What's In my Camera Bag

As a photographer, I have always loved when photographers I follow on Instagram or online post about what they carry around in their bag with them. It's helpful to see what kind of gear different photographers carry around with them to shoots. I can read a million blog posts on what I should carry around, but for me, it's far easier to see what other photographers actually keep in their bags and use. So, I'm going to let you dig around in my camera bag today (digitally anyways).

1) The Bag: Lowerpro Tahoe 150 Camera Backpack

I've been through several camera bags before finally settling on this camera backpack. It's lightweight, has TONS of storage pockets, and water bottle pockets on the sides. This is a professional backpack that I take to professional shoots, hiking trips, and even fun shoots with friends. It's versatile, provides proper protection for all my delicate gear, and I can even tuck my tripod into the side pockets. If you're looking into getting a bigger camera bag and getting seriously into photography, this is a great bag.

2) Extra batteries

No matter how professional you are, when you show up to a photo shoot with a dead camera battery and no backup, you ruin your reputation. Take it from somebody who's been there done that. It's awful. Even getting to a fun, casual shoot and not being able to shoot because you forgot to bring an extra battery is no fun. Do yourself a favor and keep extra charged batteries in your bag at all times.

3) Camera and Kit Lens: Canon Rebel t5i and 18-55mm Lens Kit

This is the camera I currently own. It's a reliable camera and it's easy to use, with a flip-out screen and several different modes to choose from. It's a great beginner camera, and it comes with an 18-55 mm lens that works well in a variety of situations.

4) Lenses: Canon Portrait and Travel 2 Lens Kit

These are the other two lenses I keep in my camera bag. It includes the compact EF 50mm f/1.8 STM (or pancake) lens and EF-S 10–18mm f/4.5–5.6 IS STM (wide angle) lens. The 50mm lens is great for portraits, and it's a prime lens, which means it doesn't have zoom capabilities, but it produces crisp, beautiful portraits. The 10-18mm lens is wide-angle, which is great for shooting architecture and wide landscape shots. Between these 2 lenses, you have several different shooting options for a variety of different settings.

5) Adapter: Apple Lightning to USB Camera Adapter

While it may seem unnecessary to carry around an adapter, this little cord has allowed me to import photos directly from my camera to my phone on location. It saves you the trouble of having to download all the pictures to your phone and send them out to your friends one by one.

6) Memory Cards: Sandisk 16 GB

Just like batteries, it's easy to forget memory cards. Especially times when you're doing back-to-back shoots and you've accidentally left your memory card inside your computer from exporting files to edit. Do yourself a favor and keep multiple memory cards in your bag, even if they're not all the same GB size. I personally have a 16 GB and a 4 GB card as a backup. They have saved my skin more times than I can count.

7) Battery charger and Lens Wipe

Both of these are pretty self-explanatory, so I won't go into detail. Having the charger for your batteries is super helpful when somehow all of your backup batteries have been drained and you need something to recharge them. The lens wipe is good for getting the dust off your lenses, but make sure to be gentle when cleaning the surface, because they can easily get scratched.

And there you have it! That's everything in my bag!