What would you take?

In October I'm taking a road trip to shoot fall foliage in Maine, go to a seminar in Boston and check out some of the big cities and coastal areas on the way back.

The general itinerary:
Leave from work in D.C. on Friday October 6th and drive straight through to Maine (I don't know exactly where in Maine yet)

Spend that weekend and probably until Monday or Tuesday of the following week camping, hiking and shooting the foliage. At that time I will head down the coast of Maine and New Hampshire and into Mass being in Boston on Friday October 13th.

Spend Saturday and Sunday in Boston attending a photography seminar.

Leave Boston on Monday morning and continue down the coast and hit NY and Philly on the way to a camping trip with friends in the Shenandoah National Park on the 21st and 22nd of October.

I intend to camp most nights except for the weekend in Boston. So...if you were doing a trip like this what would be in your camera bag(s)?

Hmm... sounds like a dream trip to me :)

My answer to your question depends on what kind of camping you're going to be doing. Backcountry or car camping? This will influence how much gear you want to carry around on your back. And also, how much gear you're willing to leave in the car overnight if you're not going to be carrying it on your back.

For your subject matter, I would carry all my wide angle lenses, normal lenses, and maybe a moderate telephoto. Unless you're looking for wildlife then I would pack the long glass. Of course a tripod is necessary. You might also consider water proof gear in case the weather turns on you.

Make sure to post shots!
Rick

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Originally Posted by dmm96452

In October I'm taking a road trip to shoot fall foliage in Maine, go to a seminar in Boston and check out some of the big cities and coastal areas on the way back.

The general itinerary:
Leave from work in D.C. on Friday October 6th and drive straight through to Maine (I don't know exactly where in Maine yet)

Spend that weekend and probably until Monday or Tuesday of the following week camping, hiking and shooting the foliage. At that time I will head down the coast of Maine and New Hampshire and into Mass being in Boston on Friday October 13th.

Spend Saturday and Sunday in Boston attending a photography seminar.

Leave Boston on Monday morning and continue down the coast and hit NY and Philly on the way to a camping trip with friends in the Shenandoah National Park on the 21st and 22nd of October.

I intend to camp most nights except for the weekend in Boston. So...if you were doing a trip like this what would be in your camera bag(s)?

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Nikon D200 with 18-200 VR. No tripod (VR). This is the combination I'm going to try when I finally finish my current project and get some time off to do another of my wandering-round-France trips - assuming that I Nikon delivers my 18-200 (ordered for 6 weeks already).

When I go somewhere new and especially on a mixed trip like yours then I try to take a minimum of equipment, which never leaves my side. Once I know the place I can always go back with more gear at the right time of day/time of year. The 18-200 will allow me to do everything in a very compact package.

Charles

Are you considering buyig new equipment? Because if not, just bring it all. That's what I do if I'm doing a road trip. The only time I cut down on the amount of equipment I carry is when I have to travel by plane - especially if I'm taking my bike. But in the car - no reason to leave anything at home.

What I've found helpful is to be able to get everything I need into a single utility bag. I have the camera, one or two other lenses, film, exposure calculator (you may not need this). A telescoping tripod is very useful because your bag may have a strap or sling on the side to hold the tripod. But I wouldn't weight myself down with much more than that. A bag and a folded up telescoping tripod will be about all you want to carry in the woods, especially in summer or fall when all the leaves and branches are at the fullest.

I will be buying some new equipment. I'm just trying to get a general idea of what the more experienced types would take.

What I have now:
20D
50mm f1.8
Tamron 17-50 f2.8
Sigma 70-300 f4-5.6
Bogen/Manfrotto tripod and 3265 Grip action ball head
Bogen/Manfrotto monopod
Canon 220EX
BP511 batteries (2)
2GB CF cards (2)

What I will add before then:
Tamron 28-75 f2.8
Battery grip for the 20D and 2 batteries
Canon 70-200 f2.8L IS
Canon 2x TC
CF cards (at least 2 more)

What I would like to add before then:
Backup body (10D or 300D)
Speedlite 430 EX or 580EX

If you're doing back country camping and feel comfortable leaving equipment in the car, then bring a bunch of it. As is probably obvious, just be careful about people seeing you play with a bunch of camera gear, throw it in the trunk and leave. You never know who's watching...

