Travel Photography – Kit Guide

This post is a collection of hits and tips of what equipment to take for backpacking trips. Below is a list of what I took around Australia and New Zealand for 5 weeks, plus some other product recommendations. These aren’t intended to be set rules but just an aid in making decision before you set off.

Cameras
If you own a SLR I’d recommend taking a compact too. My wife took a Canon PowerShot A590 IS Digital Camera (8.0 MP, 4xOptical Zoom) on this trip, which worked fine as a backup and a more suitable camera to use when the environment was a challenge. For example when coming close to a waterfall in a tour boat – I didn’t fancy the risk with the SLR.

If you don’t own a SLR and you want to pack very light on camera equipment I would recommend the following…

Nikon Coolpix P6000

Canon PowerShot G10

Fujifilm FinePix
S2000HD

I met quite a few people with this type of advance digital camera who were travelling for 6 – 12 months, and they suited their needs.

The SLR I took was a Canon 400D, this suited my needs as it’s quite light and didn’t require too much room in my bag.

Accessories for your SLR Camera

Canon BG-E3 Battery Grip

The price tag of a battery grip put me off the idea of using one, so I purchased an additional battery pack which worked out fine. I would admit that if your were travelling somewhere very remote with no wall socket for days, then a battery grip that can take AA batteries would be worth the investment.

My Remote control came in handy for long exposure photography. If you want to save a few pounds you can use the delay on the shutter to get a good night shot – however you will have to wait a few seconds every time.

Lenses
I’d recommend taking only 2-3 lenses maximum. The main lens you need to suit travel photography is a good all round zoom lens. See the recommendations below.

Canon 28-135mm
f/3.5-5.6 IS USM

Canon 24-105mm
f/4.0 L IS USM

Canon EF-S 18-200mm
f/3.5-5.6 IS

I took a 28-135mm IS f3.5-5.6 lens. This provided a balance on range and quality. I was especially impressed with the result from a Glacier trip.

Canon 400D, Canon 28-135mm f3.5-5.6 lens – 1/400 sec, f/7.1, ISO 100

Suitable additional lenses are the following.

Canon EF-S 10-22mm
f/3.5-4.5 USM

Canon EF 16-35mm
f/2.8L II USM

Sigma 15mm f2.8
Diagonal Fisheye

The other lens I took was a 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 lens. This worked great for landscape shots.

Canon 400D, Canon 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 lens – 1/200 sec, f/10, ISO 100

Lens hoods
I also took the lens hoods for both these lenses. These did aid in reducing lens flare, however they were mainly used to protect the lens. I know hoods are not cheap for what you get (a bit of plastic) but they reduced the scuffs and bumps on the filter and lens.

Canon EW-83E
Lens Hood

Canon EW-78B2
Lens Hood

Filters
I took a polariser for each lens and had a standard UV filter for protection. With the weather down under been mainly sunny (we did get some rain) the polariser worked great in bringing detail and depth to the blue skies.

Canon 400D, Canon 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 lens – 1/200 sec, f/9, ISO 100

Memory

I took 30GB of Memory with me, which I just filled in 5 weeks. Memory is so cheap now – if I had have ran out there where plenty of shops about to buy more. If you are going to see any wildlife I would recommend purchasing fast memory. I went on a dolphin trip and needed all the fps I could get, using the SanDisk CompactFlash 4GB Extreme III memory my buffer never maxed out.

Canon 400D, Canon 28-135mm f3.5-5.6 lens – 1/1250 sec, f/8, ISO 400

Bag
I took a lot of time in researching this purchase and left it last on my list as I wanted to make sure everything I wanted to take would fit in.

Lowepro Rezo 160
Shoulder Bag

Tripod

I knew I wanted to do some long exposures, so some form of stability would be required. I settled on the gorillapod in the end after reading a few reviews.

Joby Gorillapod
SLR Zoom

In terms of price and size its great value. It managed with the weight from the camera and lenses fine. The only negative point I have about it is that it’s frustrating to get into the right shape. To aid this I got a tripod head – Manfrotto MN-484RC2 Ball Head this made positioning a lot easier.

Manfrotto MN-484RC2
Ball Head with Q/R Plate

The gorillapod came in really useful in Sydney.

Canon 400D, Canon 10-22mm f3.5-4.5 lens – 1.3 sec, f/5.6, ISO 100

In the 5 weeks down under I took mainly wildlife, landscape and cityscape photographs. This set up suited me fine. I support the rule that less is better when travelling – it makes you more creative to get the most of what you have.

Tags: guide, kit, Travel

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