Our Favorite Photography Gear for Hiking

Are you an outdoor enthusiast who loves to take photos during your hikes? If so, you know that having the right photography gear for hiking is essential.

The key to finding the best travel photography gear for hiking is understanding what type of environment you will be shooting in and how much weight you are willing to carry on your back.

If you’re like us, we hike to many of the locations where we want to take pictures so the weight of the camera gear and the space it takes up are big factors.

Your camera, lenses, filters, tripod, and other accessories can make a big difference in the quality and composition of your shots.

This article will help you find the best photography gear for hiking so that you can capture all of your memories from your next hike.

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Our Favorite Photography Gear for Hiking

When considering photography equipment for hiking, be sure to look for compact and lightweight options. Here’s a list of the camera gear we use when hiking.

Camera Gear for Travel Photography - Nikon D7200 camera

Camera for Hiking

Inspect your camera before packing to make sure it’s functioning properly. Clean the lens. Make sure the memory cards and a fully charged battery are IN the camera.

Selecting the best camera for hiking and what you’ll be photographing is a complicated and personal process.

If you’re looking for a new camera, be sure to do your research to find what’s best for you.

Camera Lenses

To determine which lenses to pack for hiking, you must know what images you want to capture. Will you photograph landscape, wildlife, waterfalls or all of the above?

These are the lenses we use for our photography:

Nikon 24-70 mm F2.8: This is my primary landscape lens that gives me a wide angle as well as telephoto to get closer shots.
Nikon 70-200 mm F2.8: This is a general purpose lens I use for everything.
Nikon 200-500 mm: A good wildlife lens when animals aren’t too far away, and it’s not too heavy for hiking.
Nikon AF-S NIKKOR 500mm f/5.6E PF ED VR Lens – My favorite new wildlife lens due to its small size and weight compared to the bigger 500mm lens!!
Rokinon 24 mm F1.4: If you are interested in photographing the Milky Way, this is a wonderful lens to use.

Once I determine what I’ll be taking pictures of on the hike, then I’ll attach the best lens to the best camera for that scenario. I’ll also create a second camera/lens combo as a backup since there are two of us to carry gear.

Camera gear for travel photography - MeFoto Globetrotter Tripod

Tripods for Hiking

A good sturdy tripod is worth the investment and can make a tremendous difference in the sharpness of your photos.

Our Mefoto Carbon Fiber Globetrotter is the perfect lightweight travel tripod for long hikes or when I won’t be using a large, heavy lens.

If you can splurge, the Peak Design Travel Tripod is AMAZING!! It’s so light, yet so sturdy, even with my DSLR camera and pretty heavy lens attached.

There are many quality tripods for hiking of varying sizes and capacities. Evaluate your needs and spend the money to obtain a good quality tripod to meet those needs. It will definitely pay for itself in the quality of your images.

Jamie loves the JOBY Grip Tight GorillaPod Stand to use with her smartphone because the legs wrap securely around any surface. It does a wonderful job stabilizing the phone when capturing video sequences as we hike. She uses the stand as a selfie stick as well.

Camera Filters for Landscape Photography

For me, filters are important for landscape photography and it’s easy to put a circular polarizer and neutral density filter in your bag for hiking. Circular Polarizers bring out the color and depth of your landscape shots.

Neutral Density Filters help capture blurred motion with water and are good to use in high light conditions.

I started out using Tiffen and Hoya filters, and I had good success using them. BUT I became frustrated with the difficulty of using these filter systems and only got them out when I wanted long exposure shots.

Then I found the magnetic filter system by Kase, and my use of filters has been changed forever!

Camera Backpack for Hiking

A well-designed backpack that fits is so important when hiking with camera gear. We recommend a pack that has pockets and allows you to organize the inside sections.

We use two different backpacks depending on the situation and/or gear we need. All of these backpacks are well designed with adjustable belts and straps to properly distribute the pack weight on our bodies while hiking.

The Lowepro 300AW Backpack is used for shorter hikes where we won’t need to use large lenses.

The Lowepro Flipside 500 AW Backpack is great for carrying two camera bodies with small lenses, or if we’ll need a large lens like our 500mm.

Finding the right camera backpack will be a personal decision:

Camera Cleaning Kit

A quick field cleaning is sometimes necessary to remove dust or water droplets on your lens. NOTE: this is not for cleaning the sensor.

A good camera cleaning kit should include

lens pen
cleaning fluid in a spray bottle
air blower
microfiber cleaning cloths
soft brush

Remote Shutter Release

A remote shutter release helps decrease camera shake caused by the pressure of your finger activating the camera shutter. Using a shutter release helps you get sharper images.

You can also use the camera timer, but I find it very inconvenient.

I’ve used expensive and cheap models and find that most remote shutter release products wear out quickly. I always carry an extra because it’s frustrating when the shutter release goes out on you in the middle of a shoot.

NOTE: You will need to search for a remote shutter release for your specific camera model.

Camera Gear for Travel Photography - Lexmar memory card

Memory Cards and Batteries

We always recommend you purchase name brand memory cards. After all, you are trusting your images to the card! Lexar and Sandisk are the best.

You will use the card over and over, so spending a bit more to get a better product, in the long term, will not cost you much more.

CARRY EXTRAS: You don’t want to miss any photographic opportunities due to forgetting to load a memory card or battery in your camera; draining a battery or filling a memory card (or two).

I encourage you to read the Do’s and Don’ts of Memory Cards by Peta Pixel. They share simple tips to keep your memory cards and images safe now and in the future.

Camera Clip for Hiking

When we’re hiking, sometimes we come across something we want to photograph, but by the time we get the camera out of the bag, the moment is gone!

This is one reason we love this camera clip by Peak Design! We were skeptical that it would hold our DSLR with a heavy lens, but it does.

Our Favorite Photography Gear for Hiking

This site contains affiliate links which means WE may receive commissions for purchases made through these links. We only provide links to products we actually use and/or wholeheartedly recommend! As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases. Read the full Disclosure Policy.