An amateur photographer like me doesn’t really need a lot of things in his camera bag, though he wants a lot of things he knows that the wife will throw a fit if he goes ahead and buys everything that he wants. So, my camera bag is full of the things that I really need and it also has a few things that I wanted and were cheap enough to buy without the wife suspecting me of overspending.

So this is an updated list of what’s there right now in my camera kit.

1. Camera: There is a pretty brand new Sony A300 camera body which I had to have as soon as I saw it in December 08.
2. Lenses: There is one standard kit lens which came with the body, the SAL 18-70 standard zoom lens. There is also a newly acquired SAL 75-300 telephoto zoom lens which I am still getting used to.
3. Colour Filters: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Dark Blue and Sepia. I have yet to use these constructively till now.
4. Macro Filters: +1, +2, +4 and +10 lenses to get in really close. These too have to be tried and tested in the field
5. Handgrip: Apart from the camera strap I also have a hand grip/strap that attaches to the camera body and keeps the camera firmly on your hand. The strap and the hand grip can’t be used together.
6. Point & Shoot: My old and trusty Sony DSC S-80 is also available in the time of need. Although for the last few months it has only taken photos of the A300 and also the memory card slot is spoilt.

My Camera Kit. This photograph has been taken in my home made Lightbox

My camera bag itself has been through some iterations. The one that I bought originally with the camera could only accommodate the camera with the lens attached. The Sony Alpha camera bags were out of stock because of the holiday season, so I had no choice but to buy the smaller bag. After some time I decided that Needed a bag that would give me easy access to the camera if I was on the motorcycle. So I bought another case which is one of those triangular kinds that can hold the camera with the lens attached.

But again after buying the new lens I had to buy a proper kit bag which could hold everything together. I didn’t want to spend for the Sony bag as it is too expensive. So I bought a Nikon bag for a lot less. But then I really didn’t like the plain-ness of this bag so I decided to paint the bag in the Sony Alpha colours, since I do have a lot of time on my hands. So now I have a Nikon bag but it looks like its a Sony Alpha bag but there is still a Nikon logo on it that I need to remove. After that I need to put the Sony Alpha logo on the bag. Hmm… I don’t know if I have that much time or patience. The Nikon logo is small and the bag anyway has the Alpha colours, so I might just leave it at that.