Taking Your Camera on the Road

In school we learned the basic elements for survival: food, clothing, and shelter. Deciding to take your camera on the road includes these basic elements in your plans.

Food seems as easy as the local fast food joint, but sometimes you are far from town and have to plan eating around your photography and activities. Clothing is what you bring with you to shelter your body and impress others. Shelter consists of your accommodations, which for the traveling photographer can be varied and flexible. Will you have nice lodging or will you sleep under the stars with or without a tent?

Understanding how food, clothing, and shelter fit into your schedule and goals as a traveling photographer means maximizing time spent in the field with your camera and not out searching for the basics.

What you take with you when you go can be as important a decision as where you are going. For some people it is an overwhelming decision. How do you pack? What do you really need? Traveling is stressful enough. Planning your packing in advance eases that stress and makes you better prepared for enjoying your trip, knowing you have what you need.

Here are the questions to consider when planning for your packing:

Where are you traveling?

Where are you going? To the French Rivera or for a weekend in the mountains? Where you choose to travel affects how you pack. Different locations and adventures require specific clothing, equipment and procedures.

What kind of weather do you expect to encounter?

Hot, cold, rain, snow, or all weather conditions. Is where you are going a hot and humid place? Then wearing very cool clothing that allows a lot of air flow and which doesn’t retain moisture will be a better choice than preparing for a dry heat. Each weather condition has its own requirements for clothing and toiletries. Sun lotions, bug sprays, hats, sunglasses, gloves, and umbrellas are just some of the choices. Think about the weather you may encounter and be prepared to survive it.

How will you be traveling?

Will you be traveling by airplane? Car? Train? On foot? Bicycle? Horseback? Your method of travel, to and from the location as well as during the trip, dictates the kind of luggage you will take and the items you need to bring. If you will be staying in hostels and hitchhiking or taking a bus, a backpack is the ideal luggage and your clothing choices will be different than they would be if you were taking a cruise. Car camping means everything can just go in the car; the vehicle becomes the luggage.

How long will you be staying?

You pack differently for an overnight than you do for a week. The length of stay influences what items you bring with you. The longer the stay, the more likely a nice outfit will be required for a special evening or event. Will you have easy access to the laundry? If so, you can bring less. If not, consider bringing clothing that can easily be hand washed.

What are you going to do once you arrive?

Besides protecting yourself from the elements, this is the most important consideration. Will you be doing a lot of walking and hiking? Appropriate footwear is a must. Will you be doing an activity that requires special equipment or clothing? Scuba diving? Wind surfing? Canoeing? Do you have to bring your own equipment or can you rent or buy it there? If you have to bring special equipment, can it be transported easily or do you have to make special arrangements? Go through the list of activities and make sure you are adequately prepared.

There are just some things you can’t live without while traveling. After much research, the Mountaineers came up with the best and most concise list of the bare essentials you need before you head out, whether into the wilderness or camping in your back yard. When taking your camera on the road, it’s easy to grab the camera, toss a map and some food into the car and just go. The road is generally a safe place, but things can happen and do. Make a plan for your personal safety like you make a plan for your trips. It starts by bringing the 10 essentials for survival PLUS the photographic essentials to get those wonderful photographs safely.

The 10 Essentials

These are the 10 essentials as suggested by the Seattle Mountaineers.

• Extra Clothing – Rain parka and pants, waterproof clothing, hats and socks. Clothes should be wool or one of the new synthetics (polypropylene, Capilene, etc.) to keep you warm and dry.
• Extra Food – Besides lunch, bring extra food. Tuna, cheese, and nuts – bring food that is light to carry and high in protein and carbohydrates.
• First Aid Kit – Designed to meet your needs, be it three Band-Aids or a splint kit. Photographers are subject to blisters, sunburn, and slivers more than other injuries.
• Sunglasses – Sunglasses are often considered a nuisance for photographers, but essential for eye protection. Use a neck cord to keep from losing them as you work with the camera.
• Pocketknife – Small screwdrivers in a Swiss army knife are great for emergencies camera repairs and for replacing batteries on some cameras.
• Fire starter – For starting a fire in an emergency, paper, candle stubs or solid chemical fuel work well and are lightweight.
• Matches – Carry matches in film canisters to keep them dry.
• Flashlight – A small sturdy flashlight takes up little space and can save you in the dark. Bring extra batteries. A spare bulb wrapped in cotton fits nicely in a film canister.
• Map – USGS and/or Green Trail maps help you know where you are and where you are going.
• Compass – Good not only for orienting yourself, a compass can help you plan for sunrise and sunset.

