How to select a photography package

Choose the most suitable photography package according to your own needs

What is a suitable photography bag? What meets your needs is a suitable photography bag. The difficulty of finding demand is that it is closely related to what scene you plan to shoot and how to shoot. Therefore, for most friends who lack shooting experience, this is the bottleneck of purchase.

Therefore, it is difficult for budding friends to choose a photography package that is particularly suitable for them at once. A better way is to choose one according to their own understanding preferences, and then use it more. Find problems in use, understand their own needs, and then make adjustments in the next update to choose a more suitable photography package.

Let's talk about my understanding of the needs of various types of photography bags for reference only:

Travel Photography

For travel photography, we usually bring one or two lenses of one machine and maybe a portable tripod. The typical configuration is a fuselage, 24-120 lens plus a 70-200 / F4 lens or ultra wide-angle lens. At the same time, we often want to bring some electronic devices such as water cups, small clothes and iPads, and need to move more, so we usually choose a backpack with plenty of accessory space. In addition, we often travel by air, so the size of the photography bag must be able to take it on the plane without consignment.

Landscape photography

For landscape photography, tripod and filter are essential. Secondly, the lens focus section also needs to be relatively complete. Generally, there are two machines and three lenses. The typical configuration is two fuselages and three lenses: 14-24, 24-120 and 80-400. So we need a photography package with space reserved for the storage of these items.

Infinite scenery is on dangerous peaks. Scenery photography often needs to travel through mountains and rivers to places with beautiful scenery, so the carrying system also needs to be better, which is convenient for trekking on foot. A good carrying system should transfer 80% of the weight to the feet through the belt, and the shoulder belt is mainly responsible for balance rather than weight-bearing.

The scenery is generally far away from the city, so we need to take a plane to get there, so the size of the scenery photography bag needs to be able to take it on the plane without consignment.

Outdoor adventure

We often can't bring too many photographic equipment for outdoor exploration. Generally, one or two lenses are common for one machine. The typical configuration is a fuselage, 24-120 lens plus a 16-35 or 70-300 lens, and maybe go pro. However, when we go to outdoor exploration, we often bring some outdoor equipment, such as mountaineering sticks and headlights. Therefore, our photography bag needs a place to store and fix these equipment, as well as a water bag to facilitate drinking water without taking off the bag. In the outdoor process, we will exercise heavily, so the bag needs to be carried firmly, so as to ensure that the equipment in the bag can be protected and comfortable and breathable in the case of large-scale exercise, so that we can not feel uncomfortable during a lot of exercise.

We often don't need to take our bags outdoors, so we can take them on the plane first.

Wedding activities

When shooting wedding events, we often have two cameras and two mirrors. The situation here is more complex, and there can be many reconfiguration methods. I list the more common one. The two fuselages plus 24-70 / 2.8 and 70-200 / 2.8 lenses are the main lenses, with 105 / 2.8 macro (still life), 14-24 / 2.8 ultra wide angle and sb910 flash at the same time.

We can choose the roller case to store all the equipment, and then we can use the camera strap or lens barrel and belt to carry two cameras, three mirrors and one flash for shooting.

City street photography and humanistic photography

In general street photography and humanities photography, we use more 24-70 focus segments, because this focus segment is closer to people's field of vision. The typical configuration is a fuselage plus a 24-70 lens, maybe a 70-200 / F4 lens, or a 35 fixed focus large aperture to deal with low light environment. City street photography needs the ability to take the lens quickly, so a single shoulder messenger bag or messenger bag is a good choice, and the capacity is just about the same, which can put one machine and one mirror. (in fact, for shoulder bags, more equipment will make you feel very hard to load.)

In addition, for the shooting of humanities, we hope that the lower the key of our bag, the better. It's best not to attract the attention of the photographed, which is more conducive to the shooting.

Daily commute

Many people shuttle around the city and work with cameras every day. The typical configuration is one camera with one camera. It may be a standard zoom of 24-120 or a fixed focus of 35. We often put some things like laptops in such bags, so we need space to design laptops, water cups and other items. I hope the bags I bring every day are more fashionable and bright in color. It's best to have a sense of design.

Choice is a trade-off
When purchasing a photography bag, most people often spend a lot of time comparing whether the material of the bag is good, whether the workmanship is fine, whether the carrying system is awesome, and whether there are many functions, but ignore what they really need. This is often a waste of time. Because the good or bad of a feature is completely determined by our needs. The same feature may be the opposite conclusion due to different needs. For example, the backpack system of a bag can be awesome, but it often comes at the cost of massiness. If we go hiking to shoot scenery and carry a large number of equipment on foot, such a backpack system will give full play to its advantages, comfortable and share the weight to the waist. If we just sweep the street with one or two lenses, Every time we take off the heavy backpack, it means that we need to take off the heavy backpack.

Therefore, we should analyze our needs as much as possible and find the package closest to our needs with demand driven. The difficulty here is that first, we need to have sufficient shooting experience for reference. Second, our needs are often mixed, such as 80% travel, 10% street shooting and 10% activities. Then we need to consider the needs with the largest weight. We need to take others. When we can't take them, we may need to consider two different bags to deal with different occasions. Remember that no package is omnipotent. A package that can handle a little bit of everything also means that it is impossible to be specialized, refined and deep in every field.