Photography: What’s in my bag? Part One
Hello and welcome back to my blog. What’s in my bag? I have noticed that many photographers post what they have in their bags and what they use them for and I enjoy looking at what they use to create their photography.
I thought that it would be useful to list the current contents of my bag that I use for landscape and seascape photography. Some are obvious, others may be less so, but I thought you might find it interesting if I unzipped my backpack and let you see “what’s in my bag?” as a landscape/seascape photographer.
Cameras and Lenses
Nikon D7200 Digital SLR Camera Body
This is the main camera that I had since 2016. This was the second camera I own and upgraded from a Nikon D90. (I still got it at home) With a 24.2 megapixel cropped sensor and a frame rate of 6fps that can capture fast action such as water sports. It also has a built-in time-lapse movie mode which I have not used yet although I hopefully will do a Milky Way time-lapse in the summer.
Nikon D750 Digital SLR Camera Body
I, sometimes borrow this camera when I need something for specific types of photography such as wedding photography or low light photography such or night photography. It is a full-frame camera with a similar system to my D7200 camera specification. I have been using this when photographing a wedding.
Nikon 18-105mm AF-S DX Nikkor f3.5-5.6 G ED VR Lens
This is the focal range I find most useful for everyday photography. Therefore, it is the lens I tend to keep attached to my D7200 so I am always ready to take photographs when the opportunity arises.
Sigma 10-20mm f/4-5.6 EX DC HSM Lens for Nikon
This is a very wide-angle lens only useful on a crop sensor camera but vignettes when setting to 10mm if you add a filter to the lens. It is a great lens to start out in landscape photography but the downside is that the lens is too slow to focus at some distances and you may need to focus stack to get a full in focus landscape. This lens will be replaced at some point.
Nikon 70-200mm f2.8E AF-S FL ED VR Nikkor Lens
A beast to carry in my bag and it is borrowed not owned. It is also heavy and expensive to carry but it is a fantastic lens that is designed to capture wildlife, sport, action or Water-sport. This lens has given me a sharp image to capture in the distance. It is great for an FX camera but also great for a DX camera with the same angle of view as a 105~300mm lens. I often use it on a monopod to give stability but also mobility.
Nikon 24-120mm f4 G AF-S ED VR Lens
This is an FX lens with a constant f4 aperture throughout the zoom range. It is a fantastic lens to do everyday photography from portraits, landscapes, and weddings. Its good performance in low light is useful for wedding photography.
Accessories
Lee Filter system
For landscape photography, I used a Lee filter system using the older system and not the Lee 100. I carry it in my bag.
-Lee 100mm ND Grad Soft Resin Filter Set (ND Grad filters 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9)
-Lee filter holders house
-Lee 105mm Front Holder Ring
-Lee 105mm Landscape Polarising Filter
-Lee Neutral Density Filter Set
-Lee Big Stopper 10x Filter
-Lee Little Stopper 6x Filter
-Lee Wide Angle Adaptor Ring 72mm
-Lee Adaptor Ring 67mm
-Lee filter pouch to keep all filters together and safe.
-Lee filter polarising pouch to hold the polarising filter and Lee filter housing together and safe.
Manfrotto MT055CXPRO4 Carbon Fibre Tripod with Manfrotto XPRO Head with 200PL Plate
Great tripod with a ball head with a quick power lock leg locking system that extends to 170cm, close down to 54 cm, and its 90° centre column mechanism allows the column to be extended vertically or horizontally. It is lighter than my old tripod as it uses carbon fibre.
Manfrotto MM290C4 Carbon Fibre Monopod
A monopod for when my heavy telephoto is attached to my camera. It is lightweight and gives me height to give me a stable camera and reduced vibration when I take the shot of the action sport, wildlife or Water-sport. I don’t carry this monopod all the time and leave it in the car. It’s only used when it is needed.
Pro Light camera backpack Bumblebee-220 for DSLR/camcorder
This is my second camera backpack since 2016. I wanted a bag that not only carried my camera gear but had room for my laptop. Its interchangeable dividers mean that I can change the layout when I want and it has external places to hold my tripod
Hama DCC Timer remote release
This is a most important piece of kit to enable me to do long exposure photography without using the shutter button on a camera. The remote release enables me to reduce the amount of vibration when taking a long exposure.
Extra bits in the bag
-notebook - important to write down the information about the images that I took on a specific day.
-cleaning kits - very basic cleaning kits including lens cloths to clean the glass lens and a blower to clean the sensor to keep the dust or spot off from the sensor.
-small compass, just a random thing to put in the bag, never know when it may be useful.
-LensCoat 2-Axis Bubble Level- ideal to help the camera level with the horizon when shooting landscapes.
-cochlear implant battery - always carry a spare battery in my bag.
-5x Nikon camera battery - carry of spare batteries.
-5x SD memory cards range from 32GB to 64GB - with Lowepro pouches to carry spare SD memory cards
-Manfrotto PIXI Mini Tripod with Manfrotto Universal Smartphone Clamp - ideal for iPhone mount to capture video or still photographs. Small and easy to a hand-held tripod.
I hope you enjoy reading my blog and will see you again in my next blog post.
Till next time.