Packing for a Photo Tour: What Gear Should You Bring?

Tips by Photographer Emil von Maltitz

One of the most asked questions from our guests is about gear; what’s required, what’s recommended, and what you may want to leave behind. Because once you’re out there on your photography adventure, tracking golden light across desert dunes or capturing lions on the hunt, you don’t want to realize that you forgot that one piece of gear that you needed to get the perfect shot.

We asked South African photographer and tour leader Emil van Maltitz what the essential elements in his own camera bag are, and what equipment he recommends bringing on photography tours and workshops.

All images by Emil von Maltitz

What’s in your personal camera bag?

I always pack based on the expected photography ahead. Although you can always find a reason to use every piece of equipment you own, lugging said equipment can be a bit of a downer to travel. So perhaps I should mention the pieces that I can’t really leave home without, or which always make it into the bag:

• Sensor swipes and a dust blower. Dust on sensors is a thing again with the move to mirrorless. I always have a cleaning kit with sensor swipes of some description as well as cleaning fluid for digital sensors.
• Lens clothes and/or a large microfibre travel towel. Optical lens clothes are essential if you are shooting anywhere with inclement weather, close to coast, or anywhere you might get grime or dirt onto your lenses (including salt spray).
• Head torch. Heading back from an evening shoot in the dark is a whole lot easier with a decent LED torch. Plus, the torch is very handy in lighting small wildlife subjects (chameleons, geckos, scorpions and spiders etc.) as well as painting with light at night.
• Extra batteries and a means to charge batteries from a power brick or USB source. Once again, mirrorless rears its head and the fact that it chews through batteries like a shark through a shoal of sardines. Having multiple batteries should also be backed up with a power-brick and a battery charger that hooks up to it. I have often found myself in places where there isn’t wall power and the only way to charge batteries is in a vehicle, from a small solar panel, or from a portable battery.
• A hat. Not strictly a photographic item, but one that should always be in your camera bag. Not only does it protect you from sunstroke, but I cannot count the amount of times I have used a cap or hat to shield the sun from the front of the lens when shooting in the early morning or late afternoon. Always have a hat handy.

I personally use a combination of Nikon full-frame mirrorless and DSLR cameras, as well as an old Fujifilm X-T3 for when I want something small and light for street photography. I use a range of lenses from 16mm through to 300mm.

Can you list any do’s and don’ts about packing for a photo tour?

• DON’T NOT bring a camera. This happens. In the excitement of packing it is actually possible (and has happened) where the participant on a tour has packed a bag of lenses, but forgotten the camera.
• DO check and then double-check that you have packed enough memory cards. Every photographer…every…photographer, forgets memory cards at some point.
• DO weigh your baggage before heading to the airport. Yes, you are probably going to be overweight on your cabin baggage (cameras and lenses are heavy), but have a plan with how to deal with this if you get stopped (a photographer’s vest filled with lenses and batteries goes a long way to reducing the weight of your backpack).
• DO read the workshop briefing documents. If the instructor thinks that warm clothing is a good idea, believe her or him, rather than second-guessing because Google says it has been warm the last couple of days where you are heading to.

How much does gear really matter on a photo tour?

The tour leader will always recommend what equipment you need for the type of photography you are likely to encounter. However, it actually doesn’t matter what gear you end up bringing; a good photographer will adapt to the scene based on the equipment that they have on them.

A good example is of the well-known photographer David Hobby who led a Cuba Photography workshop with nothing more than a Fujifilm X100S camera. This is a small fixed focal length camera equivalent to a 35mm lens. A photo tour or workshop is about stretching and improving your photographic skill, learning and being inspired by the other participants, as well as creating fantastic images of the locations you are visiting. You don’t need the latest and greatest equipment for that. Certainly pay heed of the recommended equipment, but don’t purposely purchase equipment because you are worried about not having ‘enough’ gear for the trip.

That said, if you are joining an astro-photography workshop you will need certain basic things like a tripod and a wide-angle lens. It doesn’t need to be a specific wide-angle, or specific tripod.

You can join Emil on photo tours to Madagascar, Namibia, and Iceland.