>Your "standard urban kit" weighs 9.4 lbs (4.224
>kg). I'll bet your Tamron 28-300 comes in handy when you are
>just going for a stroll.
>
>D700 2.1 lbs (995 g)
>24-70mm 2 lbs (900 g)
>70-200mm 3.20 lb (1.5 kg)
>Zeiss 35mm 1.2 lb (530 g)
>50mm .5 lb (224 g)
>EN-EL3e 2.6 oz (75g)

. . . and don't forget the D3 body too. However, note that this pile of hardware normally sits in the car or truck along with the tripod, monopod and head (unless I'm going to use the sticks obviously). The actual serious location walkabout kit is culled from the standard urban kit and consists of one body - usually the D3 - and three lenses (usually the 35mm Zeiss, 50mm Nikkor, and lately an 80-200 f/2.8 AF-S because the 70-200VR really does vignette a wee bit too much for my taste).

If I'm covering a specific area (say anything up to 10 square blocks - it's somewhat flexible because of the impossibility of sorting out that exactly that kind of area in a place like Rome), I haul everything in either a Lowepro Stealth Reporter (D400 AW - which can actually hold both bodies if I need to pack the weight on short walks) or an older Lowepro Pro Mag (a mid-size seriously heavy duty shoulder bag). For long walkabouts with only a sketchy schedule - exploratory in other words - I've been using the M-Rock Arches sling packs which is the best of the sling packs as far as I'm concerned.

Dunno about you, but I work out of a vehicle quite often. Pack, drive, park, load the appropriate bag, and away I go. If I'm cabbing or using public transit, I always load the appropriate bag at the hotel. Rental vehicles are theft targets, so I generally load the appropriate bag at the hotel.

All of the glass is too heavy. Of course I think photographers having been cursing heavy glass since the day it was invented. The Tamrom 28-300 VC is a blast to use, and although it's much more consistent than the Nikkor 24-120 VR, there's still a bit of luck involved in getting shots that are sharp enough to print larger than 8"x10".

The only non-pro glass I've carried on photography trips and research projects in recent years was the Nikkor 18-200 VR. It may not be qualified as pro glass, but I sure managed to eke out some seriously good shots from that lens. I no longer shoot DX, so I sold it. My girlfriend has her own 18-200 VR on her D60 and may never part with it. S'an amazing lens all things considered.

On tough projects, I've got to haul both bodies, each with a lens attached for fast deployment. The Stealth Reporter D400 AW easily handles both the D3 and D700, both with lenses attached, plus two additional lenses and all the usual accessories and cleaning stuff. But for those kinds of projects (not walkabouts for sure) I'm usuall only packing the D3 with either the 17-35 or 24-70, plus the D700 with the 80-200 AF-S, plus either the Zeiss 35 or the Nikkor 50 f/1.4. Two bodies, three lenses. It's a heavy load, but it's also intended for hauling over short distances to a single location (after which there's always a lot of climbing or descending or clambering or something which leaves serious scrapes, bumps and bruises).

Now that I've used this thread to review my various kits, I think I'm definitely going to sell my 70-200 VR. It was beyond excellent on the D200 and D300, but it's just not the best performer on the D3 and D700. I spend so much time using a POD bean bag screwed into the tripod thread in the base of the camera that I actually stopped using VR anyway.

My Nikonians Gallery

Howard Carson, Managing Editor
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