Best Landscape Photography Gear 2026: 15 Years of Experience in One Bag

I was thinking about how my approach to photography has changed over the years and I have slowly honed down into what I think it worth carrying with me on my travels. As you know, I’m primarily a travel stock photographer. I rarely take people images for stock and while I have had great success in the past with “illustrative products”, I’m thinking opioid prescription bottles here, or bitcoin coins, I don’t do that much. It is too easy for a good AI system to create an image of a person doing something, and AI mockups of generic products is a piece of cake. But travel photos still have their market as it is important to some (hopefully a majority) of users to have something real.

If you are new to this site, you might find my end of 2025 earnings reviews to be of interest. The one covering the income from selling prints of my best work is here and the broader report on total earnings from stock and fine art photography in 2025 is here.

I’m also very clear in my mind that when I visit a place, I’m looking for images that illustrate a place for a stock photo user, but taking more artistic images that could attract a print buyer for an office or home wall is key to me.

This article contains affiliate links for photography equipment that I have used and tested throughout my career. If you purchase an item through these links from partners like Amazon or MPB, I may receive a small commission at no extra cost to you. This support helps me maintain the site and continue sharing professional insights from my 15 years in the field.

Case Study – Austin, Texas Skyline

This image of the skyline of Austin is a case in point. It was taken in mid-December when all the construction cranes that have littered the skyline were finally down. I tell a small lie there – there was still one crane above that tallest building that was being removed, so I took artistic license and removed it! Austin is also a great city for photographers in that there are very few signs on the buildings, but I do still remove the ones that exist so I can submit as commercial usage. Pro-tip – Shutterstock continually requires these to be submitted as editorial and now give you an easy way to change the type of image in their “Correction Needed” tab. But beware – even though it is easy to add an editorial title and mark it as editorial usage, you are actually now submitting a manipulated view as editorial. This is against their rules, and I did hear of someone whose account was suspected for submitting altered editorial shots. So, to avoid this, I ignore the suggestion to simply rename it and submit the original image instead. You could argue that Shutterstock is such a sh*t-show that it is hardly worth it!

For this particular image, I did apply for permission to fly as this location is close to the airport. I took three rows of six shots using the mid-range telephoto lens on the Mavic drone to get the full grandeur of the scene and stitched them together in Lightroom. The final image is about 19000 pixels across. I’ve written about these Aerial images of the Austin Skyline (without cranes) on my companion website, BackyardImage.

The reason I showed this particular image is that it is meeting a real need on Adobe Stock in particular for a dramatic, up to date view of Austin with 52 downloads for $55 in the past eight weeks or so, and it is definitely a candidate for a massive fine art print. In fact, I added it to my Etsy store on February 4th and sold the first copy on February 21st. A 30×40 inch canvas, which earned about $180 in margin. I used my Mavic 3 Pro with the 19mm mid-telephoto lens and stitched three rows of 5 shots to create the panorama, ending up with a 19,000-pixel image. I also created a Pinterest pin to illustrate what it could look like in your boardroom to drive some office decor sales, but nothing so far!

So, what gear do I carry around these days when traveling?

Do I take a Drone?

Carrying a lot of camera gear is always a problem if you have to fly somewhere – which is almost always the case. Over the years I have tried hard to decide what is essential for travel photography and what is a nice to have. The first decision – is the drone going to travel with me? In the USA, this is almost always, yes as I have my Part 107 Pilot’s License and so can fly my drone commercially and get those unique views that often sell well for both stock and fine art uses. I’m going to the UK this year and have decided to register my drone for flying there – if I avoid people and buildings I can get away with just a registration which is not too onerous. So, my Mavic 3 Pro which is part of the Fly More kit of spare batteries and controller, is often with me. This particular model is no longer available new, but the newer version – the Mavic 4 Pro currently is available from Amazon for $2199.

However, I must admit that I keep looking at the smaller cousin of these big professional drones in a longing way – the Mavic Mini 5 Pro! I have been a mentor to a fellow photographer in my local club who was given a $100 drone for Christmas, and he wanted to learn more about drone photography. We spent some time with this little device, but to be honest, the photographs it produced were pretty dismal. We talked about the Mini 5 and he decided that at $1099 it wasn’t much different to buying a new lens for his “big boy” camera and so why not! To be honest, I was extremely impressed when it arrived. Perhaps a third of the weight and size of mine and very stable in the air, even on a windy day. And a much smaller piece of kit to carry with me to England. Will I pull the trigger – perhaps! I’m not sure how long DJI will be able to continue to import these drones. You can find the Mavic Mini 5 Pro here at Amazon if you are equally tempted!

Why I trusted MPB with my old gear

I decided to simplify my life a little recently when I found two of my old original cameras – a Canon Powershot G9 and a G10. The G10 was very heavily worn, but I thought I might as well see what I could get for it! As I was thinking about that, I realized that I had a very good condition Sony 70-200 F4 lens that I never use since I purchased a Sigma 100-400mm F5-6.3 lens for my Sony. So why not throw that lens in the mix as well! I’ve sold things on Facebook (and eBay) in the past, but it is a hassle and you are constantly worried about scams, so I decided to try MPB. I got $180 for the G9 and $98 for the G10 which nicely surprised me. The offer for the Sony lens was $700, which I am sure was less than I could have got selling it privately, but, to be honest, the risks and drama of trying to sell an expensive piece of equipment with all the scams and other dangers was not worth it for me and so I accepted. The process with MPB was very smooth. You describe the products on their website and get an instant quote. If you accept, you get a shipping label to send the items to them where they are inspected. I think I got a little more for the G9 as that was in great condition and a little less for the G10, but the cash for them was far better than I expected. If you are thinking of selling some gear, at least give them a try.

