When I travel far from home I have two rules. OK, I have lots of rules but two that specifically apply to traveling with photo equipment.

1. Everything that matters (and is allowed) travels with me in the sumptuous confines that are economy class.
2. If any one thing breaks, something else can, more or less, take its place.

So, follows is an annotated list of the camera and lenses I’ll be hauling this year to Iceland.

Camera Bodies

• Canon 1Ds Mark III
• Canon 5D

Yep, two Canon full frames. I don’t expect the 5D will see a lot of work but it is significantly lighter which may earn it some use. A 40D or other APS sized sensor camera would do as well and help with telephoto work. I just happen to own these at the  moment.

Lenses

• EF 14mm f/2.8L II USM ((rented from LensRentals.com)
• EF 17-40 f/4L USM Zoom
• TS-E 45mm f/2.8
• EF 24-105mm f/4L IS USM Zoom
• EF 70-200 f/4L USM Zoom
• Extender EF 1.4x

I’ve gone with the “slow but light” f/4 zoom line. These are good traveling lenses, Hell, these are good lenses under most any circumstances. Most often used on past trips to Iceland were the 17-40mm and the 70-200 zooms. A very nice, lightweight kit would use the 5D, the 17-40mm and the 70-200mm along with the 1.4x extender.

The 24-105, thanks to the nice zoom range and IS, is a great general purpose/walking around lens. However, at times, it isn’t quite wide enough while also not being quite long enough. That said, if I had to go with just one lens… It also can, per the second rule, stand in for either of the other zooms should disaster strike.

The TS-E lens (strangely enough the fastest lens that I own in this set) is along as an homage to my View Camera roots. The shift allows for easy to shoot, easy to stitch, 2:1 or 3:1 panoramas. It also helps, should I need to, keep buildings straight as the folks that built them intended. This is the sharpest lens in the bunch and that, along with tilt and shift, earn it a place on the trip.

The 14mm is along for a number of reasons. I bought and sent (right) back, the original EF 14mm so this is an extended audition of the, by all accounts, much improved version. It also has an f-stop and some real width over the wide end of the 17-40mm zoom. Again, invoking the second rule, the 14mm and the 45 TS-E, odd couple though they are, would do much of the work of the 17-40mm should something dire happen to that lens. Finally, the 14mm as a new-to-me tool, will allow me to approach the trip with a brand new perspective.

Last and lightest, the 1.4x extender gives me a little more reach with the 200 end of the 70-200mm zoom. Also, it is the essence of the second rule: it adds versatility to several of the other optics should I need it.

I’m scheduled for three weeks in Iceland this year. This will be my third trip in as many years.

With most of the population living in and near Reykjavik, much of Iceland is thinly populated. Even as tourism peaks in the Summer, the countryside outside the Capital area seldom seems crowded. Campgrounds are widely available, fairly priced and, thanks to the open style of camping, don’t really ever fill up in the way that American campgrounds, limited by individual sites, so often do. ¹

It is also easy to stay in places that have ceilings, walls and such. Guesthouses, hotels, hostels, resorts and even rural schools offer weatherproof if often expensive places to stay throughout the country. Unlike the campgrounds, indoor accommodations do fill up in high season so advanced reservations are a very good idea.

So, staying indoors is dry, pricey and inflexible. Car camping, despite the logistics of hauling gear 5000 miles from home, provides the freedom to travel and photograph as weather and whim dictate. Not incidentally, campgrounds typically have hot showers (geothermally heated in some parts of the country) and clean restrooms with flush toilets.

Getting there requires, at least for we West Coast types, both Domestic and International flights. Each has different restrictions on baggage with international, aka IcelandAir, the more restrictive. Since I’m not about to become responsible for a typo that results in a violation of IcelandAir’s baggage policy, you should go here and read it yourself.

Generally, the roads in Iceland are excellent. There are also plenty of rough, 4×4 style roads but the rental car companies don’t want their cars on them. The interior then is basically off limits except to tours, busses, locals and folks who bring their personal vehicles in from Europe. It’s just as well – you only think you want to drive across a glacial melt stream/river. Those giant four wheel drive rigs the locals drive have snorkels for a reason.

Vehicle rental is expensive and the price of fuel is just plain mean. As I type this AutoEurope (I have no interest or affiliation with these folks, they just have lots of my money…) is charging about $600 US per week for your choice of tiny car. Reserving early (as in February) or for travel off peak season can cut this price by one-third. Gasoline is sold by the liter and adds up to better than $8.00 US per gallon. That’s the bad news, the good news is that gasoline is widely available. Most stations are automated. Memorize your credit card pin – it is required in some areas to purchase at the pump.

With the rainfall totals in the Summer months less than you might expect, the wind becomes the most common camping problem. The Europeans are fond of tunnel type tents with large vestibules. After a first trip with a standard issue back packing type tent, I settled on this free-standing tent, complete with a giant wind-stopping vestibule, for year two.

¹ Campgrounds can seem very full on the first weekend in July. This is the traditional start of Icelandic camping season and just about everyone with a tent trailer is out enjoying the 24 hour daylight and summer weather. This is also the only time that Iceland campgrounds get noisy. The rest of the year all is quite by midnight.

A portfolio of eighty or so (and growing) of my best images from two trips to Iceland. Developed in Aperture and assembled into a web site using iPhoto, iWeb and .mac. Only a couple of two frame panoramas and one HDR image were touched by Photoshop (tm.)

The images are displayed using the iPhoto / .mac Web Gallery feature so you’ll need a modern Browser, broadband and FLASH.

Enjoy.

Lone Tourist and Mudpot. Námafjall, Krafla, Iceland.