P#9 Q5A: What Photography Equipment Do I Absolutely Have To Travel With?

To Bring Or Not To Bring, That Is The Question

Brenda Tharp: This is a really loaded question, and a difficult one to answer. Regulations are changing and it's becoming harder and harder to travel with your photography gear.

Add that to the fact that different types of travel have completely different gear requirements, and the waters become even more muddied.

When people are coming on one of my trips, I am always hesitant to tell people what to bring. I hate to tell them, "No, you're not going to need your macro lens," and then they get there and say, "Oh, my gosh! Look at this. I wish I had my macro." Then, I feel horrible.

I just try to carefully suggest that they think about the way they photograph and the kinds of things they're drawn to. If a piece of photography equipment is going to provide some opportunity for that type of photography, then by all means, bring it.

If I were going to tell people what to bring, the first thing that I would suggest to everyone is to take only what you find that you use regularly.

Don't take specialty lenses, such as a very long, heavy telephoto lens, if you're going to be spending more time visiting villages than photographing wildlife. It just doesn't make any sense. You're going to be lugging around that bigger, heavier lens and be frustrated with it. It will make you more tired and you won't be as creative with the photographs you do take.

You really need to think about the type of trip you're taking. If you're going to Africa, then pack that long lens and maybe leave home your super wide or macro lenses.

If you're going to Italy or Scandinavia and you're going to be shooting a lot of villages and cities, but not anything that you really need a long telephoto lens for, then you can pack accordingly.

A couple of relatively new lenses that have come out are these zoom lenses. Canon makes one that's a 28 to 300mm. It's an excellent range. It's a fairly hefty lens, but if you only bring that one lens, you've got from 28 to 300 if you're using a full-sized sensor.

If you're not, you bring one other lens that's wider than that, maybe a 10 to 22, so that with your digital factor, it becomes something like a 20 to 28mm. You're covered. With just two lenses, you've got the full range of what you would need for anything on the trip. That's really traveling light.

I believe that Nikon makes one that's that 18 to 200mm. I've seen a lot of people using that lens on their travels because they can cover so much with just that one lens.

Audri Lanford: That's the lens that I have. That, plus the macro, is what I traveled with and it was perfect.

Brenda Tharp: That's a good point. If you were going to Africa, you would think, "I need a long lens for the wildlife." If you really like to do macro and you find it wherever you go, then that's a lens that you should never be without.

A lot of it has to do with how you see things and what kinds of things you find to photograph.

In summary

It seems that the photography equipment you need to bring all depends on the type of photos you plan on taking. What types of photographs will you be taking? What subjects will you be capturing? The answers to these questions will help decide which photography equipment to pack for your trip.