Camera equipment

My gear

Right, for those who are interested (yes, all 5 of you) I thought I put together a list of the camera equipment I’m taking for our round the world trip.

I’ve been weighing up the options, sometimes literally, for months now, but I’ve finally decided on what to take.

Excuse the rather dubious photo quality, as all my camera equipment was in the photo I had to take the pic on my phone!

So, what camera gear do you take for a 7 month round the world trip?  Here’s my list:

1. Nikon D90 – Lightweight, great in low light and relatively small DSLR.  I’ve fitted it with a plain Lowprop Voyager C camera strap to avoid the rather loud ‘Nikon’ printed on the original, plus it’s really comfortable if you wear your camera across your body like me.
2. Nikon 16-85mm F3.5-5.6G VR – My standard ‘walkaround’ lens.  I see this staying on my camera for a lot of the time.  It’s brilliant for most normal situations and the VR is really useful.  I chose this over the 18-200mm as I found it to be sharper and of better build quality, though I haven’t tried the new one they just brought out.
3. Tokina 11-16mm F2.8 AT-X PRO – This is my most recent lens and probably my favourite.  Absolutely brilliant wide angle for DX.  It’s sharp, fast and built like a tank (unfortunately it weighs about the same too, but you can’t have everything).  Looking forward to shooting some really creative stuff with this one.
4. Nikon 55-200mm F4-5.6 G VR – A fairly decent telephoto, that’s incredibly light and cheap.  With the added bonus of VR it was a no brainer.  Although it isn’t the sharpest lens it should be fine for the trip.
5. Nikon 35mm F1.8 G – Simply a lovely lens.  This is perfect for taking on nights out and on days when I don’t want the bulk of the other lenses.  It’s quick to focus, lets in buckets of light and weights practically nothing.
6. 13″ Macbook 2Ghz – The lightest mac Apple make with a DVD burner.  I plan to burn backups of my photos as we go and post them home.  Plus we can update the blog for all you lovely people and process/edit photos as we go.
7. Panasonic Lumix DMC-FT1 – Our backup compact camera, for those times when we want to travel light.  Plus it’s waterproof and dust proof so it will be coming to the beach with us.  Hopefully we can get some cool underwater shots.
8. Kata 3n1-20 bag – I spent absolutely ages choosing which camera bag to get (just ask Lau!).  But in the end I settled for this one mainly because I can get my camera out and stash it away without having to take it off.  It’s got a genius side opening system and clever straps so you can still wear it like a backpack.  Only thing I’m not sure about is how much non-camera related stuff I can fit in, though it will easily fit all the gear shown here (minus the laptop).
9. Crumpler Little Stevie backpack – We got this backpack to carry the laptop, plus Lau’s hand luggage (and probably most of mine too!).  It’s just about the perfect size and has a well protected laptop compartment too.
10. Nikon SB800 flash – Had this for years now and it’s still brilliant.  I prefer to use it wirelessly off camera to get some really cool lighting effects.
11. Various accessories – A few small, but important items; USB card reader; memory cards; spare battery; and lens pen for cleaning the lenses.
12. 8GB iPod nano – Had to upgrade my old shuffle to accommodate 7 months of tunes!
13. X-Mini II speaker – Tiny speaker, big sound.  This is brilliant for hostel rooms, just plug it into the ipod or laptop and away it goes.  I have to say I’ve never heard such a small speaker that sounds so good.

Well there you go, if you’re planning a similar trip and found this useful please leave us a comment!