Other items may include:

• Full Water Bottle
• Water Treatment
• Toilet Paper (in ziplock bag)
• Sun screen
• Insect Repellant
• Space Blanket
• Emergency Shelter
• A Whistle
• Ziplock Bags
• Wrist Watch
• Thermometer

Photographic Essentials

When you are out in the wilderness photographing, there are some basic things we believe you should carry in addition to the 10 Essentials. They should reflect your individual needs as a photographer.

The Hold-It-All

A photographer’s camera bag can hold a wide range of equipment from the camera and lenses to filters, film retrievers, and gray cards. Choose the bag that fits your needs and is rugged enough to last. For additional safety, remove name tags and evidence from your bag which identify it as expensive and invite theft.

Camera

Decide what you will photograph, and choose the camera and equipment appropriate for those subjects. If you spend time in the backwoods of Africa or Nepal, choose a camera that requires little or no maintenance and that will take lots of abuse. In the Arctic, a camera that works without batteries might be a good idea. Don’t forget to insure it.

Film

Don’t forget film. Remember, film is sensitive to extreme heat, moisture and radiation. Bring more film than you think you will ever need. We usually plan for about 10 rolls per shooting day per person.

Batteries

Batteries are the most forgotten item. Bring a lot of them for everything you have that requires them. Don’t forget small watch batteries buried inside of some cameras in addition to the AA or lithium. Always carry fresh spares. Batteries fade under extreme temperatures, especially cold. In freezing weather, keep them inside your coat or pockets until they’re needed.

Tripod

Some hate tripods, some love them. For most, the odds of getting a great photograph improve when they use a good tripod. Style, weight and size are personal choices. Get a good, sturdy tripod, flexible enough to meet your specific needs.

Cable Release

A cable release is one of the most lost items (next to lens caps). Mark your cable release distinctly to find it along the trail if dropped. Use red or neon-colored tape to increase its visibility, or tie it to your tripod. Cable releases wear out frequently, so consider bringing an extra.

Plastic Bags

No matter where you live, the weather can change quickly. Carry plastic bags to keep yourself and your equipment dry. They can also carry garbage and be a waterproof seat.

Tape

For quick camera repairs, blocking light, attaching filters to the lens, and a myriad of other uses, black electrician’s tape is a great tool.

Ground Insulation

A foam sleeping pad or a knee pad from a garden/hardware store is great for close-up work, for kneeling or resting, and for protecting your camera bag from the wet ground.

Many companies are now producing “The 10 Essentials” in small kits ready-made to insert into your knapsack or camera bag. Or you can make your own. Make a list of what you need to take with you and check it again before heading out. The thing you forget will always be the thing you need the most.

No matter how hard we plan and structure our trips, we seem to need everything with us when we go. If we are photographing close-ups of flowers, a moose walks by. We’ve learned to bring it all with us when we go. Once we get to a site, we can leave some equipment in the car or the hotel and refine our selection. Then it never fails that what we really need when that moose shows up is in the car 5 miles back.

Plan to take equipment with you that you really anticipate using, and then be ready with a few pieces to cover the rest of the possibilities. Prowling through caves, you know a flash is required. The harder choices are the lenses and accessories you need. Zoom lenses make what once was a challenge easy, as one lens can cover a wide range of perspectives. We call Canon’s 35 – 350mm lens the "kitchen sink" as it does just about everything in one lens. We break our zooms into smaller focal lengths to reduce weight and size.

