Hey Y’all! Hope everyone is having a great week! Me? I have been having a good week. I’ve been traveling with my wife and Forrest the wonder dog! This week is about doing travel photography when your with your family. Doing photography while with my family has always been a challenge. You want to shoot all kinds of stuff and use all of your gear that you have to shoot it .  You are usually hauling a lot of stuff when you’re doing your photography and that doesn’t leave room for their stuff. And if you’re like us when we travel I am the pack mule carrying everything in a back pack. My water their water any gifts that are bought in a gift shop any snacks and hauling all of your camera gear too. A few years I came up with a system that works for me and my family that doesn’t cause too much anguish on their part waiting for me to set something up and on my part being the pack mule. Years ago I went on a photography trip with my camera club to Washington DC. We stayed there for a week and it was great. I wanted to do the same trip with my wife so the next year I booked an Air B&B and got train tickets to DC. The only thing that I didn’t bring was all of my photography gear like I did with the camera club.  I went out and purchased (yes another camera) a high end point and shoot and that would be my camera for the trip. It’s small and doesn’t take up too much room leaving room for all of the other gear I have to haul. It has ended up being my EDC ( Every Day Carry ) camera. The week in DC was a great success and I got some great shots.

This is my current system for traveling with my family. I have the Canon G7XMII. It’s an older version I believe they have newer versions. It will shoot in all of the modes from Manual to Program. I have an adapter on it so I can use polarizer filter or a ND filter on it. It has a focal length of 24-200mm and goes from 1.8 to 2.8 maximum aperture’s . It’s a great little travel camera. I can use this in conjunction with my iPhone 14pro and I have a pretty good system. If I know that there will be some stunning photo’s to be had like say the Grand Tetons then I will bring my Landscape kit along and try to go out and photograph those iconic scenes early in the morning where there are less people and my wife can sleep in. That way I don’t feel rushed. But other than that I use the Point and Shoot Canon that I have and I love it. I have a Peak Design clip that I can put on my backpack or if I’m not using the backpack I use a Fanny Pack that it will easily fit into and be out of the way when not using it. If I need super wide shots my iPhone works great and also does great Panno’s.  I can adjust the aperture on the fly and can do long exposures If I need by using a small tripod or a Platapod camera mount. If I feel the need to do some video I can either use my phone which is more convenient or I can use a small GoPro 9 that I take with me for hikes and such still a small package and works great.

For editing on the road I do everything on my iPad Pro with the M1 chip .  I use Lightroom and Photoshop when needed to do my editing and it syncs with my main catalog at home with all the edits on it after I turn on the computer. I have been using this system and really like it for the road. I have a cellular model so if I don’t have WI-FI and have a cell signal I can still do work. This blog is being written on the iPad as we speak. I’m sitting in my sisters house on a week long visit.  The iPad is small and convenient to use charges pretty quick and the battery last a long time. I back everything up to a SSD drive that I bring on trips.

I find that using this setup is less hassle for me with gear and for the photography that I do when traveling with my wife and dog it works out great.  My wife doesn’t have to stand around tapping her foot while I’m fumbling around with gear and I’m not rushed by an annoyed wife.  When I go hiking with my dog this is a great set up and when he’s pulling me with the leash I can use just one hand to take photo’s.  On this particular trip I brought my landscape camera but haven’t used it once I have been using my little camera for everything . All of the photos in this blog were taken with my little camera or my iPhone. With the little camera I still feel like I’m doing photography without lugging the bigger camera around.  I’m also less of a threat when doing street photography and less of a target for thieves. So set up a system that you can enjoy and not annoy them with. Until next week Get out and Shoot!