It’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of gear I carry. rather than carry everything all the time I have a secondary bag in the car and swap gear out as needed. It does result in some extra hikes every now and then because I forgot something.

My bag is the original BC model of the F-Stop Tilopa, there have been a couple of revisions since this one was released. I have the large pro ICU. It’s about as big as you cn go for an airline carry on bag. I can fit the XL Pro ICU but the large leaves me enough room at the top to put a decent jacket in there if needed.

I’ve had this bag for around 10 years, it’s still in excellent condition. The new DuraDiamond version is said to have much better water resistance, so I might grab one of those at some point. If this one gets wet it does take a while to dry out, I have a rain cover stashed in the bottom compartment.

It’s not shown in the photos but there’s an Apple Airtag in there somewhere.

I was using thre Nikkor 14-24 as my main lens, I bought the Sigma to put on my second camera so i could shoot 2 startrails at once. After comparing the two the Sigma became my go to lens. It’s slightly heavier but gives a sharper image.

I could save some weight by going mirrorless but I’d lose too much in battery runtime to do startrails.

The Sigma is a bit heavy but has excellent image quality. I don’t use the 50mm very often but it weighs next to nothing and I don’t use that space in the bag for anything else.

The best filter holder system I’ve used. Unfortunately it’s no longer available.

I don’t really need the levelling base as I don’t do panos very often, but the longer post at the bottom makes it a lot easier to hang the backpack from the tripod. If I’m doing a long hike I’ll swap for the standard base to save abit of weight.

I’m currently using Leofoto rock claw feet instead of the spikes, I haven’t had them long so haven’t used them enough to say if they are better than the spiked feet, I’m expecting them to be better in the sand than the spikes.

I have a lighter Feisol travel tripod. Every time I take it on a trip I wish I had this instead.

I have some paper towell in the bag for wiping down/drying the tripod legs before I collaspe them.

I have a small Lowepro bag that I use to carry more bits and pieces, it stays in the car and I transfer item to the main bag as required.

I recently got a DJI Air 2s drone. I keep that in the car and can transfer it into the main bag when needed by leaving the 35mm and 50mm lenses out.

There’s a lot of restrictions in Australia relating to drone use, so a bit pointless to carry it in my main bag all the time.

The ‘standard’ loadout with the 2 additional lenses comes in just under 8kg, plus the tripod which I carry in my hand rather than attach it to the bag.