Packing for a month-long multi-city trip: my photography kit
And so I’m now packing for my month-long travel and as always the question is “what do I bring with me?”.
I’m used to travelling light, sometimes superlight, but that’s for a week maximum, this time I’ll be away for a month. At least I made the choice to travel between countries that will show a pretty consistent weather all along, with probably a +/- 10C difference in temperature only, so clothing shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
The complications with me come with my gear. I know I’ll have my laptop and my mobile devices, and I know I won’t bring my drone because there’s no worldwide standard regulation yet and being this an open trip (still) I don’t want to find myself handing my drone to any law enforcer. But photography-wise, with such diverse countries, how do I select the few lenses to put in my backpack? I don’t want to have more than 3 lenses so how do I choose a good kit that is versatile enough?
You can have a look at my equipment on kit.com: what’s in my photo bag?
After years of DSLR and iPhoneography, I now own a mirrorless system (Fujifilm), which allows me to achieve a very high quality in my pictures while also travelling light. I’m in freaking love with my Fujifilm X-T2 camera. Aside from the image quality (commonly regarded as the best JPEG files straight out of camera), it’s really the feeling of the camera in my hands that makes me so enthusiastic about it. It’s like a natural extension of my arms, and it is a joy to use, and it has this retro style that I love, and all the buttons and dials are in the right place, it’s weather-sealed, etc etc. It lacks a full frame sensor and in-body stabilisation, and I learned to get over that, but I hope these will make their appearance one day in a future model that will not be as expensive as the medium format GFX.
Fujifilm, if you’re reading… 😉
I think I’ll be packing 4 lenses in the end.
The 10-24mm and the 18-55mm will do for my landscape/cityscape photography and I’ll include the 23mm for street photography (and this is also weather-resistant, while the 10-24mm is not, in case it rains). But I think that even though it’s a tad heavy, I’ll add the 90mm as well because it produces gorgeous portraits and could also help me photograph animals without approaching and scaring them too much.
On top of that I’ll pack some accessories as well: my light but sturdy tripod, the mini Pixi tripod and a clamp (all of which fit in a side pocket of my Peak Design backpack), plus a bunch of small items that help me get better pictures, keep my camera and lenses clean, etc. And of course a hard drive for extra backups (the Western Digital Passport is a great option as it works without a laptop, just insert the memory card).
Not too many things as I’ll be carrying all of this in my hand luggage, because I frankly fear something could end up damaged otherwise and because it’s the gear I’ll have on my shoulders on a daily basis. But still more than just my phone, which was all I had when in Iceland years ago.
You can see details of the camera and lenses I mentioned above in my kit.co page, but let’s recap the essentials here:
- Fujifilm X-T2 camera
- Fujifilm XF 10-24mm F4 R OIS
- Fujifilm XF 18-55mm F2.8-4 R LM OIS (kit lens)
- Fujifilm XF 23mm F2 R WR
- Fujifilm XF 90mm F2 R LM WR
- XCSource Q-666C carbon fiber travel tripod
- Manfrotto Pixi EVO 2
- Takeway Campod T1
- Western Digital Passport Wireless Pro
- Peak Design Everyday backpack 20L
And now let’s go!
