Nearly a week away from our departure, we’ve been busy getting our equipment in working shape. While we’re in Turkey, we’re going to need the necessary equipment to shoot, edit and produce all of our content. As a writer, all of this video and photo stuff was new to me, and it’s not easy!

If you’ve ever wondered what a backpack journalist has to carry at all times, here’s your guide:

Camera – Ours are Canon PowerShot SX10’s. They’re small and handy, but shoot high-quality material.Tripod – To prevent shaky video, we bring along a portable tripod at all times.

Audio Recorder – We’ll use recorders when we do interviews to get the best-quality audio for our video.

Lavalier Microphone – This connects to our audio recorders to a microphone that can clip onto the collar of whoever we’re interviewing.

Batteries – Journalists should never be without lots of lithium batteries on reserve!

Camera Bag – All of this equipment, plus cords and headphones, fits into a compact camera bag.