I was shooting an ‘out of area’ wedding last week (to me that is a wedding more than 20 miles from my home), went to pick up my camera bag and nearly had a hernia.

It weighs so much that it reminded me of being back in the Army with your life on your back.

And that is just what my camera bag is – everything I need to shoot a wedding, or portrait or just people when I am away.  A portable studio in fact ready for every eventuality.

Main camera bag:

• Canon EOS 5D Mark II with 24-70mm L f2.8 (with UV filter)
• Canon EOS 5D Mark II with 70-200mm L f2.8 IS (with UV filter)
• Two Canon 580EXII speedlights, with Stofen diffusers and mounts
• Two spare 5D Mark II batteries
• Four sets of rechargeable batteries for the speedlights
• One set of graduated filters for those (less and less used) creative moments
• 4 large waterproof plastic see though bags – just in case it rains
• Gary Fong light sphere attached to the outside of the bag
• Strobies flash diffuser in a case attached to the outside of the bag
• Manfrotto monopod strapped to the outside of the bag
• One small bag containing ‘hair scrunch’ with sparkly bits and champagne cork for adding to the ring shots.  (Makes them a bit more interesting!)
• Manuals for both camera and flash units – well you never know!
• Leatherman tool in a case on the shoulder strap
• Several climbing karabiners on the bag – come in handy when you need to secure stuff to tables / chairs
• One blower
• Two cleaning cloths
• Bottle of cleaning fluid
• 3 sensor swabs
• 64Gb of memory cards
• 320Gb external HD
• 100-business cards
• 25 marketing brochures (for those guerrilla marketing moments!)
• 5 x 1Gb USB memory sticks
• 2 x 5Gb DVD-RW
• DVD marker pen
• Hi-Vis vest
• Roll of gaffer tape on the outside
• Lightweight tripod strapped to outside of the bag
• Manfrotto tripod and joystick ball head on the outside of the bag

In the small detachable bag:

• Mac Book Pro inside the bag with power cable
• Canon G11 Powershot
• Spare laptop battery

Data Projector bag:

• Data projector
• Power lead
• VGA cable

In my blue ‘pencil case’:

• Bluetooth mouse
• Spare flash card readers
• Headache / flu remedies
• Projector VGA to Mac attachments
• Bluetack
• Pen
• Elastic band (just found that, never used it!)
• 4-port USB hub

In separate cases (the case for the Canon 70-200mm is great):

Case A

• 1 x 17 – 40mm L f4.0 in waterproof cover
• 1 x 50mm 1.8 in waterproof cover

Case B

• 1 x Canon battery charger
• 1 x rechargeable battery charger
• 1 x flash card reader

Why do I carry all of this gear?

Because I can – it actually helps me in my fitness training!

Because I have learnt from long hard experience that if I don’t have it – I’ll need it!

Because you just don’t know how the day is going to pan out until you get there. “No plan survives contact with reality” is my motto

Why do I take a laptop projector?

I do not have time limits on my wedding photography, so I make best use of time during the day by backing up my shots and starting to make those first pass edits of the images.

I use the projector to show quick edits of the wedding shots to guests, and evening guests love to see how the day was.  It is a great marketing tool when used in this way.

About Andrew Miller Photography

Trained in photography by the British Military he has been all over the world and always with a camera he has been published in various magazines in the last 20 years.His style is simple, natural and unobtrusive capturing the fun and emotion of the day.

www.andrew-miller.co.uk