What`s in your bag ?

[Shewie]

What do you more experienced snappers carry in your man bag for a days shooting. I`m referring to bushcraft and nature/landscape related shots.
I`ve just got my first dslr and so I`m trying to put together some decent tackle, please include filters etc.
Any explainations as to why you use these bits would be useful too as i`m a complete novice at this caper.

 

[Wayland]

I try to keep my bag fairly small but it's getting heavier. I use a Billingham Hadley which looks fairly inconspicuous but I suppose it's given away by the hulking great tripod I carry around with me.

Camera and lens wise I use a 5D with 17-40mm f4 L a 70-200mm f2.8 L and a 2x extender.

Other vital accessories I carry are a timer / shutter release cord, a spirit level that fits in the hotshoe, spare batteries and memory cards, and three filters, circular polariser, 64x ND and an R72 infrared.

I usually have a microfibre towel, a rain cover, cleaning equipment and a sun compass as well.

 

[British Red]

Mmm I generally carry my Eos 400D, 18-55, 80 - 200, 135-400 & 60mm macro. Don't always have a tripod but I do have a Leki pole that has a monopod screw in it. I have a specialised Lowepro daysack with one compartment for the camera gear and a separate one for normal stuff

HTH Red

 

[Shewie]

Mmm I generally carry my Eos 400D, 18-55, 80 - 200, 135-400 & 60mm macro. Don't always have a tripod but I do have a Leki pole that has a monopod screw in it. I have a specialised Lowepro daysack with one compartment for the camera gear and a separate one for normal stuff

HTH Red

Do you find the 80-200 useful Red ? I`ve got my eye on one at the minute, and a 75-300 so I can`t make my mind up. I`ve only got the 18-55 at the moment so I`m looking to expand. There`s also the faster 50mm prime lens up for garbs at work for £50 so I might snap that up.

Also got given a Lowepro bag which sounds the same as yours, fits my hobbo and water bottle in the top part which is nice

 

[DKW]

Not really a landscapephotographer......well not really a photographer.....

I have my camera, a F2.8 24-70 mm Sigma lens, and sometimes a 55-200 Nikkor lens.
A few spare batteries, loads of 2 GB memorycards (the fastest read/write i can get a hold of, 2GB since my camera isn't HC compatible), A couple of zip-lockbags wich i can mod to work as raincover using only the bags and some rubbertape, a remote-trigger, and a cleaning-kit.

This is all held in a lowepro toploader 75 AW with a chestharness, wich makes it very easy accessible and a quite comfortable thing to carry around.

Things to aquire for me: a F2.8 70-200 mm lens, a 1,4x converter, a decent tripod, an external flash, and at least polarized filters and IR filters.

Ohhh what to do with my money

 

[British Red]

Shewie, in your place I would consider the 75-300 if its a good one. I had the 80-200 from the 35mm days - its a good flexible lens but I find myself wanting more "reach" - hence the 135-400. If you don't do much wildlife stuff, the shorter will probably suit fine.

Red

 

[AJB]

2 x Nikon F90X Pro's with a hand full of lenses

Hasselblad 500cm with a hand full...

and

Minox 8x11 subminiature just for fun

Occasionally a Sinar 5x4 monorail or a Llinhoff technical camera if I can blag one

Digital, aren't they watches?

AJB

 

[Squidders]

Nikon D3 body
Nikon 14-24mm f2.8 G AF-S ED Lens
Nikon 70-200mm f2.8 G AF-S VR IF ED Lens
Nikon TC-17E II AF-S Teleconverter
Nikon MC-30 Remote Cord
Nikon SB600 Speedlight **Soon to be replaced by a Nikon Speedlight SB-900 Flashgun**
6 x Sandisk 4GB 133x Extreme III Compact Flash cards
Manfrotto 055 Tripod with 808RC4 head
Lowepro Photo Trekker AW II Black bag **Soon to be replaced by a Tamrac Pro 8 Camera Bag Black TA5608**

I'm currently also waiting for the new Nikon 50mm f/1.4 Af-S lens to come out too... I hear it's going to be a peach of a lens.

Damn... I feel very guilty now!

 

[Wayland]

2 x Nikon F90X Pro's with a hand full of lenses

Hasselblad 500cm with a hand full...

and

Minox 8x11 subminiature just for fun

Occasionally a Sinar 5x4 monorail or a Llinhoff technical camera if I can blag one

Digital, aren't they watches?

AJB

I still have my Broni outfit, my monorail and my MPP outfits but hardly ever use them as the 5D exceeds the results from the Bronica at 12"x16" which is my usual print size and the 5x4 is just too much to lump out into the field these days.

I'm afraid digital is the future, like it or not.

 

[shep]

Wow, there are some fancy rigs posted above. I used to carry an SLR outfit of

Nikon D70s
10-20mm
18-50mm f2.8
70-300 APO
grey-grad and polarizer filters. Which is heavy...

I went through a painful process of looking at how many keepers I took with each of the lenses and soon realised that I used the standard ~80% of the time. I cut my teeth on film with a 50mm prime lens and that still seems to be my tendency.

I now have two different set ups depending on what emphasis I'm placing on photography for that outing. I feel strongly that carrying too much kit can hamper a long day out and also makes you spend too much of your time seeing the world 'through a lens'. I aim for kit minimalism for camping so have been trying the same with outdoor photography.

Long-day/ overnighter/ bike ride
Ricoh Caplio GX100, polarizing filter.

