• Leica M8 with 15mm CV, 28mm Summicron, 35mm Summilux ASPH, 75mm Summicron, spare battery and charger
• Two Pocket Wizard units and two speedlights
• HV20 Canon  camera with ebay lenshood and ND and Polarizer filters
• Small AT Stereo mic, powered, for use on the HV20
• Samson Zoom H4 audio recorder
• Wallet of SD cards (34GB in total)
• Canon 50mm f/1.4EF lens for use on the camera we’ll be picking up in LA
• Canon ST-E2 infrared speedlight remote
• Zylight Z90 video light with little cold-shoe/ballhead mount
• Zylight AC adapter (to power it from the wall) 
• Tekkeon battery pack for the Zylight, with charger and cable for the Zylight
• Little bag full of nifty do-dads.  

This little page will live in the bag to serve as a map, in case we need to have someone grab something or for when we’re re-packing all muddleheaded after a shoot at altitude or something. Have a look:

Been spending some quality time with our Pelican bags, trying to configure the kits to make sure that everything crucial gets to Nepal in one piece, and that we can carry all the really key stuff on the planes with us.

To that end, I’ve been configuring our two Pelican 1510 carry-on sized roller bags. These are killer bags. You give up a little space (compared to a roller bag of less robust construction, but what you lose in size you gain in bombproof security. Well, let’s not jinx it by using quite those terms. But these bags are TOUGH.

Packing the Canon XH-A1 into one was a priority, and I didn’t know how much more stuff I’d be able to get in there. I think I did a pretty good job–fitting…

• XHA1 camera with lenshood
• Canon Wide angle lens and hood
• Charger and two BP970G batteries
• Five tapes plus a cleaning cassette
• Two sets of Sennheiser EW100G2 wireless mic radios
• Two Audio Technica AT899 wired lavalier mic power modules
• Two AT899 lavalier microphones (we use a custom cable to connect these to the Sennheiser for better sound than the Senn lav that shipped with the wireless kit)
• A little box of lav goodies–wind protection and mounting do-dads (Rycote Undercover / Overcover / Stickies are great)
• An AKG SE300b power module and CK93 Blue Line hypercardioid micrphone mounted in a K-Tek shock mount
• An AKG CK98 shotgun mic capsule inside a Rycote Softie
• Short, medium and long XLR cables, plus cables for the wireless kits to feed the camera
• Eight rechargeable AA cell batteries
• A case of all manner of little A/V solutioning cables. 

I never thought I’d be able to put that much kit into one bag that size. I think I have a reasonable handle on how stuff travels, and I think I was careful about making sure stuff has enough padding/insulation. Still, I hope nothing eats itself or its neighbor for lunch on the long plane rides ahead.

This was Friday morning, mind you, less than one business day before our departure. But Chris Canada at the Irvine office handled the thing with super grace, seeing to it that the work got done, and the camera is on its way to meet us in LA on Monday, where we have a layover. Thanks CPS!

Assembling and labeling all the various power devices. We’ve got a solar panel, about six different kinds of batteries, about nine different kinds of chargers/adapters, and an alarmingly wide variety of cables that either attach chargers to a power source, devices to adapters, or adapters to other parts of adapters.

It’s like the whole concept of modularity vomited in our studio. Lots of things that might work together. I was surprised to learn the battery for our Canon G9 point and shoot has the same base as the batteries for our HV20 camcorder. Of course the P&S batteries are smaller, but they do power up the video cam, and charge up on the same chargers. Nice to know. 

A fair amount of our energy going into this project has been expended in planning how to deal with shooting in situations we don’t know that much about, but can only guess at.

Example? We imagine we’ll be shooting in darkish, unelectrified homes in rural or village settings.

• What will we light it with? How will we get sound?
• Will there be room enough to have both a camera and an interviewer, along with a translator?
• Will there be trouble figuring out where to stand, or for that matter, difficulty in the always-important transition between getting there, getting introduced, and actually setting up and shooting?
• Can we hope somebody will be around whom we can ask to hold a reflector by the door to bounce some light inside? 

Or, We’re going to be walking for three weeks straight. We’ve got about six hours worth of batteries for our little video recorder, and a solar charger and battery pack to charge things up with. We’ll also be using still cameras, an ipod, a digital sound recorder, a light when needed, possibly a Macbook…

• Will the power packs be sufficient to recharge all our tools?
• Will the sun be out enough to provide as much power via our solar charger panel?
• Will the Zylight Z90 we just got in the mail today (thanks Zylight guys!) bring enough zap to provide fill shooting in broad daylight? (And how much will we use the killer switchable color temperature feature?)?
• Will we regret leaving the XH-A1 behind in Kathmandu in favor of traveling light on the trek, bringing the HV20 only?