I have been out shooting landscapes for the last week in Sothern Victoria and had a great time with fantastic locations, great light and awesome weather. Came across a few problems during the week but nothing that wasn't overcome in the field with a few trusty extras that I keep in my camera bag so I thought I would write a list of some of the more important bits in the bag to help you out when in the field shooting and things aren't going all your way.
- A shower cap - I prefer the free ones that you get in hotels as they are A, cheaper and B, lighter. This is just the thing to throw over your whole rig when it is raining. You can even tear a hole in it to stuff your lens hood through to keep shooting in the rain.
- An Allen key (that fits your tripod plates etc) and a small screw driver, things get loose when bumping round in the back of the truck.
- A small cleaning kit including a blower and a lens cloth, very important when shooting at the beach and around waterfalls.
- Spare batteries, even though batteries are much better now than at the dawn of the digital age (three batteries for one shoot!) I still like to keep a spare with me even if it stays in the truck, I know it is there with some AAs for the flash too.
- Same goes for memory cards, even in the days of 8 and 16 Gig cards and dual slots I still like to keep a couple of extras with me just in case.
- A Neutral Density filter, doesn't take up much room and you never know when you will need it. Comes in handy when shooting watery landscapes.
- 10 meters off strong cord. Useful for tying off branches to get them out of the shot.
- A cloth in a plastic bag, handy for cleaning your hands when you have been getting down and dirty to get the right angle.
- A pen and paper. I use audio notations recorded with the image file a lot when a note relates to a specific image but sometimes it is handy to write stuff down be it a location to return to or a phone number.
- Some food and a drink, maybe it is just me but I don't function too well without food in me so I like to take a muesli bar or two with me in the field to keep the energy supplies up.
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