090 - 5 Things You Need in your Camera Bag (that aren't photo accessories)

 How's it going everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the podcast. I'm Robert Massey. This is the Travel and Adventure Photography School. Thank you so much for joining me out here today. Super excited to be here with you.

This week was an interesting one to try and find time to record. Admittedly, brought the mics with me on a few different adventures. Some kayaking, some hiking, some Aurora shooting last night, and honestly, every time I was out there I got totally distracted that I totally forgot to record anything. So instead you get a little walk around town where I am a little less distracted and a little bit more focused, and hopefully gonna be able to give you something better than random ramblings.

So, we're currently walking on some little side streets in Banff up towards the Banff Center. It's gonna be a good little walk today. So what I wanna talk about is something I realized last night when I was heading out to shoot the Aurora, and it's five things that I always keep in my photography bag when I'm heading out shooting that aren't actually related directly to photography. Most of us have the gear that we know we need to have with us when we're shooting. If we need filters, if we need a tripod, anything like that. We know the photography accessories that we need to go out and create the photos that we want to create. What this is, is things that I tend to always have in my bag regardless of what type of photography I'm doing.

That's because these are critical needs for creating pretty much any good photo. But also just making sure that I can actually go out and continue to create what I need to, no matter what the situation is that I run into.

Alright, so it's a list of five.

The first thing that ends up in my bag is my portable battery bank. This is basically a large charger that allows me to recharge my camera on the go, allows me to recharge my headlamp my phone or anything else, I need to. I made sure to get one that had a USB-C port in it and a USB-A port, so I could charge basically any devices I need to.

But the USB-C port was really critical to be able to charge my Sony camera at a high rate so I could keep my camera going a little bit longer, leave it sitting for 20 minutes, get a little bit of extra juice out of it if the batteries die, or if all my extras die. I haven't had that happen, but it's nice to know that I can make that happen if I need to, and that I can recharge my batteries, if something unforeseen happens, I have another backup in case anything's there and I'm not missing my opportunities to shoot.

So one of the things that you make sure that you want to include when you're purchasing a battery pack is to make sure that it's strong enough to actually charge your camera. So what this means is the little tiny stick ones that you get that can charge your phone might not be powerful enough to actually give your camera enough of a boost to keep it going. So when you're choosing which one to buy, just make sure that you get one that's got enough umph to it that you'll be able to charge your camera and do it relatively quickly. If you have one that's a pretty low amperage, you won't actually be able to easily charge your camera, easily charge your devices while you're out on the go. It'll go too slow. It won't actually allow you to charge things very quickly.

And then the other thing that you wanna make sure that you watch out for is that it has the USB-A, USB-C ports. It has the right ports that you can actually charge your camera with. So make sure that you are actually going to be able to plug it in. I would suggest right now, always go for USB-C.

USB-C to USB-C is going to be by far the fastest charge that you can get with what we have accessible to us on the consumer market.

So, check out for those things and always just throw it in your bag. Remember to charge it up when you get home and you're charging your batteries, toss it back in and you're good to go.

All right. The second thing that always ends up in my bag, and this might be common for a lot of people, but if you shoot in a studio setting or anything like that, this actually might not be something you think of, but when you're out traveling and you're out adventuring, having a cleaning kit, just a little tiny one can make all the difference in the world.

So I don't mean bring along like the massive rocket blower and all of your pieces of cleaning equipment that you would have sitting around your house or that you should have sitting around your house to clean your camera. What I mean is a lens clean cloth, preferably two in case one of them gets wet or very dirty if you've dropped it in mud or something like that.

They're very small. They're very light. Always have two of these things on hand. I think I have them tucked into most of the pockets in most of my bags 'cause I have so many of them at this point. So I always have a lens clean cloth with me.

You wanna make sure that you have some way to blow dust and dirt off of the front of your lens as well. So just a little tiny rocket blower is really helpful as well. And maybe a little bit of lens cleaner if you end up getting spots. That won't come off if you're, say, shooting in the rain, shooting near a waterfall or anything like that, where mud or water can come up and grime the front of your lens. So not a big kit that you would need to have with you but can be so impactful to your images.

You can almost always clean those kinds of things out in post, but man, can they get annoying and irritating and really suck in your time while you're editing. If you don't clean them up right then and there, if you don't get it right in camera, you're end up sitting in front of a computer for a lot longer than most of us probably want to.

And that being said, sometimes you can't clean those water spots out. If you end up with one directly over top of your person's face and you don't have another angle to be able to do a face replacement, or it ends up going over exactly the wrong spot in the image and it could actually ruin your photo.

So just keep an eye on the front of your lens and always have a cleaning kit with you. Mine is super small. It takes up maybe a pound in my bag and smaller than a credit card. So if you can have that with you, fabulous. If you know you're gonna be changing lenses a lot and you know you're gonna be in a situation where there's lots of dust blowing around, lots of other things, kind of possibly contaminating your sensor then you might wanna consider having some sensor cleaner with you as well. So the issue with that, you obviously can't clean your sensor while you're outside. So if you have somewhere that you can go, that's not gonna be blowing dust around then having something like that with you is a great idea.

