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24
Jan
2012
Packing for Africa LIVE! 2012
It’s the time that I hate the most, the few days before a trip. On the one hand I am very excited to be going to be a place that I love very much, on the other hand I hate being away from home and my fiancee Carol. It’s always a very emotional and upsetting time and I find the days before I leave it’s impossible to get any real work done. So whilst most of you reading this would say you would swop your lives for mine anytime, trust me there are a lot of negatives and missing home is a biggie for me...especially since I am getting married this year. Anyway I just thought that you might like to know that there is a caring side to my brash exterior! I also know though that right now, in several homes in the UK and beyond, there are some very excited clients of mine who are about to share this experience with me. I say clients, in reality most of these people have travelled with me a lot and I now regard them as friends.
Anyway enough from Rouse the Emotional softie, what about Rouse the photographer? Well this time is also one of big decisions, as I need to work out everything that I need for the trip and then pack it so that it is within legal airline limits. This is a special trip too as it combines two very different destinations, a two week safari to the Masai Mara followed by some mountain gorilla trekking in Rwanda. In fact not just any trekking, it will be my 50th trek on my birthday, something which is gonna be so cool. Two very diverse trips that have a lot of challenges....and differing types of gear that I will need. For the Mara I will need bigger lenses but I will not have to carry them, for Rwanda the emphasis will be on flexibility and traveling light.
It’s been decision time for me, do I take the big Nikon 600mm f4 and the 200-400 f4 or do I just take the 200-400 and use converters? The 600 is a big lump, not only in the baggage but in the vehicle. I find that whilst the 600mm is useful for subject compression and getting distant animals, it forces me to take a certain kind of photography. It restricts what I do and I find myself taking a lot of headshots. I also find myself missing a lot of shots too. Having two great lenses like this also creates issues when I am shooting, as I always have the nagging doubt that I should be using the other one!
So I have decided to make it easy for myself and just take the 200-400mm lens. If I need extra range then I can put on the 1.4x teleconverter without any loss of quality or focussing speed. What I might lose in the occasional long shot or "bird on a stick" (arrrggghhhhhh, sound of screaming, I HATE these kind of shots) I will gain in flexibility and creativity. So it’s the 200-400mm as my main lens for safari.
Mountain Gorillas of course present a different challenge. I cannot use my rucksack when I am with them, only to transport the gear closeby, so flexibility and working with the minimum of kit will be the key. So I will use the 10.5mm fisheye, the 28-300 and have the 70-200 with the 1.4 for backup. The 28-300 will be great for the Mara too and that will be on the second body for the whole of the safari so it’s a perfect fit.
The next issue is how to carry it all in on the plane with me, always a perennial problem!
Anyway enough from Rouse the Emotional softie, what about Rouse the photographer? Well this time is also one of big decisions, as I need to work out everything that I need for the trip and then pack it so that it is within legal airline limits. This is a special trip too as it combines two very different destinations, a two week safari to the Masai Mara followed by some mountain gorilla trekking in Rwanda. In fact not just any trekking, it will be my 50th trek on my birthday, something which is gonna be so cool. Two very diverse trips that have a lot of challenges....and differing types of gear that I will need. For the Mara I will need bigger lenses but I will not have to carry them, for Rwanda the emphasis will be on flexibility and traveling light.
It’s been decision time for me, do I take the big Nikon 600mm f4 and the 200-400 f4 or do I just take the 200-400 and use converters? The 600 is a big lump, not only in the baggage but in the vehicle. I find that whilst the 600mm is useful for subject compression and getting distant animals, it forces me to take a certain kind of photography. It restricts what I do and I find myself taking a lot of headshots. I also find myself missing a lot of shots too. Having two great lenses like this also creates issues when I am shooting, as I always have the nagging doubt that I should be using the other one!
So I have decided to make it easy for myself and just take the 200-400mm lens. If I need extra range then I can put on the 1.4x teleconverter without any loss of quality or focussing speed. What I might lose in the occasional long shot or "bird on a stick" (arrrggghhhhhh, sound of screaming, I HATE these kind of shots) I will gain in flexibility and creativity. So it’s the 200-400mm as my main lens for safari.
Mountain Gorillas of course present a different challenge. I cannot use my rucksack when I am with them, only to transport the gear closeby, so flexibility and working with the minimum of kit will be the key. So I will use the 10.5mm fisheye, the 28-300 and have the 70-200 with the 1.4 for backup. The 28-300 will be great for the Mara too and that will be on the second body for the whole of the safari so it’s a perfect fit.
The next issue is how to carry it all in on the plane with me, always a perennial problem!
The answer is my new f-stop Tilopa BC. I have just started using this rucksack as it is the most comfortable I have ever used and has an ingenious design. In the above picture you can see my gear packed inside a removable liner called an ICU. A great idea, I have different ICU’s for different uses (in fact I have two different rucksacks as well but use the Tilopa for airline travel). I use this ICU for travel, when I need the big lens jobbie I can just slip this one out and the other in straight away. Easy. Now you can see the 200-400mm down the middle of the ICU, note it is minus the hood (as that travels in the hold) and I have removed the tripod foot as well. Also in the bag you can see 2 x Nikon D3s, 1 x Nikon D3x, a 70-200mm / 28-300mm / 14-24mm / 10.5mm lenses plus 1.4x and 2x teleconverters.
Of course there is still empty space and the trick is to use every little bit inside a rucksack. So I created a padded layer on top of the 200-400 and on it I have my two Lacie 1 TB hard drives, a cable for them and my D7000 for time lapse. Also on the other side you will see the D3s battery charger. I always have the policy of having a complete skeleton system with me at all times, cameras / lenses / chargers etc, so that if my main bag decides that it prefers it in Mongolia I can still shoot! I have stuffed in cleaning cloths too and CF cards. I tried to get the kitchen sink in but the damn gold taps just get in the way; gold is soooo last year.
The MacBook Air lives in a separate compartment on the other side, with the compression straps done up nicely the whole thing is within airline size requirements. Weight no, size yes!!! And the best thing of all is that it doesn’t look like a camera bag so doesn’t invite prying eyes to want to weight it...or steal it. I hate being seen or labelled as a photographer when I travel. I know that some go out of their way to be seen as a photographer, I would rather be in the background and let my pictures do the talking.
So that is that, I am ready for travel now, well with the camera gear at least. All that is left now is to pack the rest of the camera gear around my clothes in the hold bag, using the inside of the boots to protect really fragile stuff, and I will be on my way.
I hope that you will follow my adventures over the next few weeks, I feel very creative at the moment so hopefully will produce some great pictures for you. Fingers crossed!
The MacBook Air lives in a separate compartment on the other side, with the compression straps done up nicely the whole thing is within airline size requirements. Weight no, size yes!!! And the best thing of all is that it doesn’t look like a camera bag so doesn’t invite prying eyes to want to weight it...or steal it. I hate being seen or labelled as a photographer when I travel. I know that some go out of their way to be seen as a photographer, I would rather be in the background and let my pictures do the talking.
So that is that, I am ready for travel now, well with the camera gear at least. All that is left now is to pack the rest of the camera gear around my clothes in the hold bag, using the inside of the boots to protect really fragile stuff, and I will be on my way.
I hope that you will follow my adventures over the next few weeks, I feel very creative at the moment so hopefully will produce some great pictures for you. Fingers crossed!
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