Thought now is the best time to document what I brought with me to Japan. This trip requires quite a number of trips in trains and local buses so I was hoping to travel with as little bulk as possible, although at the end of the day, I feel that my packs are a little too heavy.
For bags, I have a 35L backpack for clothes and chargers and items that does not require removal during transit. Even though temperature in Japan at this time of the year plunges below zero, becuase of the constant moving I will be doing, I packed only a fleece with Windstopper (Gore) material, and for waterproofing, a Mont-Bell packable Gore-Tex outer shell. A Gitzo G1341T tripod with RRS BH25 is attached on the outside for the late evening photo shooting in dim light, and this tripod/ball-head combination is light enough to be brought along for the trip.
On my belt I have a Leatherman tool for emergency, and my Ricoh GR Digital point and shoot on the other side. They do get in the way especially when sitting down, but hey, better than nothing.
I have also a belt pouch, a Think Tank Speed Demon with 2 lens case attachment on the belt. Most of the time it is not around my waist, but I carry it with the shoulder strap. In this combination, I have the following items:
– Garmin eTrex Vista GPS: Black and white, 7 years old, but still kicking. Drains batteries though, so I keep it off except for waypoint entry.
– Nikon D300 with RRS L-bracket attached to it permanently
– Nikkor 12-24mm f4 AFS DX Lens
– Nikkor 17-35mm f2.8 AFS Lens
– Nikkor 28-70mm f2.8 AFS Lens
– Nikkor 105mm f4 AI Micro Lens
– Spare batteries for GPS & Cameras
– Cokin P filter holder with 77mm adapter
– Singh-Ray 77mm Gold-n-Blue Polarizer
– Singh-Ray 3-stop Reverse ND Filter
– Singh-Ray 2-stop HS Graduated ND Filter
– B+W Slim Circular Polarizer
– Many CF and SD cards, enough to fill 25Gb of storage
The 4 lenses alone was enough to make the waist pouch at least 5-6 kg. Which is a little too much for a trip like this. The only reason I brought that many with me is that I just exchanged my 80-200mm with the 28-70mm (with a little topping up of course) so I wanted to test it out. The Think Tank pouches were just perfect, when it rained I just take out the rain cover and put it over the pack. Only issue is that on the Speed Demon pack, the rain cover doesn’t cover too well when you are using the shoulder strap and not the belt buckle. It works, with some effort.
nangka.org 