Framed and Exposed: Tips for the Traveling Photographer

Ben Long

Planning for any photo shoot is a little tricky, as you struggle to find the right balance of weight and functionality. Which lenses to take? How much storage? How many batteries? But some shoots are trickier than others. When photographer Steve Simon invited me to help him shoot a project in South Africa, I had to figure out how to equip my bag for a three-week trip.
Steve and I will be shooting portraits in the townships in South Africa, but in the week or two after that I want to get into the backcountry for landscape shooting, which will require different lenses. In addition, because I shoot digitally, I’ll need a way to power my gear.
I’ve decided to travel without a computer, partly to cut down on weight, and partly because I want to focus on shooting. I often need a few weeks away from my images after I shoot them before I can honestly assess them. Not being able to look at pictures on the road will force me to stay in a shooting mindset, rather than switching between shooting and post-production. The decision to not take a computer immediately complicates my storage options, as I won’t be able to offload images at the end of the day.
Finally, because international carriers are now very particular about the weight of carry-on baggage, I have to try to fit all of this stuff into a bag that weighs no more than 7 kilograms. Theoretically.
Here’s the kit I’m going take, and how I came to choose each part of it.
The Camera
I have two digital SLRs, a 12.8-megapixel Canon EOS 5D (Figure 1) and an 8.2-megapixel Canon EOS 20D (Figure 2). While the 20D weighs less than the 5D, I like the extra resolution of the 5D, as well as the option to get shallower depth of field because of its full frame sensor. For landscape work, I tend to print large, so every pixel counts.

Figure 1. The Canon EOS 5D body.

Figure 2. The Canon EOS 20D body.
For long telephoto work, though, the 20D has some big advantages. First, there’s the crop factor, which gives every focal length a field-of-view crop equivalent to 1.6x. But also, there’s the smaller pixel size that provides better detail for long telephoto work. For safari shooting — faraway animals with a long lens — this can be ideal. However, I’m not planning on safari shooting, I don’t have an especially long lens, and I’m already worried about weight. So taking two bodies was never a consideration. I chose the 5D.
I’m taking my standard walk-around lens, a Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM (Figure 3), which has a very good day-to-day focal length range and excellent image quality with no distortion or chromatic aberration.

Figure 3. The Canon EF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM lens.
The Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM Ultra Wide Angle Zoom (Figure 4) is probably my favorite lens. Its focal length range is ideal for landscape and street shooting, and it’s a fast f/2.8, which makes it good for low light. Finally, it’s a very good piece of glass that delivers images with some kind of extra, ineffable luminance.

Figure 4. The Canon EF 16-35mm f/2.8L II USM Ultra Wide Angle Zoom lens.
A friend loaned me his Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM (Figure 5). Having seen the types of conditions Steve shot under during his trip to Africa last year — often dark, unlit rooms — I know that a speedy lens is a nice option, and for portraiture, the ludicrously wide aperture provides a lot of creative freedom.

Figure 5. The Canon EF 50mm f/1.2 L USM lens.
I’m also packing a Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM Telephoto Zoom (Figure 6).

Figure 6. The Canon EF 75-300mm f/4-5.6 III USM Telephoto Zoom lens.
This lens gets bashed a lot in online reviews and forums because there’s really not anything sexy about it. It’s stabilized, but it’s not L glass. It’s a very reasonable size and weight, but it’s not white and it lacks the sturdiness of some of Canon’s more expensive L lenses. The thing is, though, it’s a very good lens — excellent sharpness, speedy focus, great stabilization, and only rarely does it produce aberrations or artifacts. I don’t do a lot of telephoto shooting, but when I need to, this lens comes through.
A tripod is essential for landscape work, and Steve has the same Velbon El Carmagne 540 tripod I have. It’s an exceptional small carbon-fiber tripod that’s ideal for backpacking and hiking. I decided to leave my Velbon at home, and take my tripod head, an Acratech Ultimate Ball Head. I can’t recommend this head enough. It’s light, indestructible, and very easy to use. At under a pound, it’s a great backcountry head that still offers enough stability to support a full SLR.
Lastly, for shooting in the townships, I packed my Canon Speedlight 580EX flash unit (Figure 7). While the Speedlight 450 is lighter, the extra power and flexibility of the 580EX is worth the extra weight.

