Packing tips for the camera geek

Some of you may be wondering, at least the camera geeks are, just what sort of photo equipment I took along with me on this trip. Of course, I took the Nikon D70s that I originally purchased for our trip to Italy along with the Nikon 18-200 zoom lens. I decided on that lens because of its tremendous versatility, which meant I’d only have to take that one. More than one lens would require exchanging of lenses all the time. Since I had read that the worst enemy of digital cameras is dust, and that getting dust on your censor is going to inevitably show up on your photographs, I thought that eliminating lens changes would seriously reduce the dust possibility. You should, by the way, always keep this in mind before you buy a used digital SLR camera.

So, what else did I bring along? As you can see from the photo on the left, I brought a number of things. First of all I found a really great “tote” in which to carry my extra camera gear. I think in its prior life it was meant to carry shaving kit-type things. But the fact that it was a dual-zipper, nylon tote made it a really ideal container in which to pack other things.

To the right of the tote is the strobe for the Nikon. It’s most useful in places where the on-camera flash just won’t cut it. I don’t often carry it along, but when I do, the nylon case has a great belt loop which allows me to just thread my belt through it and it rides quite comfortably on my waist for those walks through dark cathedrals.

On the far right in the top row is the filter case. I purchased it at Gordon’s photo store in Carson City. It holds about six 72mm filters quite comfortably. In it I tucked two extra polarizer filters, a “half-orange” filter for making skies darker, and a full orange filter for God knows what. Other than trading out the polarizer, so far I haven’t used the others.

The left-most item on the bottom row is a hard-shell case that holds about 20 CDs or so. Into this case I put a dozen blank CDs, a couple of DVDs, and a burned CD with my books on it. In Italy I found myself having go to internet cafes in order to get connected. While there I’d convert my camera memory chips to burned CDs just to have a little extra insurance. This time I wanted to have the burning capability myself.

Item number 2 on the bottom row is the case holding the camera memory card reader. On this trip, if I don’t shoot many photos on a particular day, I usually just hook the camera directly to the laptop via a USB cable and transfer the pix that way. If, however, I do shoot a lot, then I use the card reader to save time. Also in this case is a thumb drive which I haven’t used yet.

The third item from the left is the camera memory card wallet. I also purchased this at Gordon’s for a nominal price. This little gem fits as many as eight memory cards when four of them are in the plastic holders, and you could get at least four more if you just inserted the cards as four of the pockets would actually fit two cards apiece. When I went to Italy I was constantly searching for the memory cards and I never really knew whether I had found them all. This time I numbered each individual card starting with #1. Then, as I filled up the cards I get the next card in numerical sequence, thus eliminating the uncertainty of which ones were filled and which ones were not.

Fourth from the left on the bottom row is the battery charger for the Nikon battery. I learned the hard way in Italy that one never hits the street without an extra (charged) camera battery in ones possession. You should always make sure your spare battery is charged, of course. After a heavy day of shooting, put your spare battery in the camera and charge the one you used that day for use as the spare. That way you won’t have any unpleasant surprises.

The bottom photo shows you just how elegantly all these things fit into my “shaving kit.” Since the tote fits quite nicely into my carry-on luggage next to the camera bag with a slot left for the laptop to nestle in a special pocket behind the two of them, it packs nice and neat. To finish off the carry-on, I bought a nice zippered “envelope” about six inches by ten inches into which I put all the various cords and cables and plug conversion units for the UK. The whole thing is very compact and works very well.

Well, that’s the photographer’s tip for the day. Hope you find it useful.