Photar
Down Under
That's a great idea.
Carry-on Bag - Camera Bag
- Thread starter boojum
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Shadams
Member
Yeah, it's a really inexpensive (50 cents to a buck a print) way to ally folks to one's cause...
Archiver
Veteran
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
I have been advised that mid-October is a pretty good time for Hanoi. I am shooting for that. I hope that wandering around will be enough o walk off the fabulous Vietnamese food, especially the great proletarian street food. Street food is what I enjoy wherever I go. Mexico is fabulous.
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Archiver
Veteran
As Australia has quite a fair chunk of Vietnamese diaspora, we have many Vietnamese restaurants and bakeries which serve banh mi, pho, and all the rest of the Vietnamese dishes, street and otherwise. Since someone introduced me to crispy pork banh mi a few years ago, I can't stop trying new ones whenever I find them. You're going to love it!
bjorke
Designated Driver
The Selphy needs special paper, yes? no?
I've done the same with Instax printers, it seems easy to find the "film" for them almost anywhere, even in small towns. But if the Selphy could use regular paper, that'd be a win.
Shadams
Member
Yes, it does. Fortunately it's not too expensive. Don't bother with the Amazon knock-off paper/ink cassettes (it's a dye sub system), they will trash the printer - ask me how I know! Get the Canon paper/ink combos.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
I used to do a heck of a lot of travel. I was always very chary of carrying too much gear because, to my mind, it's not the amount of gear you carry that makes the great photographs ... it's your ability to see and capture with the equipment you have. Obviously, certain kinds of shooting requires particular capabilities in equipment, but I'm long past the point where that's a huge consideration to me now.
Most of the time, if it's a trip where I know I'll want to take advantage of some flexibility in lens options, I'll carry a Leica M and one or two lenses. A couple of batteries, a spare memory card, a charger. And a tripod... even if just a tabletop tripod. "My sharpest lens is a sturdy tripod." It all fits in a tiny bag and weighs very little ... I can carry it all day.
And sometimes in recent years, when photography is not the focus of a trip, just a single camera and lens ... but always a tripod too.
I'd kind of like to try this single camera and lens approach with my recently acquired Makina 67. Carry that and ten rolls of film, a green filter. Tiny bag... That's 100 exposures to work with. Hmm. Maybe the next trip.
G
Most of the time, if it's a trip where I know I'll want to take advantage of some flexibility in lens options, I'll carry a Leica M and one or two lenses. A couple of batteries, a spare memory card, a charger. And a tripod... even if just a tabletop tripod. "My sharpest lens is a sturdy tripod." It all fits in a tiny bag and weighs very little ... I can carry it all day.
And sometimes in recent years, when photography is not the focus of a trip, just a single camera and lens ... but always a tripod too.
I'd kind of like to try this single camera and lens approach with my recently acquired Makina 67. Carry that and ten rolls of film, a green filter. Tiny bag... That's 100 exposures to work with. Hmm. Maybe the next trip.
G
Shadams
Member
I did three months in Perú with nothing but an X100F and my iPhone to use as a light table. Liberating.
I agree with Godfrey about what's important. I'll go one step further and say, the less you carry, the more pictures you will take.
I agree with Godfrey about what's important. I'll go one step further and say, the less you carry, the more pictures you will take.
DownUnder
awol (temporarily I hope)
Maybe not more, but surely better.
Hm. Or maybe both.
In the spirit of this thread, my next Asian sojourn will include a Contax G1, the 28/2.8 Biogon and the 90/2.8 Sonnar, and 40 rolls of outdated color negative film. Partly to go minimalist, but mostly to use up this old old film before it goes totally bad. I've done tests, it's still good. No color shift yet. Refrigerated since new.
Of course a digital camera as well. There vanishes the minimal...
The bag I've not yet made up my mind about. But it will be one that fits easily into a backpack.
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Archiver
Veteran
There are times when I think back to the days when I had only one pocket camera and feel nostalgic for that simplicity. Then I think of the variety I have come to expect, and affirm that there's no way I could travel with just one camera with a fixed lens. I take 500+ images each day on a trip, and carry two mirrorless cameras and a pocket camera, but I'm probably an outlier.
LKSC
Established
As added protection, might I suggest bringing a few 512 Gb USB sticks.
At various points of your journey, mail the sticks to youself as you fill them.
Are you flying through Singapore?
Godfrey
somewhat colored
500 plus photos per day on a trip? That's impressive. My photo friends here think I'm ridiculously prolific, but if I hit 100 photos a day even at my peaks I'd be very surprised. A normal day's photo session for me is about 25 to 30 exposures, whether on travel or at home...
It raises a few questions:
What do you do with all those photos?
How do you organize them?
How do you find specific photos in the future?
This part of the photographic process is truly time consuming, far more so than the picture making part.
G
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
I do not know yet. I have not made reservations yet. I am just now doing a blood draw to get ready for inoculations. It looks like I will get injections for everything but Yellow Fever and Rabies.
Archiver
Veteran
I'm almost constantly taking photos when on a trip, especially overseas. To be honest, my figures are probably excessive. On my 2010 trip to Japan, I averaged 700 images a day for two weeks. Yeah. 😅
They reside in folders and act as a permanent record and memory of the trip. If they are family trips, I send people curated selections by WhatsApp or GoogleDrive download.
In folders that follow a structure of Year/Location or Activity/Month. For example, 2025/Work/2025_02. Or 2023/Family/2023_10.
