What's In Our Camera Bag
“Which camera do you guys use?”
This question is probably one of the most frequent we are asked.
Which is the reason this post was created, gosh, nearly five years ago. Yet as with anything that you become passionate about, kit tends to be upgraded and as such, this current list bears no resemblance to that first incarnation, created when all that hung from our - admittedly, more well-toned - shoulders was a canny Canon G15 and a battered 500D that had seen better days.
What you’ll find in this post are all the cameras and lenses we currently use on the road, plus the photography items, specialist insurance, editing software that are essential for our photography, our blog, and our sanity.
But we haven’t forgotten where we started. We’ve loved every camera we’ve ever owned, and for that moment in our photography career, they were perfect. So instead of simply deleting the old equipment, the stuff relegated to a dusty shelf or passed down, we’ve left the links for you - so no matter where you are in your travel photography journey, you can find something perfect for you too.
The Bag
Before moving on to the contents of our camera bag, we should probably start with the bag itself!
We’ve been through a number of camera bags over the years, but have never really been satisfied with our purchase until investing in the incredible WANDRD PRVKE (with additional camera insert).
It’s not a cheap investment, but it makes travelling far easier and holds two camera bodies, two large lenses, two smaller lenses, a drone, drone controller and lots of camera-related bits and bobs.
The straps are also thick and spongy, meaning that this bag has comfortably come on some pretty long hikes with us without too much difficulty.
It is bloody brilliant.
Our Cameras
Canon R5
After a several years of carrying a Sony A7R III - a mirrorless camera that we primarily bought for its video capabilities - we finally grew frustrated with its cool colouring.
We absolutely adore the warm hues that exist within Canon-created images, so making the switch to their new mirrorless camera - the R5 - was an easy choice.
Andrew particularly loves the ease of mirrorless cameras, and whilst Emily will always be an old school SLR lover she’ll happily use this fancy little upstart. It’s also got excellent video credentials should we need to utilise them in the future.
Just a quick word of warning - this camera body is not cheap, although it is beginning to come down in price (and is actually around £1000 cheaper than when we bought it soon after release). Additionally, in order to use the lenses originally purchased for our other Canon bodies, we need to use a wee adapter.
Canon 5D MK IV
When we first began taking our photography seriously, this was the camera that Emily dreamed about. And, finally, back in 2019, we were able to buy it.
With a retail price of around £2500, it’s not a cheap bit of kit - but for Canon loving pros, it’s the camera of choice. And boy does it deliver. With 30.4MP, the ability to shoot 4K video and an exceptional level of precision and quality, this is likely to be one of our main camera bodies for many years to come. Absolutely worth the wait!
Indeed, we love it so much, that when that first body bought in 2019 needed replacing, we didn’t even consider another option.
Sony A7R iii
As mentioned above, this used to be our go-to second body. Yet whilst the little Sony A7R iii no longer holds that lofty title, we’re not quite ready to let go of it yet.
It doesn’t come with us on every trip, but we’ve found its compact size (especially with a small 50mm or 35mm lens attached) to be an ideal travel companion that we can pull out in a rush, have by outside on bus or train journeys or in situations when we don’t want to draw attention to ourselves by having a big camera and lens out.
Our Previous Cameras
Canon Lenses
CANON EF 24-70mm F/2.8L II USM
Bought 2018, and upgraded to latest version in 2023
The daddy of all lenses for us.
It's one that a lot of travel photographers swear by (although some of them will own the more expensive F/1.4), and it had long been a dream of Emily's to buy it.
It certainly isn't cheap, but we saw a definite step up in the quality of our images since we invested the first version.
It's now our go-to lens for street photography, landscapes, portraits and everything in between, and is almost always attached to at least one of our camera bodies at all times.
Canon EF 50mm f/1.4
Bought 2011
We love this lens. If it was attached to a full-frame SLR, I think it would never be removed. Unfortunately, the equivalent focal range on our camera means it's not ideal for street photography, but when it gets the shot - by god does it get the shot.
