Pack For Travel - What to bring to Flinders Island
If you're thinking about going on one of Ted's PhotoEscapades, or you've already bought your tickets, these packing tips from Ted's Educator Ric Wallis will help you refine your equipment to the bare essentials.
When travelling in light aircraft it’s necessary to keep the weight of your baggage to a minimum, so when considering what camera gear to carry this is a major consideration.
- Zoom lenses are a great way to keep weight down while not limiting you photographic options. Three zoom lenses would cover any situation you’re likely encounter on Flinders Island, the ideal combination being, a wide angle zoom like a Nikon 14-24mm, a 24-70mm, and a 70-200mm. This gives you the full range from 14 to 200mm and is certainly not as heavy as carrying lots of prime lenses.
- A light weight tripod should also be part of your kit.
- I like to carry a polarizing filter and a neutral density filter for enhancing sky and water as well.
- A black card, a bit smaller than A4, is very handy for cutting flair at dawn and sunset, when your lens hood doesn’t cover.
- A few memory cards is a great idea as Flinders Island provides so may great opportunities to burn up some memory, especially if you’re shooting raw.
- It’s not necessary to bring a laptop as most editing work is done on our guides computer as a group exercise.
All of the above is just a suggestion, if you really want to travel light just bring your iPhone and enjoy the amazing scenery!
Flinders Island sits right on the 40 degree parallel, which means it’s in, what sailors call, “The Roaring Forties,” named after the strong prevailing winds that blow at this latitude. Because Flinders Island is small, it’s normal to get lots of variation in the weather. Showers tend to blow through quickly leaving clear skies in their wake and because of it’s southerly location the mornings and nights can be quite cold at any time of year, however, it’s nearly always windy.
When packing for such climatic variation, it’s very easy to build up the weight of your baggage, which works against the weight restrictions of our flights, so be careful to pack sensibly. A wind proof jacket is essential. For the rest of it, layers are best, starting with a T-shirt, possibly a shirt and a woollen jumper. Toss in a change of underwear and maybe some long underwear and, if you feel the cold, hat and gloves for use at dawn and that’s it. Although we eat fantastic food and drink nice wine, we don’t dress for dinner. Sturdy footwear is also a good idea, we don’t have to walk far but Flinders Island is quite rugged. If the weather looks warm “Speedos” don’t weigh much if you think you might like a swim. :-)
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