Safety Tips for Landscape Photographers...

Hi! I've had a painful lesson learnt last week where, due to my carelessness, I've lost my Mindshift Gear Backlight 26L camera bag, will my lenses, batteries, high-capacity SD cards, flash, mini tripod and all my NiSi filters. Thankfully, I had both my SONY A6500 camera with me, one with the Zeiss Touit 12mm f/2.8 ultra wide angle lens and the SONY A6300 with SONY E 18-105mm f/4 medium telephoto lens.  It could have been worse, so, in that sense, I'm thankful that nothing physically happened to me. Alhamdulillah.

Based on this painful experience, I would like to share it with all of you so that, hopefully, the same thing do not happen to you. Here goes... 

1. As much as possible, please don't go out on your photography outing alone, for obvious reasons. It may be the sort of thing that we photographers look for i.e. being alone to capture the beautiful moment.  There bound to be somebody watching our every move and will not hesitate to strike at the most opportune time. Anything can happen to you and there's nobody else to help you.
2. Be selective on your gear. Only bring with you what you need for your photography outing. Do not bring anything excessive or unnecessary.  It will not only burden you to take great care of your gear, but also, this is like managing your risk exposure.
3. If you have to store your gear in your car, make sure your bag is not visible to the prying eyes and do lock your car.  From the study carried out by Lenstag in 2014, photography gear stolen from vehicle accounts for 27%, which the highest percentage overall (refer diagram below).
4. Always format your SD cards before every photography outing.  In the event, your photography gear is lost, you don't lose the precious images captured on those SD cards.
5. Please keep list of inventory of your gears, inclusive of the serial numbers.  You can register your cameras and lenses at www.lenstag.com website.  If somebody buys the stolen gears, and registers them with Lenstag, the system will prompt him/her that the gear purchased is a stolen good. 
6. Place stickers with your name/email and contact number. If for some reason, your gear fell into the "right" hand, then the good Samaritan can call you to have your items returned to you. [Thanks Werden!]. If it falls on the wrong hand...well, you can say good bye to your stuffs.
7. As highlighted by fellow landscape photographer Majeed Badizadegan,  we should not get too caught up in the moment.  We may be too engrossed in capturing the adrenaline-pumping moment that we lose sight of the dangers around us. Majeed concludes by saying, "Remember that the picture you are taking is only one picture of many that you will take in your lifetime. It is not worth putting life and limb on the line for. There will be better days and safer situations. It is not worth the risk. No picture is worth dying for."
   

A study carried out by Lenstag back in 2014.

http://www.lenstag.com/

http://www.stolencamerafinder.com/