Kenya bound...

My bags are packed and off to the airport in a half hour en route to Kenya for a couple weeks of photography. Here's what I travel with (above).... 

Bag 1 (left) Carry-on is a Gura Kiboko bag with all the really expensive, fragile stuff (bodies, lenses, filters). Gura is the best bag for traveling with a ton of gear! I've got a 500/4, 300/2.8, 70-200/4, 24-70/2.8, 24TSE, 17-40/4, 1DS mark III and 5D mark II in there... amazing that it all fits! 

2) Personal item (second carry-on) has laptop, documents, point and shoot, etc.

3) Checked bag is a large MEC duffle bag (very little weight in the bag iteself) with tripods, heads, reflectors, chargers all padded with underwear, t-shirts, pants, etc!

Dust is always a problem for me on photo shoots and I expect it to be bad in the dry African savannah ecosystems. Dust is especially problematic for shooting video with tee 5D mark II.... it's a serious pain to remove dust spots from HD video! To save me the agony, I'm now using a product called Dust-Shield, which is an optical quality thin plastic film that seals the camera chamber and prevents dust from getting on the sensor. I just had my camera cleaned and put a fresh dust shield on... see next two photos. It works great and makes life so much easier! 


The next photo is the most important item I'll be traveling... Imodium! In foreign countries, you're exposed to a range of 'bugs' that will inevitably result in gastro-intestinal distress. Imodium has saved me on many trips, so I could keep photographing and spent less time in agony in third-world washrooms! 

Be sure to follow the blog and my facebook page over the next couple weeks to see the photos and hear the stories from the trip!