Tennessee Photography by Bradley Proctor

People occasionally ask what kind of equipment I use to take my photographs when I’m out in the field. Obviously, a camera is required, but to get the most productivity there is a lot more that goes into making a good photograph than just a camera.

Most of the time I carry a backpack with me that has the necessities. Below is a picture of the bag, what is in it, and how it is organized.

1. Flash – I rarely use the flash and try to avoid it if at all possible. I don’t care for the look of the artificial light it produces. However, in some situations there is simply no alternative. So I bring it along just in case.
2. Empty – This spot is for my 70-300mm lens that is currently attached to the camera. When I want to put the camera in the bag, I don’t always want to change out the lenses just to make thing fit, so each lens has it’s own spot.
3. Leatherman – My Leatherman multi-tool goes in the side pocket. I use this tool in all kinds of situations, while rarely necessary for photography, it’s very often comes in handy for hiking/backpacking/camping.
4. Filters – These old filters in this pocket are from the ’70s, but they fit just fine on my 50mm lens, so they occasionally see some use. The three filters here are a UV, Polarizer, and Warming filter.
5. The junk pocket – This pocket holds all kind of random things, spare memory cards, spare batteries, lens caps. Basically anything that doesn’t neatly fit in some other pocket goes here.
6. Lens cleaning supplies – Everything in this pocket is for cleaning lenses. It contains a cleaning cloth, cotton rags, dust blower, lens brush, lens cleaning fluid, and cotton swabs.
7. Camera – This is where the camera goes. Ironically though, it’s almost never there. Usually I leave it attached to the tripod and this spot gets filled with something else, like an extra shirt, or my lunch!
8. Lens pouch – This spot is to accommodate the lens when the camera is in the bag. Since my camera is rarely in the bag, this spot usually has my 70-300mm lens in it as shown. Often, my 1.4x teleconverter is attached to this lens making it too long for it’s designated spot at #2, so it sits here instead.
9. 1.4x Teleconverter – This little spot is for the teleconverter. The teleconverter is useful for zooming in on subjects far away.
10. Remote shutter release – You can’t see it in this picture as the flap covers it up, but this little device is used to get the sharpest pictures and to prevent camera shack.
11. 50mm Lens – This little lens is my favorite lens that I own. It is very sharp and much faster than my other lenses. I use this lens whenever I have the chance and under normal conditions, it is the one that is attached to my camera.
12. 18-55mm – Although this is a zoom lens for wide to normal range, I use it exclusively at the wide angle end. Otherwise, I use the much sharper 50mm lens.
13. Filters – This is where I store the majority of my filters. The filters here are: Neutral Density (0.6), Circular Polarizer, UV Haze, Infrared, Closeup +5, Red. Of these filters, the Circular Polarizer is probably the most used. I don’t use the red filter anymore as I do black and white conversion through software. The UV/Haze filter is often on the 18-55mm lens mainly because I don’t have a lens hood for it and I use this filter for protection. The Neutral Density filter gets occasional use. The Infrared and Closeup filters see fairly limited use.>
14. GPS and Compass – This is the navigation pocket. In this pocket I have a hand held GPS unit and a compass