Travel & Humanitarian Photos
If all goes to plan, I’ll be in Delhi by the time this post appears online. I have a few days in India before heading off to Nepal for some time in Kathmandu and then a trek into Langtang and, possibly, Helambu. I’m working with Lesley Fisher on this trip and the video below shows some of the photographic gear that we’ll be taking between us. You can see a High Definition version on Vimeo.
If it looks like a lot to you then I can promise you that it seems like a lot to me. I’m not a photographer who ordinarily travels with mountains of gear. I like to think I’m pretty “low impact” and one main bag with a second, hand-luggage bag for camera gear is usually more than sufficient. However, we have a variety of subjects to shoot on this trip so flexibility is the name of the game.
You’ll see that we have 2 x 5D MKII bodies each. A second body is essential, not only for back-up if the first fails but I find it easier to shoot with two camera in most situations, if only to provide a range of focal lengths. We each have the same lenses, a 16-35mm f/2.8m, a 24-70mm f/2.8, a 70-200mm f/2.8 and an 85mm f/1.2. You’ll see that the widest aperture on all these lenses is either f/2.8 or f/1.2 and I think that having a good-quality lens with a wide aperture is probably the most important aspect of all my kit. Those wide apertures offer greater flexibility, give shallow depth-of-field and allow me to work in areas where light levels are low.
Additional lighting is minimal with just a 580EX II flash with diffusers and, not shown in this video, a small reflector with various, white, silver and gold covers. There’s some audio gear too, a Zoom H4n for field recording and a Sennheiser MKE-400 for additional recording when shooting video.
Beyond the camera gear, there’s the usual computer paraphernalia with MacBook Pros and external hard-drive storage to accommodate all those RAW and DNG files – backed-up, of course. We’ll be trekking so will need to be self-sufficient when away from a reliable power supply so there’s enough batteries to power cameras and flashes for a week. There’s also enough CF cards to shoot for one week without any certainty of being able to upload during that time.
I hope to bring you examples of some of my projects from India and Nepal, the usual caveats of a reliable Internet connection notwithstanding.
Very Jealous indeed, as I plan for my next trip that I imagine will take at least 6 months I hope to do some trekking too and will probably be carrying a similar amount of gear, probably minus the hat though