This article will guide both Digital SLR hobbyists and professional photographers on what camera accessories bring to when they travel.

You invested a lot of money on two things: a digital SLR and your vacation. You want both to be perfect which means you have to plan well for both. You don’t want to arrive in Grand Canyon, stare at Colorado’s architectural marvel and realize you don’t have juice on your camera battery or that your memory card is full.

This is why it is vital to organize the camera accessories you bring to your trip. Here is a writilist of camera equipment that just covers most situations.

The Camera √ Checklist:

√ Batteries

Always bring a spare camera battery and pack the charger as well! Souvenir shops earn quite a few bucks on tourists who have their cameras with them but left their chargers at home and trust me, the shop keepers snicker a bit on your ‘forgetfulness’. Save your money on beer.

√ Zoom Lens

Choose one or two zoom lens for your camera instead of taking your entire camera prime lens collection. It will save on the weight and space of your camera bag; remember you’re on vacation not on a workout. The best camera zoom lenses to bring on your trip are the 28-80 mm lens, 18-200mm lens or a 28-300mm lens.  These are perfect for taking landscape photography and portraits.

√ Lens Hood

Eliminate the sun’s glare in your photo by including a lens hood in your camera accessory bag.

√Memory Card

How many times has it happened to you — you go to a place, take a picture and the camera’s memory card says ‘Memory Full’. You look at the pictures in the memory card, it’s your beloved cat’s birthday party, and you don’t want to erase anything. Yeah, so basically you’re screwed. Bring a lot of extra memory card. These camera cards come cheap now. Avoid buying high GB cards like 8GB or 16GB. You don’t want to shoot 16 GB worth of pictures and find out on your last frame that the memory card is corrupted!

√ Camera filters

Give your travel photos a little warmth with filters. This camera accessory enhances the photo quality of the sky and sea while also cutting down on or eliminating unwanted reflections. A graduated neutral density filter will help balance the areas of the picture that require different exposures, for instance a bright sky above a dark landscape.

√ Flash

You want your family and friends to have travel portrait photos that look like a Swimsuit Illustrated magazine pictorial. Bring a flash gun and use it where the light is low as well as in bright sun as a fill-in light. As with the camera, make sure the batteries are fresh and that a spare supply is packed.

√ Reflector

Lighting is key in photography. So add a portable reflector to your camera accessories bag. This is perfect for beach trips where it nice to use camera reflectors to bounce off light from the sun to your subject.

√ Tripod with cable release

You will have to get married to your tripod if you want amazing landscape photography in your vacation. The tripod is one of the most important camera accessories while travelling. You’ll be able to take sharp and wonderful pictures of the sunrise or play around with the city lights.

√ Lens cleaning kit

Lens cleaning tissue and a blower brush are essential especially in sandy or dusty locations. Wrap the camera in a plastic bag to protect it from dust or sand particles and as general measure against the effects of the environment

√ Camera Body

You’re thinking, ‘well duh!’, but you’ll be surprised that some people do forget to pack their camera! Bring an extra body if you want the convenience of not changing the your camera lens from time to time.

√ Camera bag

You diligently packed all your camera accessories so put it in a sturdy camera bag so your effort won’t be wasted (and the money you spent as well). There are so many camera bag to choose from in the market, invest in a durable, well designed case.

Checklist in of camera accessories in a  nutshell:

Camera bodies

Zoom lens

Batteries

Memory card

Filters

Flash

Tripod

Reflector

Lens cleaning kit

Camera bag

Lens hood

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