What’s in my Camera Bag 2023
Since I am about to go out on a trip where I intend to focus on some photography, I’ve been prepping out the gear and getting the bags ready. Here’s what I’m carrying when I head out for a few days.
The bag is a Shimoda Designs Explore 40 liter. I also have a Tenba 20 liter bag I use for day tripping, but it’s just barely big enough for my gear kit. The Shimoda might seem pricey, but the build quality is superb and I have no complaints.
My camera kit is built around the Sony A7 IV, which I’m really liking. The only downside to my shift from Fuji gear to Sony is size and weight, but I’ve come to appreciate the larger sensor (more cropping without losing detail) and the autofocus on uncooperative subjects like flying birds is much better.
I had a Smallrig L-bracket on it. I really like this more than most L-brackets; it’s low profile and not bulky, unlike some others I tried it doesn’t muck up access to the battery or cable areas, and the vertical L part swings out of the way and attaches below when you don’t need it, something I haven’t seen in any other L-bracket, but which is amazing in use.
I carry three lenses:
Sony 100-400 F4.5-5.6 with a 1.4X Teleconverter attached. This is my Birding/Wildlife lens, and I probably use it 90% of the time.
Sony 28-70 F3.5-5.6. This is my primary landscape lens. It has decent close up capabilities but isn’t a macro, but it does take to extension tubes well.
Tamron 17-28mm F2.8. This is for me an experimental lens. I haven’t used it enough to really be able to visualize compositions well, and I haven’t spent enough time to figure that out. It’s going to be a goal of this trip to put some effort into that. It’s a nice, light lens, well built, but the super wide angle images have never really become part of my normal imaging, and I keep telling myself I need to put more effort into it (but honestly, I’m a bird photographer who more dabbles in landscape these days).
I’m quite happy with this lens set. If I were to consider an addition, it’d be a macro lens of some sort, perhaps in the 90-100mm range. But it’s not something I’m planning at this point.
I made one big upgrade to the bag for this trip: I replaced my existing filter set with Kase Revolution filters. This set includes a Polarizer, 3 stop and 6 stop. You attach a very tiny connecting ring onto the lens, and then through the magic of magnets, these snap on and off quite nicely. The engineering is impressive, and I’m going to be curious about the image quality. I also picked up two step up rings, so I can use these filters on all three lenses as needed. The step up rings screw on to the lenses (but don’t stay on, unlike the ring on the main lens) and then the lenses snap on to that. If you intend to buy a set of filters I suggest buying a single set of really good ones for your lens with the largest diameter, and then step-up rings to attach them to the others. Way cheaper than buying multiple sets sized to different lens openings.
I will probably add a 10 stop to this mix at some point.
I also carry a set of Movo extension tubes. At $15 they’re dirt cheap and can sometimes be quite handy, and can reduce (but not replace) the need for a full macro lens. These are pretty well built, especially at the price and maintain AF and exposure control for the attached lens.
Because I live in the Northwest, I also carry a Movo rain cover because, well, it rains up here a bit.
Support gear
Always in my bag is a small first aid/safety kit, which contains some key essentials like tweezers, bandages, a compass, a whistle, and a supply of hand warmer packets.
For remote shutter releases, I carry two: a generic third party manual button, and for times when I want something more elaborate, I have a MIOPS smart remote trigger that interfaces with an app on the iPhone.
My carry strap is a BlackRapid sling. I attach an Arca-Swiss style clamp to it, and an Arca-swiss style plate to the camera, so I can quickly add or remove it, since I don’t like having the strap hanging when I have the camera on a tripod – one more snag point to worry about. That also means when I’m birding and in and out of a car a lot, I can just leave the strap on my body and put the camera on it whenever I get out.
I carry my SD cards in a small Pelican case. Currently I’ve standardized on Lexar 128Mb Pro cards and they’re serving me well. I also carry spare batteries; they live in JJC battery cases.
For times when I want to support the iPhone, a side pocket has a Joby mini-tripod with an iphone clamp. I also always keep a headlamp, various micro-fiber cleaning cloths and a pen cleaner for when gunk gets on the Sony (which, honestly, happens constantly, unlike the Fuji that I never seemed to need to clean), and an air blaster.
In a separate bag that normally gets packed in the tech bag is the stuff I leave in the room. That includes a charger – I’m trying out the Smallrig charger this trip since it comes both with a built-in USB A connector but also connects to USB C and I think it’ll charge faster charger when I plug in via that. The kit also includes sensor cleaning supplies, a sensor loupe to look at the gunk my Sony sensor collects somehow, and wet cleaning supplies for the lenses. I carry both full frame and APS sensor cleaning swabs, since Laurie’s setup is APS.
I keep two tripods in the car. My primary tripod is the Peak Design travel tripod in carbon fiber, with the universal head adaptor added. I don’t regret buying it – it works reliably and is wonderfully rigid, but it’s not cheap, and I’m not sure I’d buy it again (which, in a nutshell, sums up my opinion of Peak Design overall: extremely well built, premium priced, and often, not quite working the way I wish it did in my workflows).
My other is a Neewer carbon fiber with a center column I can tilt, wonderful for those times when you’re trying to shoot down at something. It’s not available, but there is an Aluminum version you can look at for reference. I use it mostly with my bird spotting scope, but it has niche uses that make it worth keeping around. 99% of the time I use the Peak Design, but that other 1% I’m glad I have that adjustability. Quick note: I do not recommend buying any tripod that isn’t carbon fiber. You’ll spend a bit more, but the difference isn’t as big as it used to be, and going with the carbon fiber will probably save you at least 1-2 pounds of weight, which doesn’t seem like much until you need to haul it around everywhere. I think almost everyone can do well buying a nice carbon fiber tripod in the $125-150 range. I’ve had good luck with both Anker and Neewer. More money might get your more height and/or more rigidity, but most people, I think, won’t really need either.
In all honesty, though, I don’t really need two tripods. And for a while, I carried three, until I finally decided trying to do video as well was just complicating life too much for too little (for me).
Future Additions?
Am I going to make changes down the road? Probably not. I think the gear pretty well suits me at this point. The macro lens might be the one thing, but I haven’t done enough and hit the limits of my current gear to make that worth buying.
I’ve also traditionally preferred carrying a second body, so I could set up one for birds and another for landscape, and to have that emergency spare, but I haven’t felt like I could justify the cost, or really needed it. The new Sony A7C II is intriguing as a second body, but still more than I feel like spending. But… if I got it, and paired it with a 300mm-ish lens, it’d be a perfect setup for here in the office, allowing me to keep the bag packed for outings and adding in the extra body for multi-day trips.
But not happening any time soon…
Overall, while I haven’t gone taking images as much as I’d like to the last few years, I’m really happy with the switch to Sony
