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The Best Camera Kit You’ll Want to Bring With You Everywhere

Chris Gampat
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Last updated on 04/11/2025
04/16/2025
6 Mins read
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Lots of photographers think about the idea of having a single lens and a single camera. That’s tough to do when you want to do travels. But the truth still is that your dedicated camera can still do a lot more than your phone in most cases. So, to prep you for your next trip, we’re rounding up our favorite camera kit you’ll want to bring with you everywhere. Dive into this with us!

This blog post is presented in partnership with LUMIX.

We’re going to say this right off the bat: this article is presented in partnership with LUMIX. But at the same time, we also are transparently stating that we don’t write anything we don’t truly believe in. Trust us, it has caused lots of friction in advertising campaigns with other advertisers. And if we don’t have the facts to back up what we’re saying, we won’t say it. These truly are the best full-frame cameras with a film look for good reasons.

There’s great news for you reading this: LUMIX lenses are small, lightweight, affordable, and they don’t skimp out on performance. With many other brands, there’s always some sort of compromise. But in this case, that doesn’t happen.

Here are the best interchangeable lens cameras available now.

Why You Should Trust Us

The Phoblographer has been doing real-world photography gear tests longer than any other photography publication currently run. We also have the largest database of real-world lens reviews, amongst other things like straps, camera bags, lights, accessories, and more. Here’s why that matters:

  • AI Can’t Do This Job: These days, other publications do roundups, sometimes using generative AI. That’s the same as a person researching products and then making a decision without actually trying it. All of our reviews and guides are written not just by humans but by working photographers — not AI. Computers don’t use cameras, so why would you trust AI to recommend cameras for you?
  • Research and Practical Experience: Here at the Phoblographer, humans consult on what roundups to do with guidance from an editor. Then, a human goes through our database of reviews and selects the best products based on our own internal research. The human creating the roundup has practical experience with photography gear and will apply their knowledge of what’s best to the already human-based experience provided in our reviews.
  • We Block AI Bots: The Phoblographer blocks indexing bots from reading our site, so what’s here can only be read here.

How We Test and Choose the Best Camera Kit You’ll Want to Bring With You Everywhere

  • The Phoblographer’s various product round-up features are done in-house. Our philosophy is simple: you wouldn’t get a Wagyu beef steak review from a lifelong vegetarian. And you wouldn’t get photography advice from someone who doesn’t touch the product. We only recommend gear we’ve fully reviewed in these roundups.
  • If you’re wondering why your favorite product didn’t make the cut, there’s a chance it’s on another list. If we haven’t reviewed it, we won’t recommend it. This method keeps our lists packed with industry-leading knowledge. Some of our stories include affiliate links. If you buy something through one of these links, we may earn an affiliate commission.
  • When we test lenses, we’ve got various things in mind. First off, we consider who might want to buy the lens and what they might do with it. With that in mind, we try to tackle at least three genres of photography with that lens in a variety of situations. If the lens has weather resistance, then we’ll test it accordingly with a weather-resistant camera. We also test the autofocus of the lens in continuous mode, single mode, with exposure preview effects, without those effects, and then with all the major image quality parameters. These days, no one really makes a bad lens — but some are far better than others. The same applies to working with cameras.
  • In this specific roundup, we’re basing our findings on the reviews that we’ve done. We’re choosing a favorite, but we’re also giving photographers a bunch of others that they might like, depending on how they shoot.

LUMIX S9

A camera with a long lens is placed on an open magazine with blurred text and colorful images in the background.
The LUMIX S9 with the 28-200mm lens

The LUMIX S9 is one of the closest things to being a compact camera that you can get your hands on that houses a full-frame sensor and all the tech you’d demand of a high end ILC. Amongst the big things to know, there’s a 24.2MP Full frame sensor in  the S9. That sensor has 6.5 stops of image stabilization as well as PDAF Real Time Tracking. To us, it’s one of the most perfect cameras for travel photography and, when paired with the LUMIX S 28-200mm lens you get the versatility of having a high quality, small and compact zoom lens with a focal length that extends to 28-600mm with the Hybrid Zoom feature available in the S9.Best of all, it comes in pretty stylish colors. And if you’re into the more classic black look, then know that you can spread that cool factor to your image quality using Real Time LUT. There’s a lot more to know about this camera that you can explore in our full review.

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Sample Image Shot with the LUMIX S9. Credit: Chris Gampat
Sample Image Shot with the LUMIX S9. Credit: Chris Gampat

LUMIX S 18-40mm f4.5-6.3 L-Mount Lens

The LUMIX 18-40mm f4.5-6.3 on the S9. Credit: Chris Gampat

The LUMIX 18-40mm f4.5-6.3 lens is a super small travel zoom that collapses down even smaller for carry. It starts out with a wide 18mm and then goes into the normalish 40mm range. That’s enough to help you capture pretty much everything you might need until you have to reach for a longer telephoto lens of some sort. On top of all this, the lens focuses quickly and has weather resistance built into it. There’s a lot to love here!

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Sample image shot with the LUMIX s9 and 18-40mm lens.

LUMIX S 50mm f1.8 L-Mount Lens

LUMIX S9 with the 50mm f1.8. Credit: Chris Gampat

In our review, we called this lens one of the best nifty 50s on the market. And there’s great reasons for that. First off, it’s very affordable and often gets bundled with a camera for free. It’s also weather-resistant, fast to focus, sharp, and has a beautiful bokeh that’s great for storytelling. Oh, and it’s also very lightweight. Why wouldn’t you want to bring something so promising on a trip?

Sample image shot with the LUMIX S 50mm f1.8. Credit: Chris Gampat
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LUMIX S 26mm f8

In our review, we said that it’s such a great lens partially because it takes the idea that everything needs to be super sharp all the time and makes it obsolete. This lens is about the experience and art. It’s not going to win MTF chart awards — and it’s not designed for that. But if you’re looking for a classic look to combine with the Leica Monochrome on the LUMIX S9, then you’ll really have a lot of fun with this one.

Shot with the 26mm f8
Shot with the LUMIX S 26mm f8
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Picking the Right One For You

If you’re still a bit confused as to the right lens for you, here are some questions to ask yourself

  • What’s your budget?
  • How will you use the product?
  • What lighting situations are you in, and how will that affect what you’re doing? Our reviews hyperlinked in this article can help with that.
  • Are you traveling a lot with it?
  • Will you be using it in a situation that’s a bit rougher?
  • Who else uses this product? How are they using it?
  • What’s so appealing about this product that I can’t get from what I have already or something else?
  • When will I really have time to use this product?
  • Where will I bring this product?
  • How will this product help bring me joy and joy in my photography?

These are just a few of the questions that we ask ourselves, but we think that you should ask yourself these for sure.

28-200mm Camera Kit lumix panasonic
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Written by

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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