For work images, everything is organized in folders named with date, client and job. For example, 20250624_JohnandMarcia_Wedding or 20250623_AllanJones_Products.
Generally, I know roughly when a particular photo was taken, and since everything is organized by year, activity/place and date, it's a simple matter to go to the relevant year and scroll through the images. It would be useful to be able to automatically add tags to the metadata of processed jpegs, but this means I would have to strip the tags for privacy if I want to upload to flickr.
The key for me is to change the Date Modified of all image to match Date Taken. This way, I can organize images by Date Modified and they fall in line with all events and jobs, chronologically. From there, it's easy to drag and drop batches into appropriate folders.
38Deardorff
Well-known
I admit to buying a specific camera for a photo i envisioned taking, but some trips, I'm happy with a handful of good photographs of which maybe one or two are superlative.
I am thankful for years of working in 5x7" & 8x10." When I'm travelling, I have no desire to see the entire experience through the viewfinder, (That's not a judgement on other people's photographic styles, but just a statement about my own).
I had been workin with my Rolleiflex & had in mind to take this photo, so I bought the Fuji GW680lll...& took this.
You can count me in the light on gear contingent.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
Sounds like you have a plan and a methodology that works for you. Good luck with that! 😀
My own needs are far simpler now; I retired in 2016 and enjoy photography as a hobby once again. 😉
G
Guth
Appreciative User
@boojum - In case you haven’t already figured this out (or if others might be wondering), Domke’s prices can vary quite a bit depending not only on the color chosen but also on the material chosen. I believe they only used to offer their bags in good old canvas, but eventually they added waxed canvas, ripstop nylon, and perhaps others.
I’ve owned a small Domke F-803 satchel bag for 25 years now (in canvas) and it has managed to handle all of the camera gear I’ve ever wanted to bring along with me, be it on my travels or just around town. I feel like such a lightweight compared to some of the others here (no pun intended). But I prefer to keep my camera gear to a minimum whenever possible on my travels. When I bring the Domke along with my camera gear it rarely leaves my side. I literally take it almost everywhere with me. The last time I traveled, I loaded it up with two rangefinder bodies, four lenses, extra rolls of film, extra batteries, lens cleaning gear, a small tabletop tripod, a few magazines (to read on the flight), and a rain shell tucked under the top flap. While the bag could handle it, I felt like I had overdone it. If I’m staying with friends or family then leaving the Domke behind isn’t a big deal, but I never do so when staying at a hotel. So the less I carry along with me the better.
Ironically, in my travels I tend to be there for the experience first while the photography comes 2nd. Sadly in my case, if I spend too much time taking photos I wind up feeling like I missed out on much of the overall experience (yes, I lied in my job interviews whenever asked if I was good at multitasking). I often tend to shoot more when re-visiting a place. While the photos/images from a trip are wonderful, I’ll admit that my memories are more important to me. Should my memory wind up going kaput (as happened with my mom and her mom both) then the photos will be worthless to me anyway. I do realize that I’m in the minority here when it comes to such things.
Regardless, I definitely wish you luck as you work on finalizing your plans for bags/gear/etc. and hope that you have a wonderful trip.
I’ve owned a small Domke F-803 satchel bag for 25 years now (in canvas) and it has managed to handle all of the camera gear I’ve ever wanted to bring along with me, be it on my travels or just around town. I feel like such a lightweight compared to some of the others here (no pun intended). But I prefer to keep my camera gear to a minimum whenever possible on my travels. When I bring the Domke along with my camera gear it rarely leaves my side. I literally take it almost everywhere with me. The last time I traveled, I loaded it up with two rangefinder bodies, four lenses, extra rolls of film, extra batteries, lens cleaning gear, a small tabletop tripod, a few magazines (to read on the flight), and a rain shell tucked under the top flap. While the bag could handle it, I felt like I had overdone it. If I’m staying with friends or family then leaving the Domke behind isn’t a big deal, but I never do so when staying at a hotel. So the less I carry along with me the better.
Ironically, in my travels I tend to be there for the experience first while the photography comes 2nd. Sadly in my case, if I spend too much time taking photos I wind up feeling like I missed out on much of the overall experience (yes, I lied in my job interviews whenever asked if I was good at multitasking). I often tend to shoot more when re-visiting a place. While the photos/images from a trip are wonderful, I’ll admit that my memories are more important to me. Should my memory wind up going kaput (as happened with my mom and her mom both) then the photos will be worthless to me anyway. I do realize that I’m in the minority here when it comes to such things.
Regardless, I definitely wish you luck as you work on finalizing your plans for bags/gear/etc. and hope that you have a wonderful trip.
boojum
Ignoble Miscreant
I am not thrifty, I am an f-ing chintz. I shopped all the Domke F-2 bags for price and found that for some strange reason "Sand" was the cheapest and it came in waterproof canvas. The blurb on B&H reads: "It is constructed of tough, breathable, compressible water-resistant canvas." The color is non-descript and only murmurs "Steal Me!" rather than shouting it. I suspect it will do the job admirably.
But thanks for thinking to advise me.
Guth
Appreciative User
Note the water-resistant in the blurb (not waterproof). This is what my bag is constructed of and it has served me well.
And you’re not fooling me. A real f-ing chintz would not be shopping Domke bags, nor pondering whether or not to spend $3K on yet another camera for a trip, or taking an overseas trip to begin with. 🤣