Essential camera gear protection and maintenance

Is there anything more frustrating than having a great photo opportunity, perhaps leading to the image of a lifetime, and your camera's not working because you didn't protect your gear well enough?

It's not that hard to keep photo gear in excellent working condition. While regular maintenance and precautions can't prevent every failure, it's been my experience that most can be avoided with some planning and commonsense measures.

Keep your camera clean

Photographers understand the importance of keeping the inside of their camera clean to keep their camera's sensor dust-free and prevent wear and tear on moving parts. It's important to keep the outside of the camera clean, as well. When lenses are changed, dirt on the exterior of the camera and lenses can enter the camera. Keeping the outside of your camera and lenses clean will keep controls, contacts and screens clean plus prevent dirt from entering your camera.

Ned's Top 25 Tips for Travel Photographers

Great travel photography requires much the same of photographers as any photographic genre; advanced planning, preparation, a willingness to adjust when at the site of the shooting session and both technical and artistic photographic knowledge.

I've got twenty-five great tips to help you bring home quality travel images.

Advanced Planning:

Locate specific locations and events at your destination:
Once you decide on your destination(s), it's import to plan and prioritize your visit to include the specific locations and events you want to see and photograph, to ensure you'll have time enough for the ones considered essential. While planning, look for unique sites, people, landscapes, etc. to photograph.

Create shot lists:
For each destination location you plan to visit, create a list of photographs you want to make. Plan as many shots in advance as possible, both specific and general. Look for positions which may or may not be normally visited by people traveling to a particular site, to utilize for photographs.