MPB Traveling Essentials

Hey, what's up guys, professional outdoor photographer David Johnson here for outdoor photography Guide. And look, we've all been in that situation before. You're excited. You just booked a trip, but now it's down to that last second before you leave and you think. What's the essential camera gear that I need to take while traveling or on a trip specifically for photos?

Well, in this video I'm gonna be showing you all the essentials that you need to take. Now I'm gonna do this in two different ways. I'm gonna do just the basic package because a lot of us. Take our camera gear when we go backpacking or camping and we don't have a lot of extra space, but the second one I'm gonna do is showing you the extra stuff that are the essential things that you need to take with you on a photography trip when you're traveling, when you have that little bit of extra space, I flying on an airplane, I feel like I get to take a lot more things with me. So let's start with the basics first, obviously.

It's the camera you know that's what we use to take the pictures. I'm not going into a lot of the detail on this, but you need to take a good camera that fits what you're doing now when I say fits the activities that you're doing and what you're doing. Are you doing a lot of street photography? Are you doing a lot of adventure photography? Are you gonna be in the elements?

Think about what kind of weather ceiling you need on your camera, how many batteries you need to take, SD cards, all those things come into play when we're talking about what camera you need to take. Now any really good camera will do. Um, so that's not super important. Now your lenses are super important and what I say basically on any photography trip besides the camera, what you need to take is a really good high quality wide angle lens. Now this is great for landscape photography, travel photography, street photography.

Anything that you need to get a whole grand landscape, so this lens that I'm using right here is just your basic, it's a, a prime 20 millimeter 1.4 lens, so pretty quick lens, um, but a really good small compact lens to take is your wide angle. So that's the first essential lens that you need to take with you on a trip. The second essential lens that you need to take with you. is a telephoto lens. Now this could be any lens that maybe came with your camera in a package deal or something like that.

I like to take a 70 to 200 with me because it's a little bit more compact. If I take the lens hood off, you can see the size of this lens that it actually is. So pretty compact lens is gonna fit in your bag and reduce a lot of the space that's going on in your bag. So definitely take a telephoto lens. Now these are gonna be good for those smaller detail shots that you need to get with your photography.

This could be something like somebody's portrait, some wildlife photography, some close ups of the landscape. Those are all things that are very important. Now the last essential thing that you need to take with you is the tripod. I feel like the tripod is something that always gets skimped on with photography, especially if you're going on a trip. Uh, now the tripod, and I was talking with my friend about this the other day.

It's almost like you always start out with the cheapest possible tripod and eventually you buy the most expensive. You need a good sturdy tripod that's gonna last a long time coming from me learn from my experiences. I have a, a closet full of a tripod graveyard of tripods that just haven't been. Uh, able to make it, so definitely take a good solid tripod with you. Now in just a second I'm gonna switch over and give you the more extensive essentials list for when you're traveling for a photography trip, but first this video and all the products included in it are sponsored by our friends over at MPB.

Now I'm sure you've heard me talk about MPB in the past, but there is the world's largest platform for buy, selling, and trade. Being photography and video equipment. Now raise your hand. I'm the first one to raise my hand here. If you have any photo equipment sitting on your shelf, all it's doing is just collecting dust and being a dust bunny haven.

Well MPB is the safe, simple, and circular way to trade that gear in and get paid. And look, it's not a marketplace. They buy from storytellers, photographers, videographers who are just like you and they're a. Evaluating extensively all these items before they list them on their approved items on MPB.com. Their dynamic pricing system evaluates all the gear and gives you an accurate price that's usually about a third of the cost of what you would pay for new gear.

Look, circularity is at the center of everything they do over at MPB. All packaging is plastic-free, and their cloud-based platform uses renewal. Electricity and MPB has served over 625,000 storytellers, photographers, videographers who are just like you. They're recirculating over 500,000 products annually, and in fact, 2000 products are always added to their site every single week. So a big thank you to our friends over at MPB for sponsoring this video and if you're interested, go ahead and head over to MPB.com.

All right, let's get into those more extensive pieces of gear that you wanna take when you're going on a photography trip. Now we talked about the camera, we talked about the widening of lens, the telephoto lens. You might want to sprinkle in some more lenses here if you have some more room to take now. I like to take a kind of this medium range lens. This is a 35 millimeter lens, a Sigma 35 millimeter 1.4.

So this is a huge aperture that you can use to collect light. I've used this for night photography and small scene photography too, and this lens does a phenomenal job, extremely tack sharp when we're talking about image quality and how to produce the best images that you want on a trip. Now the second lens that you might want to consider is a super telephoto lens. This one here is a 150 to 600 lens, so a much bigger lens. Now here's the thing, if you don't have room for both of these telephoto lenses, just your standard 70.

200 and a super telephoto like 150 to 600. What I often do is just opt for the 150 to 600 or super telephoto and I'll leave this lens behind because it just like I did when I went to Costa Rica earlier this year. I used this super telephoto lens as both my telephoto lens and the super telephoto for wildlife photography. Now I did have to give up on some photos that I just didn't have that range between my wide angle and the super telephoto, but in all it saved me room and it limited my gear which always simplifies the process for me now. What are some other pieces of gear that you might want to consider when you're going a little bit more extensive on your gear list?

Well, those are gonna be your filters. I always tell photographers, especially outdoor photographers, have a circular polarizer in your back. Circular polarizers reduce the glare that is on the surface of the water or on plants, so they can come in a. Like this that just allows you to put it in front of your lens, uh, and this is just a really good way to add more dynamic contrast to your photos by limiting the amount of reflection. Now lastly, what you can do is bring an ND filter with you on a trip.

Now what an ND filter does is it pretty much darkens your entire frame. And it allows you to take some really long exposure photos. I'm talking about up to like 32nd photos to smooth out the surface of the water, streak the clouds across the sky and come up with some really dynamic and fun photography. The best part about these last few are that they don't take up that much space like these two filter kits are just this much space in your bag and if you just took the circular polarizer out of this case, then it would be even smaller. So definitely consider upgrading to these filters as the first option to making your gear list more expensive on a photography trip.

I hope you have the best travels ever and more importantly, I hope you come away with some amazing photos.