Overview
Travel is transformative. It lets us meet fun and interesting people, experience different cultures and explore beautiful, exotic and sometimes dangerous places. Travel increases our understanding and appreciation of the world.
Before you begin spending your hard-earned cash on a travel photography kit there are a few questions you need to ask yourself. Take a look at your destination. Is it urban? A densely populated city? Rural? Wilderness? Wildlife? Are you going to be photographing the streets? People? Buildings and their interiors? Architecture? Will you be photographing landscapes and cityscapes? High speed action? Will you have a support structure? Will you be on a tour? Are there going to be people helping you?
If you don’t have an idea on how to answer these questions, take some time and research the locations you will be visiting to get an idea about the answers. The next question to ask is what are your photographic aspirations and goals? Do you want images to share on social media only or do you want to create quality gallery ready prints? Also, how much gear are you willing to carry? Camera gear can be bulky and heavy. It’s not just the camera body and lenses, it’s all the accessories as well.
I know it’s a lot to think about but doing this little bit of homework will save you a lot of time, money and aggravation in the long-term.
A basic photographic kit used in travel typically contains a camera body, camera strap, a normal lens that lets the camera see with the same basic perspective as you do, a wide lens to get in close or for tight spaces and a telephoto lens to reach out and bring distant things closer in. Typical accessories include extra batteries, a charger, memory cards, something to clean the lenses with and a laptop or mobile device to view, edit and share with. You’ll also need something to carry everything in.
It seems pretty straightforward and for the most part it is but there are a dizzying array of choices that need to be made before hand, and that’s what we’ll dive into next.
Images Quality and Goals of Use
What do you intend to do with your images? The image quality of modern digital cameras is really great, it’s hard to go wrong with any of the major manufacturers these days. However there are some things to consider. If your goal is to have images on your devices and social media and you like taking simple videos, a smart phone may be your best choice. Smart phone photography is fun, spontaneous and stream lines the process. A lot of people have produced some amazing images on smart phones. However there are other things to consider. Building your travel kit around a system offers a lot more flexibility in choosing bodies, lenses, software and accessories.
Let’s take a look at camera resolution as a starting point. Resolution as expressed by megapixels gives you a good window into how large an image a camera can produce. This becomes important when you choose to crop an image or produce a physical print. Here’s a chart to help you understand. These numbers represent the full resolution of an un-cropped straight out of camera image file printed as a high quality photograph at 300 pixels per inch.
| Physical Print Size | Megapixels | Sensor Size |
| 4 inches by 6 inches | 2 megapixels | 1600 x 1200 |
| 5 inches by 7 inches | 3 megapixels | 2048 x 1536 |
| 8 inches by 10 inches | 5 megapixels | 2560 x 1920 |
| 10 inches by 8 inches | 6 megapixels | 3008 x 2000 |
| 13 inches by 9 inches | 10 megapixels | 3820 x 2592 |
| 15 inches by 10 inches | 12 megapixels | 4920 x 2800 |
| 17 inches by 11 inches | 16 megapixels | 4920 x 3264 |
| 20 inches by 13 inches | 24 megapixels | 6000 x 4000 |
| 24 inches by 16 inches | 36 megapixels | 7630 x 4912 |
| 28 inches by 18 inches | 45 megapixels | 8256 x 5504 |
These numbers give quite a bit of food for thought. I often use a Nikon full frame system with a sensor resolution of 16 MP. Some of the images end up on social media, some are used only online and others are processed as high quality print files. With that camera, I typically print 13 by 9 inch images on 13 by 19 inch fine art paper that are matted and framed at 16 by 20 inches and hung on a wall. Because I print at that size and I very rarely crop, a full resolution 16 MP capture is perfectly fine for my intended use. I enjoy the camera, lenses and system, it works for me and serves my purpose.
I also use a 24 MP Fuji system that is light and small and an absolute joy to use. However, even though the Fuji has more resolution and is capable of producing larger prints, I will likely still print at the same size as the Nikon camera because that is the format and framed print size required for my use.
The advantage of the higher megapixels is that it gives me more flexibility to crop image files while still giving me the ability to print high quality images at my preferred size of 13 x 9 inches. I hope that makes sense and I think it will become clearer as we get into lens choice later on. Even if you never intend to print your images, higher megapixels, thoughtful composition and technique will give you more freedom to tweak the image file, crop, or do whatever you’d like to do.
For most of us, 24 MP is a good place to start, it potentially offers a lot of image quality while at the same time providing flexibility of use. Notice I said “potentially” because a lot will depend on you, the photographer and that will influence the quality of those megapixels. We’ll get into that as we go further into gear and the hows and whys on setting up your system. Remember, when you decide on a camera body you are buying into a system.