I was going through my stuff the other day and I started thinking about things I find essential to every landscape photo shoot I go on (other than the usual camera body, lenses and tripod). It was actually pretty hard to come up with a list of stuff that I always take with me and use just about every time. The way I started thinking about it was this: what if I only had 60 seconds to grab my essential gear. Besides grabbing the camera, lenses, and tripod, what things would I make sure I had with me. So I came up with these 3 essential things for my landscape shoots. Here goes:

1. Lens Filters

There’s certain filters that you simply can’t recreate well in Lightroom or Photoshop. For me, I always have my filter pouch with me and it’s got my circular Polarizer and my neutral density filters. I don’t use graduated neutral density filters anymore (I wrote more about why they’re dead to me here), but I always carry at least a 2, 3 and 4 stop ND filter with me. I use the ones from Tiffen and they even come with a pouch. And polarizers are essential so I always have mine with me. I personally use the B+W Circular Polarizer. It’s a little more pricey than some of the cheap ones, but I’ve had mine for nearly 10 years so they last.

Here’s a link to the Tiffen filters I just mentioned.

And here’s a link to the B+W Polarizer

2. Cable Release

I shoot a lot of long exposures so a cable release is essential if your shutter speed goes over 30 seconds. Under 30 seconds, I can get away with the self-timer on my camera, but anything over and you’ll need your cable release (unless you have one of those new Canon 7D Mark II’s that have it built in, but I don’t) 🙂

3. Lens Clothes and Wipes

This one is huge for me. If you’re shooting outdoors, some of the best weather to shoot in is when it’s stormy out. That’s where you can get some spectacular light if the clouds break. Plus, I like shooting waterfalls and on the beach a lot, and I’ll catch a lot of spray off the water. In fact, the photos I posted from Oneonta Gorge a few months ago were a perfect example of this. After every shot I had to wipe away the mist from my lens, and I ended up going through two small towels to help keep it dry.

Anyway, the point is that I ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS have a lens cloth and some wipes in my bag. Any cloth will do. I’ve even taken a small towel from my hotel bathroom on shoots with me. But a towel will only do so much so I always carry lens wipes too. I use the Hoodman Lens Cleanse wipes. They come with wet wipe that helps get any junk off the lens, and a dry wipe that helps dry it off. I’ll actually put ‘em back in the package and reuse during my shoot (although I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to – but it works for me) 🙂