Last updated on March 19, 2026
Cardiff is the capital city of Wales and it really does feel like our capital.
I’ve lived in other capitals in my time – Barcelona (capital of Catalunya) and London – but none of them has ever felt like mine.
All this to say, visiting Cardiff, which is only an hour away from where we live in Swansea, is always special for us as a family.
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Here are a few snaps from the boat trip we took from Cardiff Bay to Bute Park in the centre of the city.
As usual I had my trusty Fujifilm XT5 dangling around my neck, this time with the “new” Fujifilm 23mm f1.4 LM WR.
It’s a spectacularly gorgeous lens and another of those lenses that makes you think, “I don’t really need anything else”.
However, as predicted, I love everything about the lens other than its size. I asked Sarah, “What do you see/think when you look at this lens? Is it a “pro” looking setup?”
To which she replied, “Yes, because of the size of the lens, it looks professional.” Which is exactly what I want to avoid with my Fujiflm setup (other wise I may as well just shoot with my Sony A7V, which frankly isn’t a whole lot bigger with some of my smaller prime lenses). I want to feel invisible when I’m out with my camera, or at least as unthreatening as possible.
In the past I’ve also also owned the tiny Fuji 23mm f2, which I adored and felt had more character.
And now there’s also the new Fuji 23mm f2.8 pancake lens, which is perfectly tiny in form. I currently own the Fuji 27mm 2.8 but struggle sometimes with the ~40mm equivalent – I think I’d rather have a 35mm equiv or a 50mm equiv rather than something so “in betweeny”.
As my fellow photography obsessives will understand, this has caused me to fall into a sort of deep, dark despair, a purple-hued paralysis where each potential option ends with a headache.
The paradox of choice, indeed.
My initial thought: sell the 23mm 1.4 and buy the new 23mm 2.8 pancake lens. But then, if I’m going to do that, I might as well sell my 27mm 2.8 pancake as well, as there’s no point owning both.
But then, if I’m going to sell two lenses, maybe I should just chip in a little more and get a Fujifilm X100VI… which has a fixed pancake 23mm f2 (best of both worlds: I love the pancake form and also the F2).
And then, having arrived firmly at an impasse, things just get bloody ridiculous.
Is Inaction the Root Cause of GAS?
I often wonder if I do these mental gymnastics to fill the gap in my brain that’s hungry to get out there and shoot.
But because I can’t do this – due to my work and/or family life – it’s as if my brain confuses the “achievement” of tackling an imaginary problem and making a decision with actually doing what I want to do, which is of course, quite simply, to get out there and create.
Is that what triggers GAS (gear acquisition syndrome)? I think there must definitely be some sort of link.
For sure I know when I was younger and less tied down – with a mortgage and children to feed – back when I was travelling/shooting all the time, I almost never thought about gear. In fact I was more than content with the Fujifilm 18-55 kit lens.
Perhaps the less we shoot, the more we think about gear.
Perhaps the more we shoot, the less gear matters.
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