On my version of back country stuff, space is an issue (traveling by kayak). I've used film in the past for this but sold that gear so now I'd probably bring the wide zoom, 50 and hopefully 80-200. Tripod and bubble level too, of course - and a lot of batteries. You may want to consider one hotel night halfway in the camping part of your trip so you can let camera gear really dry out, charge batteries and clean lenses (shower is a nice bonus!).

Quote:

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Originally Posted by dmm96452

In October I'm taking a road trip to shoot fall foliage in Maine, go to a seminar in Boston and check out some of the big cities and coastal areas on the way back.

The general itinerary:
Leave from work in D.C. on Friday October 6th and drive straight through to Maine (I don't know exactly where in Maine yet)

Spend that weekend and probably until Monday or Tuesday of the following week camping, hiking and shooting the foliage. At that time I will head down the coast of Maine and New Hampshire and into Mass being in Boston on Friday October 13th.

Spend Saturday and Sunday in Boston attending a photography seminar.

Leave Boston on Monday morning and continue down the coast and hit NY and Philly on the way to a camping trip with friends in the Shenandoah National Park on the 21st and 22nd of October.

I intend to camp most nights except for the weekend in Boston. So...if you were doing a trip like this what would be in your camera bag(s)?

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First Film or Digital?
Digital: Car battery charger, extra batteries, tropod, lenses: Normal, Macro/Telephoto, and extra media, about 512meg per day or more.
Film: tropod, lenses: Normal, Macro/Telephoto, film slide, 3 or 4 rolls per day.

Rick - No backcountry just a tent at campgrounds most nights and day hikes. So I won't be away from the car for an extremely long time.

Charles - Thanks for the input. I don't know how soon I would be able to get back so I'll probably have to travel a little heavier then you do.

PJ - I will probably take it all with me. I'm just trying to find out what others would take so that I can see if there are any glaring omissions in my list.

AV - No back country and there will be three nights of hotel stays. At least. I'm also going to have a way to secure the gear I leave behind. Not just locked in the trunk but in a locked box or something like that bolted in the trunk. Lots of batteries - check.

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Originally Posted by freygr

First Film or Digital?
Digital: Car battery charger, extra batteries, tropod, lenses: Normal, Macro/Telephoto, and extra media, about 512meg per day or more.
Film: tropod, lenses: Normal, Macro/Telephoto, film slide, 3 or 4 rolls per day.

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Digital. Check, check, check, check and check for all of the items you mentioned.

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Originally Posted by SirMike1983

What I've found helpful is to be able to get everything I need into a single utility bag. I have the camera, one or two other lenses, film, exposure calculator (you may not need this). A telescoping tripod is very useful because your bag may have a strap or sling on the side to hold the tripod. But I wouldn't weight myself down with much more than that. A bag and a folded up telescoping tripod will be about all you want to carry in the woods, especially in summer or fall when all the leaves and branches are at the fullest.

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I have several bags all of which will go on the trip. One that is weatherproof and has a place for my tripod.

Laptop? I always take my laptop and dump all photos and format cards every night before I go to bed.

Yup. Got a small Fujitsu laptop with plenty of room for card dumps. Thanks. Do you format your cards on the laptop?

I have a tiny Fujitsu, too! I love my laptop. It's the size of a piece of paper and it's been going strong for two years. The built-in card readers all started to corrupt cards, though. That's the only problem I've had with it.

I format my cards in the camera. I dump them to the computer, remove the card from the reader, confirm that the images are there with an image browser, then immediately format them in the camera.

It is a great little laptop isn't it? The processors are a little on the slow side but that was necessary to keep heat down in a machine that small. Still fast for a 1.2 ghz proc.

I tried loading CS2 on it. Very slow but not unbearable.

The newer ones don't have CF readers anymore. :(

Great advice here. Only thing I want to recommend is to get the 1.4 TC instead of the 2x. The 1.4 does not affect focus speed, has nearly no optical degradation and only loses you one stop of light. Overall, much more bang for the buck.

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Originally Posted by dmm96452

It is a great little laptop isn't it? The processors are a little on the slow side but that was necessary to keep heat down in a machine that small. Still fast for a 1.2 ghz proc.

