AUSTRALIA TRAVEL PHOTO EQUIPMENT

© 1997 Doug Plummer

For a month-long photo shoot, I had to carry enough to see me through most situations, yet light enough to travel carry-on. Basically, I went nowhere without 2 camera bodies and 4 lenses, 16 rolls of film, a tripod, and a bird guide and binoculars, all about 20 lbs. A had a couple of other lenses that didn’t come out as much. Since I’m on a tripod so much, I don’t mind slow zoom lenses.

The biggest management headache was the film I was carrying--both quantity and care and feeding. I had about 125 rolls of color transparency, two-thirds was Ektachrome 100SW, one third Fuji Velvia. The remaining 25 rolls were various b/w: Fuji Neopan 400, T-Max 3200, and a few rolls of Ilford SFX (a near-infrared film). I also had a few rolls of tungsten balanced Ektachrome.

I stored the film in 10 Tupperware sandwich containers that hold 16 rolls each. One of these was in the camera bag, the remainder in my pack. Keeping the film cool was my biggest concern. For my 3 days in Kakadu, where my pack lived in a metal trailer in the hot sun, I stored most of my film at the hostel in Darwin, in a locked storage locker in an air conditioned room. I toured the park with about 40 rolls, and prayed. Later on, when I was travelling more by car, I bought a small cooler (they call them “Eskies”) and blue ice, and found freezers every night. Halfway through the trip I shipped home 80 exposed rolls by FedEx. The processed film showed no heat damage.