Figure 7. The Canon Speedlight 580EX flash unit.
These decisions all came fairly quickly because I already know what lenses I like and how I like to shoot with them. The next problem, though, was much more difficult.
Storage
I shoot exclusively in raw format, and raw 13-megapixel files devour storage quickly. On a busy day of shooting, it’s not hard to chew up 6 to 8 gigabytes of images. Without a computer, I needed a place to offload all this data.
My first thought was to buy enough CompactFlash cards to last the whole trip. A decent 8-gigabyte card only costs around $75, but that’s still the highest price per megabyte of any storage option, so this plan quickly fell into the “unreasonable” category. Also, I wasn’t sure how to calculate my storage needs. If I calculated incorrectly, I’d be left with no storage.
Another problem with flash storage is that there’s no way to make it redundant. Without extra hardware, you can’t back up one card onto another. And even if I could, I’d have to buy even more flash memory.
Film photographers will now be muttering, “Bah, in my day we didn’t have back-up unless we sketched the scene in a notebook after we shot.” That’s true, but things are different now. Since I have the option of redundancy while on the road, it’s silly not to try to make it happen.
I knew Steve would have an Apple MacBook Pro with him and so considered taking an external hard drive, or a bunch of blank DVDs. At the end of the day, I could borrow his computer and offload my media, creating as many copies as I wanted.
The drawback is that at the end of the day, Steve will also be offloading images, and possibly viewing and doing some post-production tasks. Furthermore, for the last week-and-a-half, I’ll be on my own.
I finally chose a Digital Foci Photo Safe media drive (Figure 8).

Figure 8. The Digital Foci Photo Safe media drive.
Basically, it’s a 2.5″ hard drive (the same kind you’ll find in a laptop computer) with a built-in media reader and a simple operating system and interface for transferring files. Unlike more advanced products, such as the Epson P-5000, the Photo Safe doesn’t include a viewing screen. Since one of my goals is to not look at my images until I get home, this isn’t a drawback. The Photo Safe also weighs less than the P-5000.
The Photo Safe comes in 40, 80, and 120 GB capacities. There’s only a $30 difference between the 40 and the 80, so I bought two of the 80GB drives to deal with the redundancy issue. I’ll copy each card to both drives.
I’ll also take a 60GB iPod with me, and while there are interfaces for transferring flash cards to the iPod, my iPod is mostly full of music and video. What’s more, the transfer speeds of iPod camera interfaces are incredibly low, making them impractical in terms of shooting efficiency and battery life.
Communications
Since I’m not taking a laptop computer, I’ll keep in touch in other ways. I’ll take my unlocked Treo 680 (Figure 9) and buy a local sim card for phone calls and text messaging. This will give me a South Africa phone number I can email to anyone who might need to call. More importantly, it will make calls substantially cheaper than if I stick with my AT&T sim card and pay international roaming rates.

Figure 9. The Treo 680 PDA.
The Treo makes a fine email client and text messager. It gets even better when you add a small foldable keyboard (Figure 10).

Figure 10. The Palm wireless keyboard.
Small, lightweight, and comfortable to type on, an external keyboard turns a Treo into a reasonable email client and word processor. Because it can create Word documents (using DataViz Documents-To-Go), I’ve written everything from creativepro articles to book chapters on my Treo.
While the Treo is a great device, I’ve lately switched to an Apple iPhone. However, because the iPhone is locked, I can’t use it with third-party sim cards, and it doesn’t have an external keyboard, so it’s not as useful as an email/word-processing client on the road. But as its Wi-Fi capability is exceptional, I’ll take it along as a Web browser for times when I can find a free hot spot.
Power
While I won’t have to power a computer, I’ll still have a lot of energy-hungry gear. Because I’m not sure of my itinerary yet, I don’t know what power sources will be available at any time. I’ll need to be able to regularly charge my 5D, Digital Foci Photo Safes, and the iPod, Treo, and iPhone.
For the camera, I bought a Merkury battery charger that can charge Canon batteries off of a wall outlet or a car cigarette lighter. It’s smaller than my Canon charger, so it’s more appropriate for travel.
I also picked up car chargers for the iPod and Treo. Because the iPod and iPhone use the same dock connector, any device that can power one can power the other.
This all seems promising, except that I don’t know if I’ll have access to a car. I’m still not sure exactly how I’ll be getting around. As such, I’m also taking two Solio solar chargers (Figure 11). I’ve used these extensively on backcountry trips before. What’s really smart about the Solio is that it has a battery inside it. You can leave it in the sun during the day, and it will charge its batteries. At night, when you’re done using your gear, you can charge it off of the power stored in the Solio.

