooting with a medium-format camera. The camera is small, and considering my favorite lens is the Fujifilm 50mm f/1.0, lighter than my usual kit. The metal build, however, reminded me of the technical marvel that I held in my hands.