For those on a crop-frame but a little more serious about their photography, this is your reasonably priced (it retails at around £250) option for taking professional quality, jaw-droppingly beautiful images. And, when you're ready to upgrade your camera, the 50mm lens will still fit full-frame models.
It's an essential bit of kit for any aspiring photographer.
Canon 70-200mm f/2.8
The price of this lens (it retails at nearly £2000) meant that it took a long while before we could condone its purchase, finally adding it to our collection of lenses in 2022.
It’s definitely not a regular feature in our repertoire, but its long focal length makes it particularly useful for landscape photography, as well as capturing interesting elements, and is a massive step up in quality from our earlier 18mm-200mm lens (see below).
Emily adores the quality of images, the colours and the depth of field, the Canon 5D plus this lens allows her to create.
Sony Lenses
Our Previous Lenses
UV Lens Filters
There are lots of filters (discs of glass that are attached to your lens) available to photographers, all with a different purpose. Many of you won’t feel the need to experiment too much, but there is one specific filter we implore you to purchase for every single lens - the UV filter.
Useful at preventing UV haze and sharpening your images, the main reason most photographers - in eluding us - use them, is simply to protect the lenses. It’s much cheaper to replace a filter than it is the lens if you were to get a big olds catch on it!
We use these ones by Gobe, and have been really happy with them.
Camera Insurance
Even the best travel insurance in the world wouldn't cover the loss of our camera equipment - and one of the most common mistakes when buying travel insurance is expecting it to cover a lot of your specialist tech. Most general travel plans will only insure single items to a value of £200-£300 and have very onerous terms and conditions for claims.
So, our main travel insurance policies with True Traveller are not to cover our photography or blogging equipment.
However, many off-the-shelf photography insurance plans will not provide extensive coverage for the travel element of what we do, restricting coverage for our equipment to 30 days maximum out of the UK.
We had to do a lot of research to find a specialist photography insurer which would provide good, affordable coverage for our laptops, lenses, and camera bodies, alongside catering to our travels. The best option overall appeared to be Photoshield, which provides professional and semi-professional photography and videography insurance.
We’ve only had to claim once - when a lens became accidentally detached from the camera body and was damaged in the fall - and their helpfulness and promptness in providing the funds to source a replacement was truly outstanding.
Accessories
Tripod
Ever noticed how there are pretty much no photos of us together on the blog? Well, after several years of hopeless selfies with far too much arm, things are about to change - we've finally invested in a decent tripod!
What we didn't realise at the time however, is quite how expensive a piece of kit this could be. For those of you, like us, looking for the best combination of functionality, design and price, we've discovered our perfect tripod - the Prima PHTR001 Foldable Tripod. It extends to 153cm, it's got a ball head, it's strong enough to hold an SLR plus a heavy lens but lightweight enough for hand-luggage and it costs only £79.99.
Seriously, this is nearly half the price of better known brand models, like the excellent Manfrotto travel tripod.
Canon Remote
Unless we wanted to spend all our time running to and from the camera, relying on the shutter timer (and we all know how well those shots work out!), once we'd sorted the tripod, the obvious next purchase with the tripod was the Canon Remote.
Whilst in only works if you're standing on front of the camera - as opposed to at the side - it is the perfect gadget to ensure we can capture a shot or two of us, as a couple, in all these amazing places we visit.
LensPen
If you're anything like us, you're frequently finding bits of dust and the odd smudge on your lenses - no matter how careful you are.
Finally frustrated with using the edge of a clean t-shirt trick, we invested in this Classic Lens Pen. It's great at removing finger-prints and debris at absolutely no risk to your expensive lenses.
Transcend 1TB Hard Drive
Within 24 hours of leaving for Mexico, one of the worst things that could happen to a photographer happened - our hard drive died. Thankfully, the HD was new and had only a few GBs of data on it, but it could have been so much worse. The culprit? A WD My Passport HD. Apparently, this is not uncommon with this brand - avoid them at all costs!
