Top 5 Travel photography equipment In My Wish List

Since now is still the first fresh month of Year 2010, I still have 11 months to realise this, hopefully. This is just part of my wish list this year for contenting my craving on travel photography equipment. If possible, I hope my wish could become reality before this May. Why? Because I would be better equipped by then. So what? SO I COULD TOUR THE TOP 5 EUROPE CITIES IN MAY! 🙂 To be exact, I have only slightly more than 3 months to grab them into my packing list to travel! Can I? Let’s check my list first… 🙂

What camera system do I need to take with me for my photography travel? Firstly, what camera system do I currently own? As a budget traveler who prefers to travel light, I have a Nikon D60 body. Though it’s not perfect but it’s still good and light to carry around travel. For lenses attaching to it, I have the “3 lens combo for poor man” which includes a Nikkor 18-55mm kit lens, a Nikkor 55-200mm zoom lens and a 35mm f1.8 prime lens. For capturing day in day out travel photos under good ambient lighting, 18-55 and 55-200mm lenses are good enough. Whereas my 35mm fast lens are normally used to capture indoor or night scenes under available light, which is brilliant (you can see my Chinese New Year photos indoor). I have plenty of 4GB SDHC memory cards and 1 spare battery which should be enough (Europe is using the same power socket as Malaysia, so charging battery there would not be a problem). I’m currently using my only Lowepro Cirrus TLZ15 waist bag to fit in my camera and a single lens. For night scene long exposure (like my shot of Genting Highland), I would bring along my tripod. That’s all my camera system currently.

What else do I need? For a budget traveler with limited budget on travel photography, Nothing else I need. I don’t need a much more bulkier and heavier camera body like D300s to burden our rucksack eventhough though its metering and dynamic range is much better. I don’t need a ultra wide angle lens to capture the whole scene of Coloseum where I could still stitch a few photos up as panorama. If budget is my biggest concern, I don’t need a telephoto lens either. Out of 100 travel photos that I’ve been shooting, only 10 or less photos are telephoto. So I’ll miss only 10% of all photography opportunity.

However, To have a more complete camera system for better travel photography (but also heavier bag and heftier budget), and to ease my craving as a hobbyist photographer, I wish I could own these 5 camera components as listed here:

1. Wide angle Nikkor AF-S 10-24mm f3.5-4.5G ED DX lens costing USD 800. This is the lens for capturing landscape with more impact! I want this first!
2. Midrange Zoom Tamron AF 17-50mm f2.8 SP costing USD 449. This is the lens to replace my kit lens for travel. It’s fixed aperture make it a lot more flexible in shooting indoor and outdoor!
3. Telephoto zoom Nikkor AF-S 70-300mm f4.5-5.6G ED VR, costs USD 540. If budget allows, this lens can help you to capture those statues on top of the roof at St. Peter’s Square and PS can’t help you on this!
4. I need a much bigger sling bag preferably the Lowepro Slingshot 350AW sling bag, cost USD115. It will fit in more camera staffs on travel, and can be treated as a backpack cum waist bag, and
5. Finally, if budget allows me to do so, I wish I could upgrade my body to Nikon D300s which cost USD1,500 or RM4,950 only now! It’s tremendously good value now if compare to its original list price of USD1,800!

Other than the above, I would also get ready some ND and polarizer filters for some effects. What are the total cost of all 5 items?  USD3,404.

However, I haven’t got any of the above. I wish I can get some of them (or at least the first 4 items) by end of April so I could fully explore my photography travel to Europe. Or can you think of anyway to support me on this please? 🙂

About The Author

Cecil Lee

The author is an avid traveler and photography hobbyist who loves to share with others his travel and photo-taking experience in many popular tourist destinations around Europe, Asia and Australasia. Read the exciting stories with many photos captured on his journeys.