In The Bag - Namibia Landscape Workshop

In the past I have been asked several times about the equipment that I travel with on workshops and landscape shoots. I have the ‘Composing The Desert’ (http://www.emilvonmaltitz.com/Namibia.pdf) Namibia landscape workshop coming up in November with Tailor Made Safaris, so it’s a good opportunity to discuss the gear traveling along with us. Before starting though, it’s worth noting that I’ll be driving up from South Africa, so am not as constrained by airline restrictions as some of the other photographers on the workshop will be.


 

• Nikon D800 and D3x
• Nikkor 16-35mm f4, 20mm, 24mm f2.8 Ais, 24-120mm f4, 50mm f1.8 Ais, 80-200mm f2.8 and 105mm f2.8.
• Nikon SB 800 and SB 910
• 2 x Lee Filter holders (one with 105mm front ring) and an assortment of adapters, 0.3 Hard and Soft, 0.6 Hard and Soft, 0.9 Hard and Soft, 1.2 Hard Neutral Density Graduated filters. B&W 105mm polariser, Marumi ultra thin 77mm polariser and Hoya 52mm polariser.
• Small wallet of lighting gels (1/2 CTO, CTO, CTB)
• Memory Cards
• 2 x batteries for D3x, 4x batteries for D800, 16 x AA for flashes
• Phottix 10-Pin intervalometer and MC-36 cable release
• Giottos Rocker air blower
• Small LED torch

All of this packs neatly into a Lowepro Trekker bag (which I have actually managed to get on an airline with before, with a similar gear setup, although technically it is overweight by quite a bit).

In a much smaller bag that can get stuffed amongst my clothes I have another small bag with:

• Chargers
• Cleaning equipment (Sensor Swipes, Eclipse Fluid, some Windowlene)
• A few tools (00 and larger Philips screwdrivers, several alan keys for tripods and a pocket knife)

Thrown on top off all this is:

• 1 large Carbon Fibre Tripod (FLM) with Benro Ball head and
• 1 medium sized Carbon fibre Tripod (Manfrotto) with Kirk BH-3 ball head.
• Fujifilm XT-1 with 18-55mm lens for candid and grab shots as well as Timelapses

Naturally, I will also have the small bits and pieces mentioned in this post last year: Try not to leave home without em.


The intended shooting is going to be primarily landscape, but Namibia also has fantastic opportunities to photograph small through to large animals. For this reason the macro lens and a couple of speed lights are essential. Apart from this all the gear is firmly rooted in landscape work. For examples of what we will be shooting the posts on last year's Namibia landscape recce give a fairly good synopsis (From The Ocean to The Quiver Trees - Part 1 of the Namibia Landscape Workshop Recce).

Although it looks like a lot of equipment everything squeezes into two bags basically (except for the tripods). One bag will always stay in the lodge or in the vehicle while the other can be carried over the dunes and rocks of the various sites we’ll be photographing. Planning for a large photo shoot invariably involved packing and repacking, then unpacking and repacking all over again. Regardless of how much equipment you take, you will forget something. Then there's the excellent advice I've heard several times to just go minimalist. I'm not so good at that ;)