Gear - How to Travel
When you have taken over 100,000 images and lugged very heavy equipment, like a 400 mm Sigma lens, all day in the Alaska frontier, you soon realize what’s important about your gear! Weight!! Ideally a small phone might do the trick, but if you really want good pictures, you want a good camera. So, lets talk about gear stuff in this order:
how am I going to pack and get my gear from one location to another?
how am I going to wear my gear so I don’t break it or drop it?
what gear do I really need to bring with me?
what is the gear I like to use to help your decide what you should get?
Let’s start with how am I going to get on the plane with all of the gear I want to bring with me. The idea is this. Bring all of the gear in a carry on bag. In that bag bring a smaller bag that you will use when you are walking, biking, boating, driving. So let’s start there…
My Think Tank Bag!
My Stuff in the Carry On Bag!
Anything that is a screw driver or cleaning solutions I make sure not to have in this bag and have that in my check-in bag. This is a ThinkTank bag, and they have a great assortment of camera bags.
In this bag I have a smaller 6L bag. I do it in this way in case of a lay-over I can pull some equipment up and put some things in the smaller bag and start taking pictures. This smaller bag can hold a large lens and a smaller camera or a couple of lenses etc.
Peak Design 6L with Peak Design Travel Tripod
I like Peak Design products, because everything is suppose to work together and for me it does. The travel tripod attaches to the bottom of the 6L bag. When we talk about Craft, you need a tripod!
Now that we have decided on the bags we need to travel and to walk around (and for anyone that is a huge accomplishment) we need the camera equipment outside of the bag, so we can use it. Yes we are on point 2 above. It took me many years (perhaps decades) when I realized the strap that came with my camera was not my friend. If you have gone to a wedding and watched the photographer, it is likely they weren’t wearing the camera strap. She likely had one camera clipped, the other one out with a clutch strap or a sling, with other equipment in pockets like in a vest. Shooting lots of pictures (and if you are an amateur like me passionate about getting a good photo you will have to shoot thousands of pictures a day when you are on a trip) you will want to be comfortable and using the camera with ease and speed. Because of this I use the sling holders and capture clips from Peak Design. Along with the tripod this system works very well for me.
Me practicing moving around with my gear at the coffee shop.
What gear do you need to bring with you on your next trip? First, batteries. Second, card reader or USB cord to download photos. Third, a camera with a lens. I will sometimes just bring my small Sony RX-100 Mark 7. This camera fits into my pocket as well as the card reader, spare batteries, etc…. If I bring my Sony Alpha 7R Mark 5, then I have to think of lenses to bring. I always bring my Sony GMaster f-1.4 85mm prime lens. What I bring on the trip has to do with the location, does the place inspire me, and what I plan to shoot, people on the street or landscapes near the water. I almost always bring a tripod.
Currently, I am all in with Sony. My equipment cameras are the Sony RX-100 Mark 7 and the Sony Alpha 7R Mark 5. Why? The RX-100 does pretty much everything my large 7R does, but is much more unassuming. I can keep it on my hip pocket, and even shoot it from my hip, doing street photography, and it seldom calls attention and tips off my subject. It is very convenient and easy.
The Sony Alpha R7 is a masterpiece for shooting still images. I have enough of a problem working on my still image craft so video taking isn’t that interesting for me. Moreover, I love street photography and landscapes, more than I do in studio portraits and sports photography. So I don’t need a wide body camera nor do I need a super fast shutter speed.
I don’t have to worry about lenses for my RX-100, because it comes with its own Zeiss 24 by 200 mm super zoom. For my Sony alpha RZ I choose only GMaster lenses, even though they are expensive. The first reason was when I had the Nikon D2X and then the Nikon D850 I got super tired of the slow speed meaning the smaller maximum aperture of f-4.5. This limited what I could do especially with shots I was visualizing to be more artistic then what these lenses could provide. The other reason for going with these expensive lenses, or so my thinking went and I can’t absolutely vouch for this, is the Sony R7 is a 61 megapixel camera! Crap in equals crap out. So this high resolution justified in my mind going with the best lens I could find (within reason of course).
So the specific lenses I have are: GMaster f-1.4 85mm prime, GMaster f-2.8 24 by 70 mm, GMaster f-2.8 70 by 200 mm. This covers a wide range. Ideally the 85 mm is best for portrait shots of people and animals. Also good on the street for more close up stuff. The 24 by 70 mm provides some wide angle capability good for architecture and landscapes especially shooting low to the ground. The 70mm allows for more close in shots on the fly. The 70 by 200mm means I can stand farther away from the subject and still get it tight like a portrait. Also I can shoot wild life more easily too.
In my opinion all beginners should start shooting with a prime lens. I did not start out that way and as a result I took lots and lots of terrible pictures. For me using any zoom can be more challenging than a prime, because each focal length has it’s own visual characteristics. When I use a zoom lens today I think about what focal length I am setting it to and why I am using that focal length. Then I get my body in position for the shot based on the focal length I selected. Doing it backwards, staying still and zooming in and out with the lens, will likely produce uninspiring photos.
