Inside Our Camera Bag

   Photography has become a huge part of our blog and social media. Both Eben and I are completely self-taught, and don’t consider ourselves to be professionals by any means, but we both still really enjoy playing around with our cameras and editing suites (lightroom + photoshop) to get the best out of our pictures. It’s quite evident that you guys, our followers, like our pics too by the amount of Instagram followers we have amassed. I won’t take it personally that our instagram account has almost double the amount of followers than our Facebook page, what you don’t want my words, just my pics!?!?

   Now lets not lie and think that its just our sweet skills that are creating all these beautiful pictures! Our gear is just as important in that role. Having good cameras will help create good photography/videography. We get asked a lot what we are using to capture these shots, so why not delve into our camera bag.

   Our Third Baby

Last year we decided to invest a good chunk of money into buying ourselves a nice camera. We figured with the amount of pictures that we take, and the growing interests in them, having some good equipment may be smart. We wanting something that would be pretty weather-proof, portable, take great pictures, but not completely break the bank. After spending many hours at a camera store Eben decided that the Nikon D750 would best suit our needs. It was Nikon’s newest camera to hit the market, had all the bells and whistles we desired, without going overboard with a bigilion pixels. With that base we also got ourselves two lenses: we got a 24-120mm for our everywhere shots, and a 18-35mm for some wide angle shots. I can totally admit that I don’t know half of the functions of this camera still, but what I do know has produced amazing pictures for us to share with you.

   Camera In My Back Pocket

For the camera that we can take anywhere without having to carry a bag around, we have our iPhone 5. Duel purpose, it serves as a phone and a camera! LOL. Although this phone is outdated when it comes to the camera, it serves its purpose. It can take that quick shot of the unexpected moment. I would love to upgrade to an iPhone 6s, that has a way better built in camera, and I am sure that day will come. It’s just not today. So for now, this one will have to do. We have a life proof case on the iPhone in the event it gets water splashed on it, and although it is supposed to be completely watertight and could serve for underwater photography, I am not willing to test it out and risk drowning our phone.

   Underwater Photography

As you know we spend A LOT of time in the water. Capturing those moments of the girls splashing around and showing off their amazing snorkelling skills is essential to me. We also like to take pics of all that underwater life, and for this we use our GoPro 3 in a watertight housing. Yes, this one is outdated as well, but hey, we are not made of money! We are very happy with the quality of pictures that we get from this camera and its versatility. I am slowly getting better at my aim (since we don’t have an LCD screen I am aiming blindly) and I just make sure that I take hundreds of shots of each splash, and some are bound to be aimed properly. For the GoPro we also have the head strap mount, the floating handle, a swivel mount, and a stationary mount, so that we can use this camera in and out of the water on all of our adventures.

   Flying High In The Sky

Our latest addition is our drone! We just got a Swellpro Splash drone. It is a fully waterproof drone that is able to launch and land on water. This seemed ideal for us given that we live on a sailboat. It is an intense set of videography/photography equipment but once you get the hang of it, it is so amazing at getting aerial footage. (We are currently filming some tutorials of Eben teaching how to use it, so keep an eye out for those.) The drone has a watertight casing that fits the GoPro 3 and above, and also fits their camera, the Zero. This drone also has a bunch of fun features such as the “follow me” mode where it will follow whoever is holding the transmitter, and the app so you can run it from your android/phone. We hope to use the drone a lot to produce footage and pics of our boat under sail, Eben and Arias kiteboarding, as well as any beach/life photography we want to take.

   The Bag I Take EVERYWHERE

If you bump into me, anywhere, you have a 90% chance of seeing me with a backpack on. It’s not just any backpack, it is our Lowepro 16L hatchback pack. This is the home for our cameras (all except the drone, which lives in a very official looking case). One major key to having great pictures is by capturing the real moments as they happen, and the only way to be able to really do that is by having your camera with you at all time. And I pretty much do. Where ever I go I have this bag, with at least 2 of our 4 cameras in it. Lowepro’s website is really well set up as to where you can enter the type of camera you have, the amount of lenses and extra gear and it can recommend a type of bag for you. The 16L hatchback works great for us because it has enough space to safely carry our Nikon D750 and both lenses, and has an upper pocket big enough for wallets, kids snacks, sunglasses, a purses essentials, and has a front flat pouch for an iPad or documents. We have been dragging ours around everywhere with us for two years now and it is still working great.

That’s our whole kit and caboodle. With these gear we manage to capture our everyday lives and share it with you online. We totally recommend all of the above gear (although you may want to get the newer versions of some of them), and find that we are extremely happy with what we have.

If you don’t want to miss out on any of our pictures make sure to follow our instagram, facebook page, and join our mailing list here. This way our every shot will land on your screen.

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