Hey Ya'll! Hope you're having a great week! Me? I'm doing great thanks for asking. I have been looking at my blogs today and counted them and this one is the 355th blog! Can you believe it! It's the beginning of the year and I have been thinking about the year to come. Last week I announced my big trip of the year to South Dakota and I have had South Dakota on the brain! Places to go things to see and of course all of the travel reservations which includes flying! So today I thought I would do a blog on traveling with photography gear. I think the way that you travel will determine the way that you pack and travel with your gear. For example if you're traveling by car my be very different than traveling by plane. What to bring? How to Pack it. What not to bring. So lets start simple.

When you travel you don't have to take everything you own every time you leave the house. Of course if you're just beginning in photography you don't have much maybe one lens or two and a camera body. If that's you travel is easy! Bring it. But if you've been into photography for a long time like me then you can't bring it all. You can't even carry all of it at one time. You may even have trouble putting it into one room! LOL Yes I have lots of gear! If you're traveling by car you can bring almost anything that your car or truck can bring. You can use big strong pelican cases to hold your gear. My only caution is to try to keep your gear out of site. Don't leave on seat of your car in site of other people not as nice as you that might want your gear. Thieves love photography gear because it is expensive and small easy to snatch and get away with. So be careful with your gear. 

Now if you travel by bus, train or plane it can be a little bit more complicated. First travel lite! Be aware of what your photography trip will consist of. Is it travel and street? Is it Landscape or Wildlife? Try to think in advance of what you will be shooting and what you will need. Leave all of the other "what if" stuff at home. Traveling by the above mentioned bus, train, or plane means that some of your luggage may not be with you but checked into some sort of cargo hold. Make sure your camera equipment is with you at all times as carry on. So pack accordingly because airlines have restrictions on carry on size and weight! Not so much with trains and busses. Now besides your personal clothes toiletries you must plan for your photo gear. Make sure it is secure and safe in the bag that you bring onboard. Try to make your camera bag not look like a camera bag when traveling. They are easy to spot. And remember it's not just camera gear it's editing gear if you are going to be gone for a while. I have traveled with both laptops and iPads and either can be used to edit and backup images while traveling. Modern iPads work well and are small and lightweight and work well but aren't as easy to use as a laptop or as easy to see if you have old eyes like I do. I just purchased a used MacBook pro just to travel with and use for Photography club meetings. Most of my computing is on a large desktop but I got such a good deal it was cheaper to take the laptop than the iPad if something happened and it got broke or stolen while on my trip. Anyway these items should be carried with you also. Most airlines let you bring a carry-on and a personal bag so my computing will be in the personal bag. Make sure you check with the airlines on size and weight limits to carry-on items. Make sure all of your charging needs are in your carry-on also it would be bad if you got to your destination and your checked bag got lost with all of your charging stuff. Your gear would be almost useless. And that stuff is hard to replace on the road much easier to replace clothes that were in lost luggage than charging gear. Here is an example of what I'm taking to South Dakota with me on the plane. Carry-on: Camera Body, 20mm f/1.8 for night shots, 20-70mm for general shots, 100-400 for wildlife and isolation shots. Extra batteries, chargers wipes, SD cards and stuff associated with main gear. Note: Batteries must be brought on carry-on check with airlines for specifics . In my Personal bag: Laptop , point and shoot (my backup camera) chargers associated with gear. Thats the photography gear I'm bringing for a week long trip. Main bag weighs 16 lbs personal bag much lighter.

Film is another matter. I don't have much experience with film but what I have read that if your film is 400 ISO or lower you don't have to worry about X-ray scanners at the airport but if higher you do. If you feel uneasy ask for a hand check of all of your film. I haven't decided if I want to carry a film camera with me on my trip to South Dakota yet. As it will not be the big part of my photography just a novelty I probably won't take it with me but if I did I would let it pass through the X-ray and not worry about it.

