What’s in George's bag?
I’ve been a Nikon shooter for a long time. With the advent of the digital revolution, I became an early convert in 2000. Ten years later, my current “arsenal” includes:
Nikon Bodies: D3s and D700
Nikon Lenses: 16-35mm f/4 VR
24-70mm f/2.8
70-200mm f/2.8 VR
200-400mm f/4 VR
TC-14E II 1.4X Teleconverter
Gitzo GT3450XLS Carbon Fiber Tripod with Really Right Stuff BH-55 Ballhead
Nikon SB 900 Flash, Nikon SU 800 Commander, Better Beamer flash extender
Specialty Lenses: Macro: Nikon 200mm f/4 Micro
Filters: Niikon circular polarizers, Canon D500 Close-Up Filter
Accessories: Wimberly Sidekick, Nikon remote releases. Really Right Stuff Pano components, PocketWizard Tranceivers
CF Memory Cards: Sandisk - 4 to 16 GB
Point and Shoot: Canon G11 (shoots RAW)
Both camera bodies, four zoom lenses (including the 200-400mm), teleconverter and all accessories I need fit very nicely into my Think Tank Airport Acceleration backpack that fits in the overheads and under seats of every plane I've flown, including some rather small ones. With today's restrictions, tripods go in checked luggage. If I don't need my big lens (for our non-wildlife travels to places like Tuscany), I'll switch to the lighter Gitzo1530 carbon fiber tripod with the Kirk BH-3 or Really Right Stuff BH-40 ball head. I might also substitute the discontinued (too bad) Nikon 24-85mm f/3.5-5.6 and the 70-300mm f/3.5-5.6 VR lenses for their heavier counterparts. Although they're "consumer lenses", they perform very well. When we travel by car, we take everything!
In addition to my laptop and and a couple of mobile hard drives, I carry along an Epson P-5000 storage viewer just in case the laptop decides to fizzle out. It's good insurance especially if one travels outside the U.S. If you think you'd like to try this approach, a word of warning: The Epson viewers don't supply power to the mobile hard drives through the USB connection. So, if you want to use the mobile hard drives to back-up images, get drives that use external power supplies or, better yet, assemble your own hard drives - pretty easy to do. Then buy an external power supply with the appropriate electrical characteristics (voltage, power rating, etc). The drives need to be formatted in FAT32 to work with the Epson viewers.
Marilu's Bag - the lighter approach
Marilu uses the D300 and D200 Nikon Bodies. For lenses, she carries a 12-24mm f/4, an 18-200 f/4.5-5.6 VR, a 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 VR and an 80-400mm f/4.5-5.6 VR. For macro work, she uses a 180mm f/4 Micro.
She carries the Gitzo 1530 with the Really Right Stuff BH-40 head.
All our camera bodies and lenses are fitted with Arca-Swiss type quick release plates by Really Right Stuff or Kirk Photo.
