Traveling with your equipment? Check out what I use in my travel bag as I head over to Europe this summer. Traveling with your equipment is no easy task. As a professional photographers, I have to have the gear I need most when I’m working on my photoshoots. In this video, I show you how I load up the Peter McKinnon Camera bag from Nomatic.
Equipment Used:
Camera: Canon EOS R5
Lens: Canon R5 28-70, Canon RF15-35, Canon RF70-200, Canon RF85 f1.2, Canon RF50 f1.2
Light: Profoto A1s
Camera Bag: Mckinnon Camera Pack from Nomatic
Team:
Photographer: Sal Cincotta
What's in my travel camera bag? Europe 2023.
What’s up everyone? All right, we are going to Europe. You’re going to see plenty of videos coming from Europe. We’re getting prepared here to travel, and, of course, we’ve got to have a travel bag for every day, as we’re in the field. We are heading to New York City, London, Paris, and Rome, and we have over 16 photo shoots planned. It’s going to be absolutely insane. But in saying all that, if you’ve considered traveling overseas or even traveling within the US, how do you travel with your equipment and what do you actually need versus not need? Right? We can bring a mobile studio with us and have everything under the sun, and you know how that goes. You don’t use any of it. But just in case. So what I’m trying to do is get my bag to a reasonable point where I’m taking what I, again, realistically I’m going to use.
So I picked up a brand new bag. This is the Peter McKinnon bag from Nomatic. Sounds like a good bag company name. We’re nomads headed to Europe. With everybody online, raving about the bag I wanted to give it a try. And this is not a bag review, this is just how we have loaded the bag. So let’s check it out. This is what I have, as far as I’m concerned, is my working day bag. I might bring some extra stuff, like maybe a light stand or maybe some bigger studio strobes in a suitcase just to get it overseas in case I need it. But as far as every day, as we’re on these photo shoots, what’s on my backpack? This is what I’m working with. So come check it out.
All right, so let’s just start right in the top. Easy access. I like what they’ve done with this. So this will flip down and here I’m working in the bag. It’s the Canon R5 28-70. That’s going to be what’s on the camera most of the time. Now keep in mind when you’re traveling, this is just my opinion, I love not only taking portraits of people, but I also love architecture. And if you’re going to be in places like London, Rome, Paris, you should absolutely be taking pictures of the architecture and putting those up in your home. I did a YouTube video on that. You should watch that. We decorated a home with our travel pictures, so it’s kind of a two for one.
The 28-70 Cannon R5 is a great overall lens, plenty of megapixels, horsepower in this camera. The 28-70 f/2.0 is a heavier lens, but it’s going to give you an incredible depth of field and a nice just kind of overall working lens. So that’s going to be in the top of the bag. It’s also got some pouches. I know I said I’m not going to do a review on it, but you can put your wallet and passport here. Pro-tip, traveling in Europe, always have your passport with you. All right, so on the side, worth noting, we’ve got two Profoto A1s. These are kind of my go-to handheld flashes if you will. So I can do a lot of work with just one of these and I’ve got two, one on each side, battery in them, and then I’ve got extra batteries in the bag.
And again, this allows me to work outdoors, get some fill flash. We’re not overpowering the sun, but if I want to kind of double these up, I can have my assistant, the same person holding the bag, hold these two lights to light up our model subject. All right, now as we turn the bag over on the backside, It does have a side pouch for your laptop.
All right, so now as we open this up, I don’t want to say it’s the bare essentials, but it is kind of bare, if you will. So I’ve got my trigger for the Profoto A1s. So if I want to have those off camera, I can use the Profoto trigger with that. I’ve got some extra batteries. So I’ve got four extra batteries. The reason I carry four, if I’m being honest, I’ve never really gone through them in a full day of shooting, but because on the the Cannon R5, I do have the battery grip and that holds two batteries. So you’re typically swapping out two at a time. So I’ve just got some extra there.
Extra memory card pouch here. Feet for the Profoto A1. So if I want to put that on the ground or on top of a light stand, I can do that. And then extra batteries for the Profoto. And then this is kind of more than the holy trinity of lenses, but this is what you need. So I’ve got my 70-200 and with the RF lens series, you can see they’ve made it where it kind of telescopes in and out. So it does store a lot easier than the old lenses.
We have got a 15-35, so that’s great for architecture or anything kind of wide where you’re going to have your subject in it. This is a really good all around lens. So I’ve got 15-35 to 28-70 that’s on the camera now. So you can see my focal range is working. And then, of course, 70-200, right? So this is what we’d call the holy trinity of lenses.
These are my two must have for portraits: 85 millimeter f/1.2, and then of course, the 50 millimeter f/1.2. Get as fast of glass that you can afford. Over time, of course, that’s what I’ve added to my kit and my bag. So this is it. This is what I’m traveling with as we go overseas. You’re going to see all those photo shoots. Hope you love them. But I don’t know, tell me down in the comments, do you think it’s too much or should we add a little bit more to my lovely assistant who loves carrying an extra backpack on our European trips? Anyway, hope you enjoy this video. Hope it gives you some perspective as to what’s in the bag and what you got to travel with when you go overseas. And we will see you in the next video.
