Traveling Companions

What I shoot with, part two.

- Deborah Sandidge

I ENDED THE MARCH, 2017, column on my must-have lenses for travel photography and the tripods that support them with a promise that there’d be a part two on the gear that goes beyond cameras and lenses to enable me to get the pictures I envision.

And so, here’s what else I don’t leave home without. I hope you find some worthwhile traveling companions here.

HOLD EVERYTHING 

A Really Right Stuff L-Plate provides quick and easy turning of my tripod-mounted camera from horizontal to vertical. It’s a must for moving swiftly from landscape to portrait, or vice versa, with absolute stability and ease, and I recommend it to my workshop students.

The Platypod Pro Max is billed as the flat tripod base for low angles and weird places, and that describes it perfectly. I use it in places where tripods won’t go or won’t be welcome. It’s great for eye catching, low-angle points of view, and it’ll sit on shelves for different-looking vantage points.

The Filter Hive from Mind Shift Gear is a relatively small kit that organizes my filters for quick access. I can mount it on my tripod or wear it on a belt—meaning, no awkward reaching into my backpack for my ring mount filters, neutral density filters, color-enhancing filters, or the star filter. And I keep a few extra microfiber cloths in the kit to polish the filters before and after use.