I didn’t really think about them back in December when I did manage to sell my older DJI Mavic 2 Pro via Facebook Messenger, but it took me several weeks and a lot of price reductions before I finally met someone who had cash for the drone. Even then I had to drive quite a way to meet them – all went well, but it could have been a wasted trip if they hadn’t liked the drone.

I did buy my own Mavic 3 Pro drone in “excellent used condition” and have had no problems at all. It was about $400 less than the new price and had a 30 day money back guarantee. If you are thinking of buying a used drone you could try this link to MPB.

Camera Equipment

I must admit that I take less equipment these days. My workhorse camera is still the Sony A7R5 body with the Sony 24-105mm F4 lens. Those links will take you to Amazon for new versions of the equipment. I have had great success with sometimes purchasing “as new” returned lenses from Amazon. You can very easily test a lens when you receive it by photographing a test print with different focal lengths and settings and you can always easily return the lens if you are not satisfied. You will find those renewed or returned items underneath the main entry for the lens. I don’t think I would do the same with a camera body – there are so many other things about the body that might not become visible in the 30 days you have to return it, so I’ve never actually taken that risk. I’m sure it is not a big risk, but that is just me! The size of the sensor on these Sony cameras gives me a tremendous opportunity to crop in when I don’t have the correct lens and although I do have the Sony 16-35mm F4 lens, this often stays at home. What do I do when I am too close to get a subject in my frame – I simply turn the camera on its side and take a panorama to capture the full scene. Yes, there might be some distortion, but it can look pretty attractive! This, for instance, has sold quite a few times for views of New Orleans. I do have a more straightforward version of a few of these balconies, but this panorama stitch has some excitement to it!

So, if I am local to a scene, I might take this wide angle lens, but on travel, the 24mm is fine for most of the images I want to take!

To be really extreme, I do have an 11mm F2.8 fisheye lens from TTArtisan – just $235 at Amazon! I bought it when I went on a photographer’s vacation in Dubai as I thought it would be great for some of the extremely tall buildings there.

But I’ve also found it very useful for any cityscape, downtown Austin for instance. It’s great when you are not feeling very creative and you want to see things in a different light!

Telephoto Lens

The lens that almost always finds a home in my camera bag is my Sigma 100-400mm F5-6.3 telephoto lens, $999 at Amazon. Not the fastest lens, by any means, but this is the one that replaced my Sony 70-200mm lens. I bought it originally when I went to Alaska and it was great for scenes of the snowcapped mountains as we were leaving ports. Cruise ships always sail well away from the coastline but on the journey into and out of ports, I find a long lens gives you lots of opportunities for cityscape/landscape images.

This one, from that cruise has sold well on multiple stock agencies:

I also used it a lot in Egypt to take images of life along the Nile River and more recently in Washington State and Iceland. That combination of the 24-105mm and then 100-400mm pretty much covers anything I am likely to see on my travels.

Other important camera gear

What else accompanies me – a tripod, almost always. I used to use Gitzo carbon fiber tripods but I was very taken by the Peak Design Travel Tripod when it was introduced. It has an integral head and fits inside carry-on luggage with no issues. I bought the Peak Design carbon fiber Travel tripod version which is currently $559 at Amazon and while my heavier/larger tripods in the past were more solid, this one pretty much does everything I need and creates those silky-smooth waterfall images that sell well as fine art prints. You can certainly get away without a tripod in darker conditions these days – I’m often at ISO 12,800 handholding my Sony, but it is hard to get longer exposures and hand hold them (at least for me these days!). The Gitzo ones were sold via eBay. Takes some time, but I managed it!

Finally, I do carry a small Sony RX100 VII compact camera. With its larger sensor and 24-200mm zoom lens, it is perfect for my pocket, or it goes with my wife if she takes a different excursion than me on a trip. If the weather looks a bit problematic for my full-size Sony, this can produce perfectly acceptable stock and fine art print files. The Sony RX100 VII is not cheap, currently $1698 on Amazon, but can definitely create the goods. On a sail out of New York, I was using my larger camera to create 8K videos from my tripod as we cruised down the coastline of Manhattan while this Sony RX100 was being used for cityscape images. This image has had the water replaced by the Flood plugin and then upscaled 2x in Gigapixel to create a great image in my Etsy store!

The final piece of equipment that sometimes travels is the GoPro 13 Black available from Amazon at $359. I got this one for my birthday, but I’ve used previous models in the ocean, in pools and also in a suction holder attached to the front of my rental car for stock videos of famous bits of road in Hawaii, that sell from time to time. A great bit of fun but it also produces great videos.

Carrying all this camera gear

You might be wondering how I carry all this stuff and fly to different places! I decided to buy the Wandrd Prvke 31l waterproof bag which carries my camera equipment and with its roll-top bag opening I can add personal stuff in there as well. It is rare that I need to really fill it, but it is spacious inside, has various pockets for passports and things and is comfortable on my bag. Definitely one of my better choices! The Wandrd 31 liter camera bag is also available at Amazon for $254.

I hope you have found this interesting (or at least the logic of what I carry about and why.) If you are in the market for buying something new, please consider using one of my links above or this one for photographic equipment at Amazon. It all helps me to gather the energy to continue to write these articles on BackyardSilver.

Buying used or selling your older equipment is always worth investigating – here is my link to MPB for general photography equipment.