What’s In My Camera Bag To Africa

What's In My Camera Bag To Africa

Friends and many more people were asking, what is in your camera bag when you travel to Africa? You must drag lots of gear along for your wildlife and landscape photography. A new nature photography journey through Namibia is coming up. That allows me the opportunity to answer these questions; what is in my camera bag.

Edit 27 April 2018:
I did switch from Canon to FujiFilm cameras in 2017. The post will tell you more insight about the reasons, as well I made a post about what the FujiFilm X-H1 camera has to offer for wildlife and landscape photography.

Okay, what’s in my camera bag to Africa? Traveling along to safeguard my gear on my journeys from A to B to C is my Gura Gear Bataflae 32L. This bag will do the job very well for all the photographic equipment I need. Everything fits in this bag that I need as a wildlife and landscape photographer. I can strap the bag on a little trolley for easier traveling on planes and trains; it has enough pockets, dividers, and raincoats. The raincoat I also use to protect the bag from dust as well in Africa. Gura Gear also offers lots of other related photography products, worth to check it out.

Camera bag of a landscape and wildlife photographer, inside with big lens, smaller lenses photo gear, including map for a trip to Africa.

What’s In My Camera Bag To Africa – cameras, lenses, filters, batteries, hard drives for backups of the photographs, and much more.

What's in my camera bag to Africa?

Start with cameras. I bring along a Canon MK IV, 1DX, and a GoPro. Renting a camera for your trip can save you quite some bucks! Usually, the newest camera model is always around the corner and not from the cheap side! So renting is a good option sometimes.

What's in my camera bag to Africa for Landscape Photography

The wide-angle lens I bring along for landscape photography I have in mind already, which does not mean that I only use the wide-angle lens. No, I also use the 70-200mm, like for my arctic landscape photograph of an iceberg, or the 300mm f/2.8. It always depends on what I want to accomplish.

Most notable are the filters for me for long exposure photographs. Undoubtedly, the Big Stopper, Little Stopper, and several graduates from Lee filters. I like these filters very much for long exposure; they just give me what I am looking for. To help the timing for LE photographs, the badly needed remote release with timer is a must. Some long exposure photographs have an exposure time of 4 min, if not longer. A steady tripod from Gitzo attached a Really Right Stuff head, BH – 40. Not to forget the game Solitaire to kill time while waiting till the minutes have passed of the exposure and the other set of minutes while writing the photograph to the memory card!

What's in my camera bag to Africa for Wildlife Photography

I do love bean-bags for the Safaris. No matter if I do a self-drive Safari or not. A bean-bag gives me more flexibility than a Gimbal head mounted on a barrier or bean-bag with a head holder system, tripod…etc. I can move from one side to the other in 2-5 seconds in my jeep. Lenses I use for African wildlife photographs or landscape are usually all. Of course, it always depends on what kind of photograph I am after. The newest Canon 200-400mm & 1.4x (I call it the “Fiat 500” lens, because of it’s price tag) is on my wish list. One of my list is to capture the photograph of a lion.

Camera Gear List

  • Canon EOS MK IV
  • Canon EOS 1 DX
  • EF 300mm f/2.8 L IS
  • EF 70-200mm L IS II
  • Wide-angle EF 17-40mm L
  • EF 24-70mm L
  • Macro Lens EF 100mm L IS
  • Extender 2x – 2x ext. III
  • Canon 1x – 1.4x ext. III
  • Sandisk Memory cards – many (usually 16 – 36GB the fastest on the right now market)
  • CamRanger
  • Lee Filter: Big Stopper, Little Stopper, graduate filters hard/soft and adapter from Lee
  • Gitzo Tripod
  • Really Right Stuff head
  • Canon Remote Timer
  • Hyperdrive UDMA2 to store my photographs
  • iPad to connect via Wifi with the Hyperdrive allows me to browse my photographs easy or on Mac Book Pro
  • 1-2 LaCie Rugged Mini 1-2TB external hard drive for double backup. Hyperdrive makes it very easy to synchronize the backup files to an external hard drive.
  • GPS & map from Tracks4Africa, since I do self-drive in a 4×4 jeep, camping equipped with roof tent.

The Few Little Needed Items

Few small items are essential too. The cleaning kit; lens cleaner, a big blower, lens cloths, lens brush. In Africa, I need to clean the glasses of my lenses quite often, it is very dusty continent. The blower needs to show up for work early morning at sunrise and is only allowed to go on the side when I go to bed! Every evening all lenses will be cleaned to be ready for the next day’s adventure. Of course, I carry as well enough spare batteries along and a battery charger. Swiss Army knife, USB cables, duck tape, all that is needed, and much more. Now you know what’s in my camera bag to Africa. I hope it helps you a bit more about what you were looking for or need in your own bag.

A photo of an African Savannah landscape that features a solitary acacia tree in this grassland. (copyright Anette Mossbacher)

Landscapes Photos

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A wildlife photo of lion in color shows a majestic lion that stands at the edge of the savannah. (copyright Anette Mossbacher)

Wildlife Photos

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Black and white picture of an elephant that walks along the Zambezi river. The wild animal is beautifully framed by the surrounding trees. (copyright Anette Mossbacher)

Black & White Photos

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2 thoughts on “What’s In My Camera Bag To Africa

    • anette says:

      Hi Pieter, your comment was to late. Next time I will contact them right away. Thanks so much for the info Pieter.
      Ciao
      Anette

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