So, we needed a replacement. It took a little while for the trust to be rebuilt but we couldn't be happier with our alternative. The Transcend 1TB is apparently military tested and can be dropped from all sort of crazy heights. Whilst we wouldn't recommend chucking it out of the side of a building, it does seem pretty resilient.
We actually now use a combo of 1TB and 2TB hard drives for all our photos, with each memory card being double backed up on two different hard drives.
For anybody wondering, yes, that’s a shit-ton of hard drives knocking about chez ADR!
SanDisk Memory Card
We're pretty vigilant about getting photos off of our camera as soon as possible, but for those times when you know you're not going to make it to a computer for a while, or when you expect to take A LOT of photos on a particularly special day trip, it doesn't hurt to carry a few back up memory cards with you.
We've both been fans of SanDisk, having upgraded to bigger storage capacities over the last few years as we got more interested in photography. We now don’t buy anything with lower storage than 64 or 128 GB - with this 200MB/S 128GB our most purchased*.
When travelling, we have at least four SD cards with us.
*Never buy your SD cards last minute on the high street or at the airport as the mark up on price is huge. Buying from the official SanDisk Amazon store is by far the cheapest option (although they limit you to about 4-5 SD card purchases at the same time as it’s so much cheaper than everywhere else).
SD Card Holder
You really don't want to know how long Andrew spent looking for an SD card holder. Seriously. Disappointed at the functionality and hold of our previous cheap aluminium one, which felt like it was just a business card holder with some foam stuck in, we upgraded at the start of 2018 to this beast.
It was the right choice. For a start, the case and clip are extremely solid. Secondly, it's got space for both our main SD cards and our smaller SD ones, and lots of them at once. Lastly, it holds those cards in place very tightly (which means you do have to be a little careful pulling them out).
In short, it's exactly what we wanted in an SD card holder for our travels both on and off the beaten track.
Transcend Card Reader
We carry a lot of gadgets, which means we have an obscenely large number of cables - anything we can do to reduce the size of the 'cable bag' (yes, we really have to have a special bag) is greatly appreciated. Also, the memory card reader on Andrew's Mac is very hit and miss - we needed something more reliable.
Enter, the fantastic Transcend Memory Card Reader. Instead of having to carry around a separate cord to attach each camera to the computer, this hand little device does the job nicely instead with a pull-out USB connection. Also accepts a couple of other different cards for even more versatility.
Camera Strap
Bored with the standard black strap which comes with our SLRs, we decided to make them a little more interesting with a multi-colour camera strap.
It's one of the best ways to personalise your little baby (and it means potential thieves aren't automatically aware of your camera brand and model!)
Update July 2024: These straps have been with us for five years now and are still going strong!
Peak Design Camera Clip
For years, when we were on hikes, we’d just carry a camera on our shoulders.
This was not a good idea - the camera was heavy, it banged into our hips, if we scrambled over rough terrain the camera ran the risk of smashing on something and it didn’t feel terribly secure.
It’s crazy how long we persevered before buying this excellent camera clip, that attaches the camera directly to strap of your backpack without the use of a strap. It’s secure, the camera is still easily accessible and our hikes have become a lot easier as a result.
Honestly, if you hike a lot and like to take photos as you do, this is a must-buy piece of kit.
Photo Editing
ADOBE Lightroom
We have learned over the years how integral the editing process is to taking and creating better travel photos. It’s been a long old learning process however, with various free programmes and mobile apps used along the way (from Picassa to VSCO, iPhoto, and Snapseed).
We invested in Lightroom for our desktop editing a few years ago, and we 100% recommend it to aspiring travel photographers. Although it can take a number of YoutTube tutorials and evenings spent tinkering to find your own style and flow, it’s the programme we use to edit all the images you see on Along Dusty Roads using our own presets.
The powerful mobile app which comes with the programme is also fantastic. It’s really powerful for editing images on the go from your mobile, or imported over our camera’s wifi, and we can also use our own desktop-built presets within the mobile app.
Lightroom Classic used to be a standalone piece of software, but it’s now a monthly subscription in combo with Photoshop starting at £9.99 / month.
