Travelling overseas - what gear to take

this is a personal trip that I'm planning for next year, so I'm not wanting to be burdened down with too much gear. I want the gear to fit into a large(ish) backpack, but not weigh a ton.

If the BlackMagic lives up to the hype then I'll certainly look at it.
 
For personal trips. Less is more. Actually, for most jobs less is more - a concept lost on my clients. Usually, I travel with one camera and one lens when I'm not working. Occasionally, I take a small tripod and sometimes I take my Mavic.
 
The trouble is for work trips we have to deliver content in conditions often beyond our control.

So I will take the minimal that enables me to aquire content of a reasonable quality.

For example my DLH4 light and a small bit of paper diffusion. Its not really an artfull lighting rig.. but it can..
-make you see something if it is dark
-fill some shadows on a midday interview (on a close head)

Its all about staying out of jail. and a little light can keep you out of jail :)
 
I'm currently on my second trip to Wellington, New Zealand and brought my camera gear to shoot behind the scenes and to do interviews. I had 51 items on my carnet packed into two carry-on bags and two checked bags (that also held my clothes, etc). I brought:

2 pieces of carry-on luggage:
EVA1 Camera body, Contax Zeiss Lenses, Tamron 24-70 G2, Zacuto Gratical Eye, Batteries, 5D3 body. Could have easily added a GH5s to this.

Spread across 2 checked bags:
SmallHD 702 Bright, Follow Focus, Light stand, Kupo lightstand grip head, K-Tek Traveller Boom Pole, Induro Tripod, Sachtler Tripod Head, Sennheiser MKE600 Mic, Cables, Lens Cleaner, Tools, Charger, Etc.

For interviews, i rented lights locally.
 
Zak Forsman said:
For interviews, i rented lights locally.
Click to expand...

Always better when possible. It's hauling lights, light stands, cases, accessories that turns into a PITA.
The problem is if you are dialed into one favorite type of light. For instance, I've found it nearly impossible to rent an LED Fresnel in South America, the sources there have really great LED panels but fresnels, not so much, at least in Brazil and Chile.

The best luck I had was hiring an entire crew with a 5 ton grip and lighting truck in Rio last year, the crew was outstanding, total pros, and all of the gear I wanted, they had and I did some complex lighting setups, mocking up a recording studio to look like and be lit like a Jazz club, I used about 35 instruments and a ton of grip gear for that one. But that project had a pretty good budget for a documentary. Rare.
 
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