I have been a river guide and private river runner in Grand Canyon for 47 years, capturing images that whole time. I have hiked many miles but mostly from the river up and usually day hikes. Since boats don't care about what my camera equipment weighs, my recommendations my not work for you, but it's a place to start. I use a full frame Canon camera (different models over the years) and carry several lenses. The one I use most often is Canon's 24-105mm f4 L IS lens. It covers probably 65-70% of the situations I encounter. I also use a 16-35mm f2.8 L lens. It comes in handy in the narrower side canyons which can also be darker. I use a 70-200 for wildlife, mostly Bighorn sheep, lizards, and birds, although this past summer there was a black bear down at the river's edge. Those three lenses cover 99% of everything you will encounter. The only other recommendation would be a Macro lens, or have one of the other lenses have macro capability. Depending on the time of year, the monkey flowers and columbines along the streams, the cactus flowers, and the maiden hair ferns near springs can be gorgeous. If your trip is early in the season (the North Rim doesn't open until May 15th), you'll see more flowers. If later in the summer, more wildlife will be down at the river or near side streams. In any event, the canyon below the rims is constantly changing with the time of day and weather conditions. The light reflecting off the river and the canyon walls intensives the color on the opposite wall. It's a phenomenal place. Enjoy

Yousuf Karsh has always been my idol when it comes to portraits. One of his most notable is of Winston Churchill, but others are equally wonderful.

Don't miss the Harmony Borax Works.

As a kid, I used tip money from my paper route to buy an Argus C-3. It was fine for the time and a 12 year old learning photography, but other makes quickly surpassed it's capabilities. It was a range finder camera, had no metering system, and really no system of interchangeable lenses. At a PX in Viet Nam, I bought a Mamiya/Sekor 1000DTL and used it for several years. I was satisfied with it but moved on to a Rolleiflex SL 35M soon after they came out. Rollei had such a great name and promised to develop a whole system for it's 35mm line, but they never really delivered on that promise. The camera also had reliability issues. I had to have it repaired 3 or 4 times. While working as a river guide in Grand Canyon in the late 70's, we took the head editors of National Geographic on an 18 day trip. They all had Olympus cameras. After playing with theirs, I was sold. Olympus used Zeiss lenses, and was pretty much the smallest 35mm SLR on the market. For someone like me who spent lots of time carrying camera gear deep into the backcountry, the size and weight of the OM system made it perfect for me. On top of that, the quality of the camera, lenses, and subsequently the photos, was excellent. I started with the OM-1, moved on to the OM-2, OM-2n, OM-4, and OM-4T as each new generation came out, always being pleased with Olympus's ingenuity, quality, and advancements. I'm fairly sure they invented the concept of TTL flashes, although they called it OTF (off the film). I would still be using Olympus, except that when they made the move to digital, none of their old film lenses worked with their digital bodies. That upset me and I subsequently moved on to Canon when they came out with a reasonably priced full frame digital, the 5D. However, I really miss the compactness and portability of my old Olympus system.

I've used two batteries in two days often. Lots of shots, long exposures, GPS, etc. burns them up pretty quickly.

The problem won't be carrying the monkey, it's all those peanuts!

I did google that, and the video I found showed a great set-up, but it uses a 12V/9v battery, and he didn't use it on the Mark IV. I'm worried about putting 9v into a 7.4v system.

Carrying solar panels adds too much bulk to my load. Also, I'll be moving too much to leave a panel set up, and it will be monsoon season in Arizona. I thought about panels for awhile and then decided they wouldn't work for what I'm doing.

I really like it. I traded in a 5D II and a 6D to get it. It has an upgraded focusing system that I find works really well (Te same as in the 1DX). I also like the built in GPS (which the 6D had) because it saves me hours of note taking. The GPS has an added setting that saves power when the camera is off, without turning the GPS completely off and then waiting for it to find satellites when you turn it back on. I have not had it very long so have not thoroughly tested it, but so far the only down side is not being able to use AA cells in the battery grip. The touch screen LCD makes changing focus really easy when shooting video or using live view on a tripod for macro photography. I'm not normally a video guy but plan on experimenting with the 4K capabilities. I like that the remote control socket is now on the front of the camera rather that on the side with the HDMI port, microphone jack, etc. (although it is not as necessary since the IV has a built in interval timer). I also really like that now I can create more than one "My Menu Tab." I have set up several for those functions that I use often so that I don't have to keep scrolling through all the tabs to find what I'm looking for. For instance, I have one set up for functions I use often, battery info, format card, GPS etc. I have a second one set up for night shooting, LCD brightness, long exposure noise reduction, etc. I also like the added pixels. They add to sharpness without being almost over the top (for an amateur) like the 5D SR's 50 MP that can strain storage and mabe go beyond the limits of some of my older lenses.

So, so far I'm really pleased with it, but as I said, I haven't had it long and am still experimenting.

Thanks, I haven't looked at those, but they seem like they would last less than twice as long as the Canon, so I would still need quite a few. I was hoping for something more like one or two 10,000 mAh batteries, possibly hooked up through a dummy battery. I've seen some 9v, 10,000 mAh batteries and can find the dummy battery, but the LP-E6 is a 7.2v and I don't want to put 9v in if it would damage my electronics.

I will be shooting in a wilderness area for close to 3 weeks with no way to recharge the LP-E6 batteries for my 5D Mark IV. Much of my shooting will be night photography and long exposure shooting which drains batteries rather quickly. The battery grip for the Mark IV no longer allows using AA cells. To buy and carry enough fully charged, dedicated LP-E6 batteries would be prohibitively expensive and bulky. Does anyone know of a long lasting, external, battery driven power supply that will work for the Mark IV?