I tried loading CS2 on it. Very slow but not unbearable.

The newer ones don't have CF readers anymore. :(

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My processor is less than 1 GHz. And I only have 256 megs of RAM. But it's mostly for storage and working on the road. It's not my main machine. I forgot about the one thing that bothers me. I've never been able to sufficiently calibrate the monitor. I've used the ColorVision Monitor Spyder on it and tweaked it manually and it's just not trustworthy. I will post photos from the road, but it always makes me nervous.

Don't worry about the card readers. Both the SD and the CompactFlash card readers on mine eventually started corrupting cards. You're better off without them. I've got an external USB 2.0 reader now. It's much faster and it actually works.

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Originally Posted by Photo-John

My processor is less than 1 GHz. And I only have 256 megs of RAM. But it's mostly for storage and working on the road. It's not my main machine. I forgot about the one thing that bothers me. I've never been able to sufficiently calibrate the monitor. I've used the ColorVision Monitor Spyder on it and tweaked it manually and it's just not trustworthy. I will post photos from the road, but it always makes me nervous.

Don't worry about the card readers. Both the SD and the CompactFlash card readers on mine eventually started corrupting cards. You're better off without them. I've got an external USB 2.0 reader now. It's much faster and it actually works.

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Yours must be a little older then mine. Mine has a 1.2 ghz proc and a gig of ram. I don't use mine for processing either but to process a few while out of town or to post when I'm on this trip it will work. I also have an external reader that I will now be sure to take.

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Originally Posted by Sebastian

Great advice here. Only thing I want to recommend is to get the 1.4 TC instead of the 2x. The 1.4 does not affect focus speed, has nearly no optical degradation and only loses you one stop of light. Overall, much more bang for the buck.

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I'm going to be using on the 70-200. While I get that the 1.4 degrades and slows things a little less it also only changes the lens to 98-280. That only actually gains me 80mm. Not sure that will be worth it. Will it?

The 2x degrades the quality dramatically, slows the AF, and loses you 2 stops of light. The 1.4 has no noticeable degradation and does not affect AF. Those two things alone are more important than the extra reach IMO.

Typical 1.4x = ~7% degradation depending on manufacturer.
2x= 20% or more!! Like Sebastian says- 1.4 if you think you'll need one, otherwise don't bother. The lower coast of Maine into NH is gorgeous! I don't have any of my chromes from there scanned, but I have some amazing images back from 2002 up there. I'd almost skip Maine for the foliage and just go into the White Mountains of NH instead. If you do- make sure you check out The Flume and The Basin in Franconia notch NH www.flumegorge.com , but also the cool little lighthouses off Rt1A right over the state line into Maine offer some incredible shots too (either Ogunquit or Kennebunkport in the York area).

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Originally Posted by dmm96452

I'm going to be using on the 70-200. While I get that the 1.4 degrades and slows things a little less it also only changes the lens to 98-280. That only actually gains me 80mm. Not sure that will be worth it. Will it?

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It's worth it. For one, Sebastian is right about the optical quality. The 70-200 f/2.8L + 1.4x converter is a wonderful combo. There's little if any auto focus compromise and no apparent optical compromise. I use that combo all the time for mountain bike race photos. It's an awesome zoom range and at a maximum aperture of f/4.0, you really can't beat it.

One thing I think you should take with you that nobody has mentioned yet, is ME!!! Sounds like a great getaway! Lots of good advice in this thread. When I go car camping, my camera bag is the largest bag in the car. :) I take my entire EOS system, and sometimes my old AE-1 set up. I also like to take along a smaller bag or two so I can go light on a hike if I want to.

If I could just get my GF to carry my 40 pound LowePro backback, I could leave the smaller bags at home. I don't think she'll go for that tho. :) Enjoy your trip!

Oh right, duh! I bring Michael with me on all my trips. Didn't even feel it was worth mentioning, thought it was just assumed by now. Great to have him around to you know, carry stuff, clean the windshield, tell the waiter what food you want, massage your scalp while metering the light, everyday sorta stuff.

Sorry I hate to be this way, but when ever I go anywhere I take everything I can cram into my camrea bag. Gets a little hard on the shoulder but I hate it when I get somewhere and think, "Oh I wish I'd brought _____."