I thought I’d use a kit oriented posting to wrap around a few more snaps that I took on holiday. Go on, my loyal readers, you both know who you are: treat yourselves.

I have been meaning to buy a new strap for about as long as I’ve been taking a DSLR on holiday. Of all of the pieces of kit I am going to talk about here, this was the standout. I took the plunge and bought a Black Rapid RS-7. Even I was baulking at the £50 price tag for a strap: it’s clearly very expensive, but it’s also massively – and reassuringly – over-engineered. I did do some digging around for cheaper equivalents [I nearly bought one at about £18] but came to the conclusion that buying a cheap strap was akin to walking into the SCUBA diving kit shop and saying ‘give me the cheapest regulator you’ve got’: potentially regrettable.

The headless ghost of Waibaidu Bridge

The one downside of straps such as the RS-7 is the strange lack-of-safety-net sensation you get when you take it off to attach the bracket for your tripod. But honestly, do yourself a favour: whatever manufacturer is your preferred religion, replace the cheesewire that your camera shipped with.

Advice for life

Another purchase specifically for the trip was one of these. The last couple of trips that I’ve taken my rucksack on, I’ve had to sling it into the outsize baggage when checking in. This may be a British airport peculiarity [because of the straps I was told], but it’s a real pain. I was really pleased with it, and it stood up to a bit of a battering. While I wasn’t carrying anything super-heavy to test the construction to the limit, it served me well and I can thoroughly recommend it.

Hard work

As my pitch to my poor long suffering wife for the 16-35mm L lens failed to pass the first round of investment governance, the final piece of kit that I bought for the trip was one of these. OK, a USB chargeable torch isn’t exactly setting the world on fire, but weighing in at a mere £2.38, it has to have the highest feasible utility to price ratio.

Lazy / scruffy combo