Off On My Travels - What to Pack

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fergey

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Hi All

I have just signed a contract which will take me out to, amongst other places, India, Africa and China over the next 12 months for a month at a time. This is obviously a great chance to visit places on the weekend with my camera but what to pack? I have a 400D currently and i am toying with the idea of a 50D or do I just buy some new glass?

Advice from others who have or do travel would be greatly appreciated, especially on what lens combinations to take. I have a 70-300 is zoom but it's a heavy old beast so, for example, do I get something with a shorter length and buy a teleconverter? Also how much use would I get from my Siggy 10-20?

Cheers in advance :thumbs:
 
fast 70-300 (is there any?) are heavy but generally thy are okay to carry around! If you are going for a month at a time then there is no reason to have weight as a restriction. You may find a tripod maybe useful.

GLass over body is the general consencous (sp) and i agree in this case. Get invested in good glass. maybe a CPL would be a good investment. spare batts etc are things often overlooked.
 
What to pack? What's your budget?

For travel I'd say get a 10-20mm or similar. If you're taking the 70-300 then either an 18-70 would cover the gap or you could go for a 50mm f:1.8.

Next up would be storage. If you're going to be able to use a work laptop then I'd look to save to DVD and post this home and get an external drive to keep copies with you. If you won't have access to a work maching, get a mini laptop. Get one with a hard drive, you can get up to 80GB and this will be fine for backing up your photos. You may want to invest then in either an external harddrive or DVD writer for you backup plan. Do not underestimte the risk of losing your kit when abroad and if your kit goes without backup all your shots go too.

If looking at other accessories, as you'll be wokring there I presume access to power won't be an issue so no need to go silly on batteries. A spare one should suffice. A lightweight tripod would be good but so too would be a compact - you may go to places where you wouldn't be comfortable having a DSLR. Finally, get yourself a good bag. I use a FastPack 200 now whihc is great and would hold enough kit for you plus and extra bit on top for snacks, rain cover etc but there are plenty other bags suitable. Main criteria though is that you can take it on as hand luggage.

Edit - depends on where you're going but I now wish I had a GPS tagger with me when I went travelling. They weren't available then but at times I had no idea where i was was when I was in China, Mongolia or Russia and it would be great to now be able to track my progress by the photos I took.
 
Thanks for the pointers. I have a nifty fifty and as I said the 10-20. The thing is,as NorthernNikon said, I want to be careful about drawing attention to myself as I will be in both the big cities (Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune, Shanghai and the main Africa capitals) and possibly travelling to more 'rural' places.

The good thing is I will be back home between trips so, for example, I would like to go for a weekend on safari in Kenya or Botswana and could repack appropriately. I like the tip about the geotagger, that would be useful. It really is a one off opportunity and I want to take full advantage of getting paid to visit these countries. I just want to make sure I don't miss out on anything vital in the bag!
 
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