Europe photo kit - how did it work.

Here's what I took on my recent 13-day tour of Great Britain (England, Scotland, & Wales) with a quick note on what worked and what didn't.

Nikon D200 body (without battery grip) - worked fine and I shot raw the whole time.

Nikon 18-200mm VR lens - not fast, but a great "walk around" lens that covers the gaumut. Used this lens 90% of the time and if lived up to its billing. When I had my camera around my neck this was the lens.

Nikon 12-24mm DX f4 lens - when I need a bit more than the 18mm. Used this a few times, but not enough to justify taking it. The 18-200mm covered what I needed most all the time.

Nikon 50mm f1.4 lens - for inside when I need the "speed" of the f1.4.  Used this one in some places where I couldn't/didn't want to use flash.  I did find myself missing the "zoom" ability though.

Nikon SB400 flash - nothing fancy, but small and light weight.  Exactly what I needed. I'm glad I didn't have the bulk of the SB800.  But it would be nice to have a flash that I could use "off-camera".

2 extra batteries (3 total) - Nikon EN-EL3e with a charger. More than plenty. I never did run out of juice!

Compact Flash cards - two 8 GB cards and one 4 GB card. - Again, more than enough for what I was doing.

3 sets of NiMH AA batteries (12 total) with charger. - Overkill. I never used these as the SB400 flash never drained the akalines I took for it.

All the above carried in a Lowepro Slingshot 200 AW bag. - This worked fine was about the right size, but would be nice to have a bag I could put my laptop into for train rides, etc.

Manfrotto 724B Digi tripod with ball head. - Worked fine, but next time I'd probably replace the ball head with something that had a quick release plate. I like the fact it has a bag with a strap - that was handy.

Laptop - Lenovo x61s with 320 GB 7200 rpm harddrive, Windows Vista Premium, Lightroom 2.0.  It seems to be a great travel laptop, but just wish it had a built in CD drive! Also will boot to Ubuntu (Linux) if I need a quick boot just to access the Internet.  Worked extremely well especially with the extended battery.  LR 2.0 is awesome and I paid to upgrade my other machines as soon as I got home.

16 GB flash drive that will be my backup drive.   This worked fine. All my images fit onto this one drive, but I had a 2 GB one as an extra just in case.

Can't think of anything else I'd take next time except a remote switch for the long exposures used for night and twilight shots.