Photography Outing
Olympus OM2n + no more than two of 21mm, 28mm, 35mm, 50mm, 135mm or 200mm zuikos.
Polarizing, orange and red filters (for B+W). +/- grey-grad if landscapes is the aim of the day.

Or a soon-to-be-acquired olympus E-420 with the standard lens or one of the above.

I think you should always carry a polarizer and almost always use it where light levels allow.

The only lens you 'have' to carry is a good standard zoom or prime, the others need to be justified for the weight and inconvenience they add.

 

[AJB]

I'm afraid digital is the future, like it or not.

Witchcraft!

There be dragons!

At least I don't shoot 10 x 8 anymore - is that concession enough for you?

 

[Wayland]

It'll do for now.

It's been a few years since I use 10x8, we used to bracket half a box at a time in one of the jobs I did. :yikes:

 

[Grooveski]

In my bag are:

Canon S5IS.
Teleconvertor (1.7x)
Wide angle convertor (.45x)
Polarising filter.
Skylight filter.
Clear filter attached to a lens hood that I fit if it's raining.
The 48mm adaptor for the the filters.
A flash if I think I'll need it. The camera also has a wee one built in.
A pretty light but full height aluminium tripod.

Planning to add a waterproof point-and-click for when it's really wet or choppy.

Toyed with going DSLR but the cost was scary and none of the low-end models that I looked at had a video mode(which I use quite often). The video mode on the S5IS is surprisingly good and I've been quite enjoying life in the "bridging camera" lane. It has a full manual mode for when footering about is required.

Everything is packed in those wee Expid drybags, wonderful things.

 

[AJB]

It'll do for now.

It's been a few years since I use 10x8, we used to bracket half a box at a time in one of the jobs I did. :yikes:

Oh, my old boss would have ripped you a new one! “Do you know what you’re doing or not”, he’d say – God forbid you’d say “No not really”. But you got good real quick; the guy taught me so much!

I once spent a day watching him “light” an airfield with flash bulbs (We used 2 transits full) for a one shot 10 x 8 neg of the the base at night – it was perfect, he was stunningly talented, but he would always brush his shoulder before pressing the bulb to knock off the bad luck!

 

[Shewie]

Somebody at work`s turned up this morning with a couple of lenses for sale, I might have to treat myself to one but they`re a bit too pricey for me just yet. I know they`re not that expensive as far as lenses go, but I feel it might be a waste given my experience up to present.

He`s got ...

Sigma 135-400mm F4.5 - 5.6 APO - £200

or

Canon EF 70-200mm f/4L USM - £300

I know which one I`d like but I made a promise to myself that I wouldn`t go buying lenses willy nilly until I`d sussed out my camera first.

 

[Wayland]

Oh, my old boss would have ripped you a new one! “Do you know what you’re doing or not”, he’d say – God forbid you’d say “No not really”. But you got good real quick; the guy taught me so much!

I once spent a day watching him “light” an airfield with flash bulbs (We used 2 transits full) for a one shot 10 x 8 neg of the the base at night – it was perfect, he was stunningly talented, but he would always brush his shoulder before pressing the bulb to knock off the bad luck!

This job was shooting catalogue pages for Kays, they reckoned on a million pounds per page turnover and we only had 4 hours to build a set, shoot it and strip it down before the next set was built.

We bracketed because there wasn't time to run a sheet through the E6 line and be sure it was OK before the set was stripped.

The accountants worked out it was cheaper to use a box of film per shot than have to re build a set if there was a problem, so that is what we had to do.

Very wasteful but that's commercial photography for you.

 

[mortalmerlin]

I still have my Broni outfit, my monorail and my MPP outfits but hardly ever use them as the 5D exceeds the results from the Bronica at 12"x16" which is my usual print size and the 5x4 is just too much to lump out into the field these days.

I'm afraid digital is the future, like it or not.

I agree with you there. I sold my Mamiya stuff last year while it was still worth something.

My digital may not have as much soul but it's so much lighter

 

[AJB]

This job was shooting catalogue pages for Kays, they reckoned on a million pounds per page turnover and we only had 4 hours to build a set, shoot it and strip it down before the next set was built.

We bracketed because there wasn't time to run a sheet through the E6 line and be sure it was OK before the set was stripped.

The accountants worked out it was cheaper to use a box of film per shot than have to re build a set if there was a problem, so that is what we had to do.

Very wasteful but that's commercial photography for you.

Yep been there - most of my stuff was MoD, you can ask to reset when you apply a bar mine to a main battle tank, but they never do!

 

[squantrill]

When I went to the woods in my bag I had....

Canon eos 400D
Canon 18:55mm
Tamaron 28-300 Telephoto
Sigma 10-20 Wide angle
Lensbaby (mark 1)
A load of other junk like tripod monopod light meter etc etc etc

When I go bushing it.. I usually take my phone with a camara onit or I have a small ricoh digital camara will 6MP and fully manual configuration..

 

[Neanderthal]

Bought a G9 to take backpacking as I wanted something with a decent optical zoom, a DSLR would be too big/heavy to carry. Podcast Bob mentioned it on one of his casts and bought one himself.

So far I'm managing to keep my kit to the short list below. It is difficult, there is so much stuff I didn't know that I couldn't live without.

Canon PowerShot G9
2x 4GB + 1x 8GB HCSD Cards
4x Batteries
1x Gorillapod (Very lightweight)

I'm trying to improve my skills as they don't have any extra weight.

Stu