I didn't really find this to be a problem when I was shooting on Cannon, but now that I shoot on Sony a lot more. It's a problem. Sony sensors are giant, sucks for dirt. They suck in dirt all over the place, and I just, I don't know what's going on with them.

They're beautiful sensors, but man, they get dirtier far faster than any other sensor I've ever seen. So, if you're a Sony shooter, this actually might be way more important to have something with you where you can sneak off somewhere and clean that sensor when it does get really dirty, because that seems inevitable now with the way that Sony's cameras work.

All right, so point number two, bring a cleaning kit with you. It doesn't really change much of the weight of your bag, and honestly, it makes a huge difference to your images.

All righty. Number three. We're just plowing through these today. It's a light source, so the light source definitely changes, but I always have a light source in my bag. It doesn't matter if I'm headed out at noon and I'm shooting until like three o'clock in the afternoon.

I always have a light source with me. That's because they can massively influence an image just by painting a little bit, something extra onto somebody's face or adding a little bit of light to a piece of scenery. Just adding that little bit of something extra to light up your scene can actually make a huge, huge difference to making your image just pop. The type of light I bring with me does change quite frequently, but it's always there. Let's take last night for example. I was out, we were shooting the Aurora till about three in the morning.

It was fabulous and before I left, I made sure to throw in my RGB LED tube. This is a multicolor, basically tube of LEDs that is about 20 inches, 50 centimeters long that I can easily tuck into a backpack, but it's bright enough that I can use it to add a little bit of lighting on someone's face if it's midday, or I can use it to paint in a little bit at night or add a really cool glowing effect.

I can also change it into basically any color I want. So it's this super versatile piece of kit that is actually, honestly, fairly cheap. Cost me about, I think it was 60 bucks Canadian, 70 bucks Canadian to buy one, and it charges on the same U S B C port, so I can just plug it back into my battery bank when I need to charge on it.

And it works great. I threw in there last night when I was out shooting the Aurora. I didn't actually need to use it, didn't see a point for when I wanted to, but it's great to have that additional, pretty bright, pretty nice light source.

And the other light source I threw in my bag last night was the constant, my headlamp with a red light on it. So I obviously always have my headlamp with a red light for shooting at night. So I don't affect my night vision too badly. I know the camera does do that when but at least when I'm kind of standing around not looking at the screen, my eyes can adjust a little.

I'm not totally throwing them outta whack. But that headlamp is beautiful. I made sure to get one that had a spot function on it so that when I wanted to create those head, looking up with the spotlight going off your head in the middle of the night kind of photos, I had that available to me without having to do a lot of extra work in post.

You'll find I am a huge believer in not having to do extra work in post if you don't have to. If you can get it right in camera and then just do the very minimal tweaks and very minimal editing, then you get to be outside more. You get to be adventuring more. You're not wasting your life behind a computer.

So adding light now rather than having to do it after the fact is huge, and it makes a huge difference to the amount of work that you're going to have to do.

All right. Other light sources that I typically throw in my bag, just depending on what I'm doing and where I'm going. I have some magnetic Lume Cubes that are daytime temperature that I can stick onto things. They're fully waterproof, so I can attach 'em inside of canoes and boats and have them in the water with me.

They're not bright enough to counter-act the sun or add fill light during sunny days. But what it does do is allow me to paint in a little bit light on people's faces or tuck it up underneath of somebody's body while shooting at night or set it up against a piece of ice or anything like that.

Just add a little bit of information and add a little bit of detail. Lume cubes are fabulous because of the fact that a lot of them are waterproof. You can actually do a lot more fun things with them, especially in the winter, by like tucking them into snow banks and illuminating certain features. And then at Blue Hour or at sunset, using them to illuminate pieces of your foreground that you want, to add a little bit of depth and dynamics to your image.

All right. And the fourth one we won't spend a lot of time here is snacks. I never leave the house with my bag, not having snacks in it. It's basically a necessity for me to keep shooting, whether I'm out on a shoot with somebody or I'm shooting on my own. Snacks are a must. What I bring depends on who I'm with and what I'm doing and all that kind of stuff, but definitely always have them in there and I always make sure to have one that will allow me to rebuild my electrolytes if we're expecting to do something that's really active and really pushing.

So honey stingers or cliff blocks or anything like that are great especially when you're shooting because rebuilding your electrolytes are basically critical to keeping you going, keeping you able to think and move at a high rate of speed.

And then some sort of high calorie, highly dense, something that's also very tasty.

So I'll actually want to eat it. So Hornby Bar or cliff bars tend to be my go-tos for on-the-go quick and portable snacks. I also obviously always bring fruit, veggies, things like that. And then if I'm out shooting with kids and I know them and I know the parents won't mind, I actually typically bring some healthy candy. Healthy being a relative term, obviously because it's candy, but we always make sure to include something like that so that we can keep the kids going and give them high, high amounts of sugar. You'd be amazed how often I want to stop being somewhere or I want to be out, or I want to stop shooting or go home, or I start to get grumpy and my creativity just starts of fall and.

