I grew up in a time when “What’s In My Bag” videos were rampant on YouTube. While these aren’t really popular anymore, I still want to take part in this idea in my own way, by sharing what I keep in my camera bag. Every photographer prioritizes their space differently, so I thought it would be interesting to talk about what makes the cut for me. If you’re a photographer as well, let me know what’s in your bag! What am I missing from mine?

Without further ado, let’s get into it.

My main camera bag is a Ritz Gear one, and great for beginners at its insanely cheap price. It has a front zip pocket, two side mesh pockets, a pretty large main compartment, and comes with a strap. The bag is definitely large enough to carry your camera plus an extra lens or two, but if you’re looking for something to carry more gear, I’d recommend looking at a larger bag. The only thing that doesn’t fit when I’m packing for a typical shoot is when I need to bring along my tripod (which is easy to carry and isn’t required for most of my shoots).

In one side mesh pocket, I keep my camera battery charger when it’s not in use. In the other mesh pocket, I keep my poor man’s rain cover for my camera that I talked about in my Summer Thunderstorm photoshoot blog post. I’ll also stick my phone, keys, or other bits and bops in these pockets when I’m doing a photoshoot on the move.

The front pocket has most of my camera accessories, and has two additional smaller pockets to organize a bit more. In one of the small pockets, I keep all my extra SD cards. Though I don’t usually need an extra one because I usually shoot with a 32 gb card, it’s nice to know that if anything goes wrong, I forget to download previous pictures, or I simply need the extra space, I have more cards on hand to continue shooting. In the other small pocket I keep a microfiber cleaning cloth to wipe away smudges on lenses, as well as extra AAA batteries for my camcorder. In the main part of the front pocket, I keep my external hard drive and USB cord.

Then we get to the main pocket. The camera bag I listed comes with velcro dividers (and most other camera bags will as well, which can be very handy). While I used to use these religiously, I found that more often than not they got in my way, so I took them all out.

I have two layers in my main compartment: the bottom layer, with all the “extras”, and the top layer, where my camera and current lens lay, so they’re ready to whip out at a moment’s notice. At the bottom I have two extra camera batteries, my Vivitar camcorder, a disposable camera, and an extra lens. Attached to my camera body is my normal 18-55mm lens, but I like to always bring along my 75-300mm lens as well. Atop these, I have my Canon EOS Rebel T5, with the attached 18-55mm lens. This all fits snugly into the compartment, all while keeping the zipper easy to close.

And that’s it! I know it doesn’t seem like much, but it’s actually a lot more than I usually need for a typical shoot. Now, depending on the type of photography you do as well as a few other factors, this might not work for you at all. And in all honesty, as I continue to grow in photography and begin experimenting with film photography and other lenses, this won’t cut it for me either. At the moment, though, it’s perfect and carries all I need.

I hope you enjoyed this little look into the behind the scenes of my photography! Until next time. 🙂