Inside My Camera Bag | Virgil Reglioni

I’m Virgil Reglioni, a fine art polar landscape photographer, and a full-time chaser of polar lights.

I’ve been capturing the deep soul of polar landscapes for years, mainly around the wild edges of Northern Norway, Greenland, Finland and the far South of Antarctica.

Photography didn’t come first; exploration and outdoor guiding did. The camera was simply the tool I found powerful enough to translate those feelings into something tangible.

And the journey’s only just begun for me.

My particularity when it comes to gear is minimalism. Out there in the Arctic wild, every gram matters.

I travel light not just to move faster, but to reach places most people can’t.

My gear isn’t just equipment; it’s a survival kit. Every choice is deliberate, tested against the brutality of the elements.

Sony A7R III – an ultra-high resolution camera that is lightweight. Perfect for creating large, detailed prints without carrying a heavy rig. Its incredible dynamic range allows me to recover deep shadows and control harsh highlights, essential when shooting auroras and extreme landscapes.

The forty-two megapixel resolution gives me the detail to tell stories through vast scenes, placing small subjects precisely in the frame without losing sharpness.

Scale, emotion, and storytelling all rely on that level of quality. It also gives me a great pixel size for absorbing enough light during nights, having pixels in a well-balanced size for optimal light control.

Its lightweight build is a huge advantage for remote polar expeditions. I need to travel fast and light without compromising image quality. This camera model makes that possible.

Battery life and handling are crucial as long nights in brutal cold demand reliability. With intuitive controls and strong battery performance, this camera becomes a true extension of my vision, letting me focus on capturing the raw, fleeting moments that define my photography.

TAMRON 28-200mm f/2.8 – this is my primary lens for polar landscapes, and also when it comes to environmental images with wildlife. It is wide enough to drink in vast spaces without losing edge-to-edge sharpness, and has a very efficient focal length for giving the sense of detail and scale I always look for.

The essential mid-range lens for more intimate moments, when the landscape demands a closer conversation.

LAOWA 15mm F/2 – my main lens for night aurora images and wide angles in general. This lens has proven to be my favourite to build powerful compositions using that great natural distortion I need, and keep the horizon line neat, straight, and undisturbed.

Rollei Tripod C5i Carbon is a lightweight, carbon fibre, and ice-proof tripod built for harsh environments. It is easy to strap onto a backpack for long treks, so it is constantly in use.

Apple MacBook Pro – as always, built tough, just like the rest of the kit.

Lightroom and Photoshop are essential tools, but my philosophy is to remain as true as possible to the real moment. I craft my own cold-toned, high-contrast editing styles, always looking to preserve the solitude and intensity of the Arctic.

A few things in my kit are Vallerret Photography Gloves, which means no frozen fingers or missed shots, and layers of merino wool garments with spare buffs and gloves to provide movement and warmth without bulk.

By guiding in polar regions, I witness the changing light and ice conditions closely week after week. Wildlife evolves with the shifting landscape from one month to the next. This is exactly what fuels my photography: visiting various locations under different environmental conditions throughout the year.

Each season in the polar regions brings its unique mood, and witnessing these constant transformations has been key for me in the way I capture images and the stories I can tell through them.

Living this way has sharpened my photography skills, elevated my guiding work, and pushed my creativity far beyond what I thought possible. I want to stand apart in a world where AI rapidly invades every creative space.

I want to create images that leave a mark, that stay with the viewer long after they’ve looked away. The process, the struggle, the persistence it takes to capture the shot I have in my mind, that raw human experience will never be replaced by AI.

For me, it’s not just about a beautiful scene; it’s about the emotion hidden behind the frame.
 That’s where the real power of an image lives.