Figure 11. A Solio solar charger.
You can also charge the Solio off of the wall, which means you can easily gas it up when you’re near an outlet and, effectively, carry an extra battery for any compatible device.
To charge a device with a Solio, you need a special connector. Solio sells connectors for all major cell phones, and it ships with an iPod charger. That makes the Treo and iPod easy enough to charge. There is no tip specifically designed for the Canon battery charger. However, you can buy what is essentially a car cigarette lighter socket that plugs into the Solio and then plug any normal cigarette adapter into this socket.
Therefore, the Solios can charge my camera, Treo, iPhone, and Photo Safes off either the wall or the sun, and I’m carrying two extra batteries at all times.
Bear in mind that the Solio is slow to charge off the sun, and you’ve got to have lots of direct sunlight. Happily, direct sunlight isn’t lacking in South Africa.
Carrying It All
The final challenge is getting all of this stuff on the plane. I’m not going to check any of it. In addition to fear of breakage, there’s fear of theft and the possibility of lost luggage. Therefore, my plan is to carry every bit of my gear onto the plane.
As I mentioned earlier, international carriers are now very picky about their 7-kilo limit. Unfortunately, the 5D and its lenses add up to half that weight, and any type of sturdy, padded bag uses up another significant amount. That’s why I’m going to ignore the weight limit.
I bought a LowePro Vertex 200 AW backpack (Figure 12) to carry onto the plane.

Figure 12. The LowePro Vertex 200 AW camera backpack.
This camera backpack provides enough adjustable space to fit all of my camera and storage gear, as well as my tripod head and the Solios and relevant cables. It also has space for a laptop computer, which I’ll use for a Sonic Impact V55 speaker set and iPod screen — a must-have for the 25-hour flight — and a book.
So far, I’m impressed with the Vertex 200. It’s extremely well-made, has plenty of adjustable space, a very comfortable hip belt, padded shoulder straps, and a built-in rain cover. All zippers are sealed, which is a big asset when traveling through desert climates that are saturated with fine dust, such as the Namib Desert.
I’ve made one flight with it, and it fits in the overhead compartment, though I’m a little concerned about its size if I travel on a smaller airplane within South Africa.
I haven’t weighed the full bag yet, but it certainly feels heaver than 7 kilos. However, as long as I can make it past the checkout counter without airline staff weighing it, I’ll be fine. I plan to keep the backpack on while at the checkout counter to hide its size and make them think it’s so light I didn’t bother to take it off while standing in line. [Editor’s note: Let’s hope the airline staff doesn’t read creativepro.com!]
Since that may not be the most reliable plan, I have a backup. You’re allowed to carry on a camera, so if they tell me the bag is too heavy, I’m hoping that removing the 5D and heaviest lens will get the pack below the weight limit. I will also wear a windbreaker with large pockets to the airport, so that I can put more lenses into the pockets.
As this backpack is too big for everyday shooting, I’ll pack my normal shooting bag, a Tamrac Velocity 7 bag, in my checked suitcase.
Did I Forget Something?
Hopefully, I’ve collected an assortment of gear that will give me the shooting flexibility I want and the electrical power I need, all within a weight and size limitation that’s practical for travel.
Presumably, I’ll need clothes and a toothbrush and that sort of stuff, but I can work out those details at the last minute.