What to put in your checked bag? Besides clothes and personal items I would pack my tripod or monopod although very important part of photography gear your trip wouldn't be ruined if you lost either of these. Now if it was photography where only tripod shots like Astro it would be bad and I would consider taking it on the plane with me but other than an extreme I would keep it in checked baggage.

Remember to have a happy and safe trip "peace of mind" on gear and items you bring with you is super to have. I place an Apple Air Tag in each of my luggage. I have one in camera bag , personal bag, checked bag one on my wallet and keys. I love that I can in a second look at my phone and see where my checked luggage is. If if misplaces something while on the trip I can see where it is. This is pretty awesome and creates lots of piece of mind.

I hope you do get the chance to travel for a photography trip! It is such fun just to concentrate on just photography when traveling. You really get some memories that you couldn't get if you were just vacationing with the family. So until next week get out and shoot!

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 post there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

Hey Everyone! Hope your week has been as good as mine. Last week I told you about my big trip for the year going to South Dakota. During this trip there will be lots of great opportunities for great photography. From Landscape, Astro/Night, Travel and Street. But most of the shooting will be Landscape type of photography. I need to take a kit that is capable but also light weight. Well as much lightweight as I can be using full frame camera gear. Clothes wise I need to be able to layer depending on what the temps will be but also be as lightweight as possible. Taking only a 4 day supply of clothes we will be doing laundry while we are there to keep the amount of clothes down. Don't mind wearing pants or outer shirts more than once. I've got this to a pretty good system and have a spread sheet that helps me keep track on what I need and what I pack. I will also have to backup files and maybe do some quick editing so some sort of computing device I will need to bring with me. So let's start with computing.

Computing- The last big trip I took to Utah I took an iPad mini for my computing needs. I was able to backup files and do some small editing. Since that trip I have got a iPad Pro with M1 chip which is very capable and have used it on many outings and club trips. I'm not much of a laptop guy. My main computer is a Mac Mini with a couple of 27 inch screens. I have recently upgraded my laptop that was so old it wouldn't run Lightroom. A fellow member of my photography club upgraded her laptop and I bought her old one so if I had to run a Photography Club meeting I could. ( All of the electronics from the meeting room hook into a Laptop) So I think that I will bring that laptop on the trip. I got a great deal on it and don't have much money invested in the system. It is a 13 inch MacBook Pro and works for what I need. It's as lightweight as my iPad Pro and if something happened to it I wouldn't be as upset as I would my iPad. So the MacBook Pro and backup Solid State Drives to backup SD cards and to do some editing. Now lets talk about camera gear.

Camera Gear- My main camera for the trip will be my trusty Sony A7III. A long in the tooth camera but still gives me great images. It was released in 2018 but a great camera. It has dual card slots and everything else I need for still photography. Lenses that I will be taking with me are the Sony 20-70mm f/4, Sony 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 and lastly a Sony 20mm f/1.8. The 20-70mm will be on the camera most of the time it's a fantastic lens and very sharp, the 100-400mm will be used for Wildlife and isolation landscape shots. It is by far the bulkiest of my camera kit but an outstandingly sharp lens. The 20mm will be used for astro/night  photography. Thats my main kit but I will have a backup camera with me a Canon G7XII point and shoot a very capable camera that I can shoot in manual and RAW format images and also have filters to shoot waterfalls and such. Film, I haven't quite decided on a film camera yet. As film will not be my main focus I still like playing with it. A small camera will be the best bet. I'm leaning toward a plastic point and shoot Olympus Supertrip 35mm. It's very lightweight, compact, takes Okay photo's and has a flash. I will only take a few rolls of film with me maybe taking one photo at each place we go to. And of course I will have my phone with me taking shots everywhere we go to include food shots of meals we eat. I usually send a photo of my main meal of the day and send to my wife so she sees that I'm eating right. I will have a tripod with me on this trip mainly for sunrise, sunset and Astro/Night photography. I have two to choose from. Both are carbon fiber . I have a travel sized that I've used for years when I was shooting Crop sensor cameras and a larger one I just got after I went back to full frame camera's . The smaller one will probably win out because the largest lens I'll be using with a tripod will most likely be my 20mm. It will be dependent on room left in my checked bag with my clothes in it. If I have the room the larger one will go but if room is scarce then the smaller one will work.

