What cameras and gadgets do YOU take on holidays?

For the first time in around 5 years, I am taking a short holiday for my birthday and going to one of my favourite places, Vanuatu. The last time I was there was around 1998 so hope it hasn’t changed too much. (I have also been to Fiji a few times and found that very commercial in comparison).

Strictly speaking its not my first holiday in 5 years; the last was around April last year when we drove to Monkey Mia for a week’s camping, and that turned out to be anything but a holiday.

On the second day I got COVID and was therefore tent-isolated bound for a week (and in truth felt like I had done 60 laps of Bathurst in Peter Brock’s boot) and then the weather turned, blowing its guts out solidly for 3 days. As we found it does regularly up there.

So, we packed up and retreated to Jurien Bay for the remainder of the time.

What makes this one different though from a video / photo point of view, is being a flight or two away, is that unlike travelling by car, I cannot go nuts and take all the cameras and gadgets I’d like to due to weight restrictions.

But these trips are a perfect way to actually field trip products as against what I call simply “test benching”. My initial thoughts for actual cameras are to pack the DJI Mini 3 Pro, a GoPro 11 with a MediaMod and a GoPro 9 with a waterproof case plus my Fujifilm X-S10 with a couple of lenses. This will cover aerial shots, snorkelling footage and hopefully if I get the chance, some fishing action as well as the obligatory holiday snaps / video.

Gadgets are another matter though. I tend to go overboard a bit, especially when flying as I always think that the boredom will get to me and therefore, I need lots of things to do while in transit. Consequently, I have carried tablets loaded up with technical manuals and tutorials books, a ‘baby’ Microsoft Surface laptop and even bought books at the airport newsagency at the last minute.  In truth, it rarely happens, and simply tend to plug my Sennheiser Momentum TW-3 earbuds in and veg out.

(Sadly, I cannot sleep on planes and this one will be a 12-hour flight time starting at midnight so we’ll see how that pans out. Maybe for a change there might be some decent in-flight entertainment).

For the actual trip I always carry a couple of Powerbanks, lots of  Verbatim SD cards and this time I’ll be carrying a Verbatim VX500 SSD with 120GB storage I can test. (Who would have thought 5 years ago that 120GB storage could be had for just over $80 and be held in your hand!)

I am tempted to take my Gigabyte Aero laptop too on the grounds “after hours” I can do some editing of the video and photos shot during the day. Past experience again tells me this rarely happens, so I am going to mull that one over.

For audio, capture, the Sennheiser MKE400 is perfect for both the GoPro (on a Media Mod) and the Fujifilm. I’ll also take a compact little DJI Wireless Mic just in case, I think.

Minor incidentals that will be packed include a filter adaptor for the GoPro (with a UV and circular polariser), ND filters for the DJI Mini 3 and of course a selection of USB cables and audio leads – again just-in-case.

All of this I can comfortably fit in a backpack I’ll carry on the plane with me (barring the drone, controller and batteries which I’ll put as checked luggage).

Anything I have missed? Anything specific you’d like to see tested under the load of real live shooting I can write about?