Wide Angle Zoom

Wide angle zoom lenses come in a variety of sizes, and our favorite is the 17-35mm. Some cross the bridge between wide angle and longer with 24 – 85mm and 28 – 105mm and so on. These lenses give you the ability to do scenics and then quickly move in closer for portrait images.

Mid-range Zooms

A zoom lens which covers the middle of the range is a versatile addition to your camera bag. These start at or near the wide angle range and move towards 300mm. They allow you to stand in one place and go from an overall scenic to close up and personal with ease. For the traveler, a single lens can cover a wide range of photographic possibilities.

Long Zooms

While most wildlife and bird photographers stick to a fixed length 500 or 600mm, modern technology has brought some exceptionally well-made zoom lenses into the longer focal length range. The long zooms begin around 100mm and run toward 400mm. Longer zoom lenses offer slower f-stops and long minimum focusing ranges, but they bring what is far away up close. Combined with one wide or mid-range zoom, two lenses may be all you need.

Teleconverters and Extension Tubes

The addition of a teleconverter to your zoom lens instantly increases the length of the lens. While it also slows down the shutter speed, a 2X teleconverter can make a 28-135mm f3.5 lens into a 56-270mm. An extension tube are glassless tube that fits between the lens and the camera body. By pushing the lens further from the film plane it allows the lens to focus closer, resulting in great magnification. Either or both of these can be an easy solution for the traveler short on space and weight.

Light It

Many new cameras come with built-in flash units, reducing what you need to carry. If you need to carry a flash, consider how you will use it and how much flash power you need. If you will be doing macro photography, consider carrying a small flash to save space and weight, since you don’t need the high power of a long distance flash.

Tripod

Many travelers consider the tripod the first thing to leave behind. We consider it a must-have. They are big, awkward and heavy. But they are worth bringing in order to get quality images. Choose a tripod that will adequately support the longest lens you are bringing and will work within the environment you will be exploring.

Batteries

Cameras come with so many different kinds of batteries, it’s hard to keep track. So does all the other electronic accessories photographers need like flashes and flashlights. Make sure you have plenty of the right kinds of batteries. Winter cold sucks the energy right out of them quickly, so keep them tucked inside a warm place.

Specialized and Essential Equipment

There are a few other items we feel are essential for the traveling photographer. These items are a reflection of individual photographic interests.

Filters: 81B, Graduated Neutral Density, Polarizer

We carry few filters, but those we bring are critical for nature photography.

Stepping rings

To save space on filters, we buy filters for the largest lens filter size and then use stepping rings to fit the filters to the other lenses.

Groofwin

Created by LL Rue, the Groofwin is a unique tripod support which fits on the ground, vehicle roof, or neatly over the car window, providing a versatile platform to work from.

Bean bags

Whether commercially or home-made, we use bean bags and towels for shooting out car windows or on the ground when we need freedom of movement that a tripod restricts.

Macro focusing rail

These can be hard to find, but if you are serious about close-up/macro photography, they are essential for precision focusing. They fit between the camera and the tripod head allowing sensitive adjustments of the focus.

Bogen Superclamp

When working in close-to-the-ground situations, the Superclamp will fit on a tripod leg or tree branch, allowing us to get into unusual situations and still have a steady camera.

Gold and silver reflectors

For close-up work, we are often working in dark and low light situations. Reflectors bounce light onto a subject filling in shadows with a fold or silver glow. We like the collapsible ones by Photoflex.

Diffusion cloth

Also useful for close-up photography, commercial or home-made diffusion cloths can really soften the harsh light of midday. Two to three meters of ripstop nylon works great for creating an "overcast day" on small subjects.

What Camera Equipment to Take With You?

You do have the option of taking it all with you when you go, but honestly, that’s a lot of stuff when you add to it all the little things you carry normally in your camera bag: spare batteries, filter wrenches, reflectors, small screwdrivers, film, digital media, filter brushes, lens wipes, etc. It all adds up. So how do you decide what to take with you when you are taking your camera on the road?

We first seriously examine our goals on the trip. What do we want to accomplish photographically? Are we going for wildlife and birds which require long lenses, or are we playing tourist and needing shorter, wide angle lenses? Then we look at the weight. How MUCH do we really want, or need, to carry with us. Then we sort through the gear and set aside the things that we really think we need.

