What’s In The Bag

We start our vacation today. We will drive down to Washington DC for the week-end and then make our way to the Great Smoky Mountains. This will be a very special family vacation for a number of reasons and I will highlight some of those reasons in a future post. A key part of any vacation is capturing images. Images of family and images of beautiful landscapes. I go prepared. Here is what you will find in my camera bag.

When I have the room, I carry my gear in a Tamrac Pro 12 camera bag. This bag can hold two large DSLRs and 4 to 5 lenses along with lots of accessories. For this trip I am taking my Nikon D3s as the primary rig.

The D3s is an amazing camera and I am delighted to have one. It allows so much freedom to shoot in all kinds of light. The D3s can almost see in the dark with its wide ISO range. I can get perfectly usable images right up to ISO 3200 and higher.

I will carry two of the three new Nikon “Trinity” lenses. The 14-24mm f2.8 super wide and the 24-70mm f2.8 telephoto. Both are outstanding pieces of glass. Both are very, very heavy.

I will also carry a 50mm prime lens. Sharp, fast and it forces me to think carefully about composition.

There are times however when a big rig like the Nikon D3s attracts way too much attention. I carry a second smaller backup camera. For this trip it will be the Canon G12. Lorraine will use it most of the time but I will carry it along for casual shots and street photography. It is a good camera for walking around photography and video capture.

There are lots of other items in the camera bag. Remote shutter release, memory cards, flashes, cables, hard drives, flashlights, filters. And I also carry a tripod along with me. As well as some smaller camera bags for hiking.