Bags and other stuff- My main camera bag will be the Shimoda Action X 30L bag. This bag will carry my Sony Landscaping kit Camera, 3 lenses. and be my carry on , on  the plane, I have a Vanguard ALTA Rise 33 camera bag. This camera bag will hold my 13 inch laptop and small cameras accessaries this bag will be my personal bag on the plane. My checked bag will be an Eddie Bower roller Expedition bag that will hold clothes, tripod and some other stuff. Inside this bag I will have packing cubes to separate and keep everything in order. And of course I can't take a trip without my trusty fanny pack. I'll be wearing this daily it holds my phone wallet and can even hold a small camera like my point and shoot.  I will have apple air tags in all of the bags to keep track of them, especially in the airports.

Well that's pretty much for the gear that I will take on my trip. I'm so looking forward to this trip. I think part of the fun of the trip is the planning of it. At the time of this writing of this blog I am still months away but am gearing up and getting ready. So until next week. Get out and Shoot! 

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 posts there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link

Hey Y'all ! How's your day going? Mine? Great ! Thanks for asking. Today I want to announce a big photography trip that I will be taking this year. It will be a week long trip and will have airplane travel . I have taken a few big trips in the past some with my photography club and some with my Photography Wingman Robert. This trip I'll be taking with 3 folks from my photography club and it will be packed with photography opportunities ! Past trip that will compare to this one is the Utah trip where we were gone for 10 days saw 5 national parks 3 state parks and a couple of really cool towns. You can see more about that trip in this blog. Utah Trip Review  This was a fantastic trip! Epic! Hopefully this one will too! Ready for the big announcement?  Here it goes.

Our big trip this year will be to South Dakota! I know a hush has fallen over the crowd. People don't really know about South Dakota. I have seen it ranked #2 most boring state behind Idaho the #1. But for a photographer it has a lot to offer! Two National Parks, National monuments , The Black hills, Cowboys and cowboy towns , Wildlife like bison , elk, deer, rams , bears. Lots of cool stuff for a photographer. I have to admit that I didn't know much about South Dakota before I started researching it. Robert came up with the idea mostly because he's into Astro/Night photography right now and it's one of the best places to shoot the stars which we will be doing hopefully successfully.  But as I started researching I kept finding gems to photograph. When we first started planning we saw that Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons were only a state away and we rushed into planning an even bigger trip. But the time effort and money it would take to see the two iconic places wasn't worth it in this trip so we concentrated mostly on South Dakota.

We plan on spending a week in Rapid City SD as our base. Our longest drive will be a hour and 45 min to Devils Tower in Wyoming. This means only one hotel to book and returning the rental car to the same place is cheaper than driving to another town. We will fly in and out of the same place which makes that cheaper. It will be a more relaxed trip than the Utah trip where we stayed in 5 different places so I'm looking forward to that. Day trips will include, The Badlands National Park, Custer State Park, Mount Rushmore and Wind cave National Park, Devils Tower and Deadwood, Steam train ride between Hill City and Keystone SD.  As you can see lots of opportunities to get great landscape, and wildlife photos. We will also have some night shoots sprinkled in just for fun. One might be Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane's grave site in Deadwood. Aces and Eights! Since the shooting and driving will be less there will be more time to shoot and relax and won't have the pressure of getting to the next place the next day.

I'm hoping that this will be a great adventure like the Utah trip was. But make no bones about it an adventure will be had. We've made the plane, hotel and rental reservations and have started counting the days before we leave. Still planning and refining our itinerary .  So now you know where I'm going the next blog will tell you what gear I'm taking with me. So until next week Get Out and Shoot! 

Hey if you want to check out my photography go to my instagram account Max Stansell Photography there are over 2000 post there. Here is the link

 Max Stansell Photography Instagram Link