Top of the list to include in our camera equipment packing list are the camera pieces we can’t live without. The camera body and favorite lenses are musts. Brent adores his 17-35mm wide angle and won’t go anywhere without it, no matter what the subject matter or location. He uses it all the time. It has to go. I personally debate between the shorter and longer zooms, and end up taking both so the range is covered for all the different subjects I photograph.

Then the pruning and compromising begins.

We examine each item and mentally list the uses for the item. We also consider how it can have multiple uses. For us, we hate carrying only one thing that does only one thing. We like to carry one thing that does forty things. For example, we can carry the very heavy and huge 500mm lens, or we can take the 300mm with the 1.4x and 2x converter and get up to 600mm. Sure, it’s a slower shutter speed, but this is where the compromise comes in. The three pieces still weight much less than half of the weight of the 500mm, so are we willing to give up weight and shutter speed in order to take it with us when we go?

Our 70-300mm zoom is wonderful for travel photography when lenses on the long end are needed. We can get an overall shot and then zoom in on the details, all with one lens. But when it comes to precise bird photography, honestly, the 300mm, with or without the converters, isn’t good enough. At 300mm, the largest aperture we can get is 5.6. In the low light of morning and evening when many birds are at their best, this just doesn’t get us the speed we need. At a 1.4x teleconverter and the aperture goes up to 8, giving us more length at 420 but even less speed. If birds are our goal, this lens stays in the bag or at home and the 500mm comes with us.

Speciality lenses are the hardest to choose when traveling. If we know we will have a specific use for the tilt-shift lens, like photographing the wildflowers of Texas, that lens will be in our bags. If we are exploring Prague or Budapest, the last lens we really need is a tilt-shift lens. Sometimes the choice is easy, but other times it is harder, like deciding to take your macro lenses. Among the wildflowers you are guaranteed a chance to use it for closeup photography. But also in Prague or Budapest, you may find that unique opportunity to photography a closeup of some of the handmade crafts, a spider or interesting bug, or some characteristic or subject that screams out for closeup photography. We debate about these lenses all the time.

After we’ve pulled out the equipment we absolutely have to have, and make the compromises over the rest of the cmaera and lenses, we have to make decisions over the rest of the equipment. Reflectors are best used in natural lighting situations to enhance natural subjects. Especially small subjects. If you will be doing patterns, closeups, and small still subjects, include your reflectors. If you will be photographing birds, people, buildings, and wild animals, leave the reflectors at home.

Choosing to keep or leave the flash is more difficult. If you know you will be in low light situations, then the flash is a must. Cameras with built-in flashes make the decision easier, too. We have several different flashes for different situations, so we have to decide which flash(es) we will need for the location and subjects we want to photograph. Since we usually work mostly without flash, we’ve been known to leave the flashes behind, but we still debate and consider all the pros and cons before deciding.

Some photographers have different tripods for the different conditions and equipment they have. We have three tripods. One tripod is only for the 500mm lens as it is the heaviest and has the best support. If we don’t take the 500mm, this tripod stays behind. One is a monopod. If we will be photographing in the cities, moving quickly, and in medium to fast light, we will take this along, otherwise, it stays behind. The last tripod is our best friend and it goes with us most of the time. It is a light to medium weight Bogen and does what we need it to do.

The tripod is one of the places where we make a significant compromise. Because of the new weight restrictions for travelers, we have had to cut down on what we can take with us, and we decided to use one tripod between the two of us instead of taking two tripods. This is a huge weight and bulk reduction. It means waiting until the other person is through, but it works for us after over 12 years of photographing side by side.

Once you have the basic core items you absolutely have to have, you can go through your camera bag and determine which of the rest of the small items are worth hauling around. We tend to leave most of the filters behind except for the graduated neutral density, and only bring a small screwdriver and lens cleaning cloth, leaving most of the odds and ends behind.

The rest is up to you and your own photographic needs and weight issues. Make sure you have a sturdy and well padded camera bag and you are ready to go!