Then I have a snack and life's better again and life's good and I want to keep going and I wanna keep shooting. So yeah, snacks can, snacks can save your shoot. So don't forget them, don't neglect them. They go right hand in hand with water, obviously. Whatever your snack is of choice, whatever is gonna perk you up and keep you going and give you brain energy, not just energy, where you're gonna be bouncing off the walls.

We don't want the person who's had eight cups of coffee bouncing all over the place, unable to focus kind of energy. We want something that engages your brain, gets your creativity running, gets you up and going, and if you don't know what that snack is for you do some work. It's made a huge difference for me to understand how my brain responds to different foods and what foods actually give me the right kind of energy to be creative in certain situations.

All right, and the last thing that goes into my bag, this isn't always there, but I would say it's in there 75% of the time is some sort of raincoat. I have two different types of raincoats, so which one makes it in, tends to be about the situation that I'm heading into or what it is that I'm going to be shooting in, so I have one that's pretty lightweight, really not meant to survive much more than , a decent rain shower or protect it from more like mud and things like that.

I purchased it for when I was out shooting rodeos and I needed something fast, light, and easy to put on, take off and keep on my camera and clean it off really quickly when it did get soaked in mud. And then I also have a much more heavy duty one that almost protects the camera from little nicks and scratches as well.

It's a little bit more rubber based and definitely protects the camera a little bit more from not just torrential downpour rain, but all sorts of different types of weathering conditions. If I'm out shooting in the snow or I'm expecting heavy rain or blizzard, then that's actually the one I pull on because I can leave it on when I have my camera on a clip, and then if I do fall over into a snowbank, hopefully I don't, it has a better chance of protecting the camera from that fall than the little plastic one that I have.

I almost always have some sort of rain gear for my camera whenever I'm out shooting. And that's just because you don't know what the weather's gonna do. You don't know the situation that you're gonna end up in. You don't know anything along those lines of what might be presented in front of you. So, if you have a rain cover for your camera, then you're always gonna have it protected.

I get that our gear is very durable. It's very weather resistant. I don't really have too many concerns about having my camera out briefly in the rain or briefly getting snowy on it or anything like that.

But why take that risk if you don't need to? You can easily purchase a 15, $20 little something that works and protect that, multiple thousands of dollars piece of equipment.

One of the last things that I'm gonna talk about here, a little bonus piece, is actually something that does live in my bag all the time, but, I need to remember to take out of it, especially if I'm headed into the city, getting on an airplane and that's my bear spray. I have one that lives on the shoulder strap on my camera bag.

It never leaves it. I always have it on there so I don't even have to think about it before they leave the house and wandering around Banff not unusual to have bear spray on you. Wandering around Calgary. That's illegal. Wondering in a lot of cities that's illegal. You can't have bear spray on you. Try and get onto an airplane with bear spray, that's not gonna happen.

And so I always make sure to think about where I'm headed and pop the bear spray off if I'm heading into the city to shoot or if I'm, you know, getting on an airplane somewhere. But it's something I have to think about because it does live in my bag. But depending on where you live, that's not gonna be a good idea to keep it in your camera bag all the time.

Now, if you live in a mountainous region, if you live somewhere where bears frequent, and it's pretty common for people to have bear spray on them, of course it's not illegal to have bear spray on them. Keep it on your bag. I think it is an incredibly helpful device to have. I thankfully have never had to use it.

I've pulled it out many, many times, but every bear I've encountered has been lovely and nice, and I've never had an issue. But you definitely could have an issue very quickly, and it's one of those minor things that. That's easy to carry around and great to have when you desperately need it, it could save your life.

So yeah, keep your bear spray in your bag permanently if you live in a situation where you need that, kinda like a place like Banff or Canmore or Jasper. But if you live in a city or if you, if frequently go through airports or anything like that, remember to take it outta your bag so you don't get yourself into a lot of trouble with various different authorities.

Or so you don't have to throw out that $50 can of bear spray, which oh, would be heartbreaking to have to do if you showed up at the airport with it and forgot you had it in your bag.

Alrightyy. And that's it. That's my quick and dirty. This is what I have in my camera bag with me at all times that aren't photography accessories. Because these are kind of critical things that can keep you going on a shoot that can keep you actually being able to produce images and incredibly critical if you're out on a paid production. If we're out screwing around and creating images for ourselves. It's sad when we have to turn it home, but not super detrimental. We can always go back out and it's kind of just on us, but if we're being paid by clients or if we are being expected to complete something, having these little extra things in there can elevate the chances of your day going well, and the more often you can do that, the better chances are that your shoot's gonna go well.

The better images you're gonna produce and the better off you're gonna be.

Thanks so much for tuning in today. If you want to chat, if you wanna send me any ideas or questions that you have, you can reach out to me on Instagram at Robert Massey Photography, or you can find us online at robertmasseyphotography.ca.

Thanks so much for tuning in. Get out there, explore this big, beautiful, wonderful world of ours.

Bye for now.