Photographers and/or digital media - what do you bring along

[GlamperGirl]

I know there are many on this forum who are avid photographers. We have two digital cameras; a point and shoot Olympus which MountainBiker uses and an older Pentax IST with changeable lenses that I normally shoot with.

We usually wait until we are home to see how our images have turned out, but I wondered what others are doing ... do you take along a laptop, a netbook, notebook, ipad or blackberry playbook? Do you use all battery, a mix of solar powered or electrical hookups?

I'm planning on a trip to Europe next spring and am looking for information to guide me in the quest for 2 things - how best to store my images (I expect to take a lot of pictures) and the practicality of carrying some kind of system to download images to check on exposures, etc.

Any suggestions? Preferences? Costs? Things to avoid?

[ssrjim]

I take lots of memory cards and at least 3 batteries. I take a charger as well. I have a point and shoot in my pocket at all times as well as my iPhone. I have a backpack with my DSLR and all the accessories.

I have brought my laptop but more often than not I don't. I save the downloading and editing for home.

[asianflava]

I go thru phases, I'll use my DSLR for a while until I get tired of carrying it, then I go to a PnS. When I want more exposure control, I go back to the DSLR. If weight is an issue, bring the PnS with some high capacity cards and extra batteries. Although I prefer my older Canon PnS, our most recent Olympus PnS has a 10X zoom which is nice to have. The battery on the Olympus lasts longer though.

[GuitarPhotog]

I generally drag my DSLR along on all my camping trips. Whether or not I bring along a laptop depends on the duration and scope of the trip.

If I'm going to be out for just a few days, I'll just bring along a mess of memory cards and not worry about downloading them until I get home. But on trips of multiple weeks, I bring my laptop to download memory cards to, and so I can upload them to my web server when I have a broadband connection.

<Chas>

[Time Out]

Hi GlamperGirl,

I wish you a very enjoyable trip to Europe next spring and hope you bring back many wonderful memories in the form of images.

You are asking two very different questions. One about local shooting and one about overseas travel and what to take. I am not an overseas traveler because my Eustachain tubes won't open and my ear drums bleed upon landing! Be that as it may, the equipment I would take on a trip like that would be quite a bit different than what I would take on a vacation in our Little Guy 6 wide. I would agree with 'ssrjim' about taking lots of CF cards, batteries, chargers and voltage/plug converters and I would choose carefully which lenses to take along. The more stuff you take with you, the more stuff you will be forced to carry and/or look out for. You can get pretty good deals on 16 and 32 GB CF (or whatever size card you need) now. If you take a laptop with you, don't use it to post process your images as you may have twice as much work if the monitor is not perfectly calibrated with your home monitor. I like to take a couple small Western Digital Passport USB hard drives to back up my images. That's about all I know about overseas travel.

Until about 9 months ago when I had 15 vertebrae fused, I would have carried a Canon 20D, 50D, 580EXII speedlite, and an assortment of 'L' lenses. Now all I can carry is my trusty Canon G9 and my large flash, if I'm not hurting too bad. Well controlled fill flash is very important to me. I don't do a lot of 'chimping' and use the histogram mostly in tough lighting conditions to check my exposures. I trust my composition skills, so I don't look at each image and if something should need cropping or if I want to do extensive post processing, I catalog and key word all images into Adobe Lightroom 3.3 I also shoot everything in RAW which uses more storage capacity, but also gives me the ultimate in post processing abilities. We actually carry twice that amount of equipment because my wife Linda is also an avid photographer. Neither one of us are into the whole tripod scene. We usually also carry 2 HP laptops.

We use solar power on our 6 wide as well as pedestal power when available. We also carry a very stable inverter for use when on DC power only. We are able to carry most everything in 2 Tamrac Expedition 6X back packs even though we don't carry them on our backs. They are highly recommended. Another tip - have and use lens hoods all the time. They will not only control lens flare and such, they will also protect the front lens element from accidental damage. Don't forget to take your owner's manuals. There will always be something you will forget how to do.

Linda and I are Tea Party photographers, Disneyland 4 fun photographers and I am a Fire and Rescue photographer - when I get healed up again anyway. I hope my ramblings have been of some help to you. Preparation and enthusiasm are the key ingredients to bringing back visual treasures

All the best,

Clyde and Linda

[/quote]

[wa_flyfisher]

Nikon D60 with 4 lenses, a speedlight and tripod always go on trips with me. Hope to upgrade to the D5100 so we can do videos of our son and not have to have a seperate video camera.
The DW has a Fuji P&S as well.

I have a Dakine backpack and a Tamarac 7x expedition to carry camera gear depending on how much I want to carry.

[Toytaco2]

If a camping trip is part of a serious fishing or hunting outing, then only a PnS goes along -- Too much gear to haul otherwise and I don't really like to leave my DSLR gear in a hot car or truck cab.

If I'm out to enjoy photography, then I'll take 2 DSLR bodies, 5 lenses, flash unit, filters, etc. and plenty of memory cards, extra batteries and charger. If its a longer trip, I take along my netbook & a card reader since I can't stand to wait to see some of my pics on a little bigger screen than the camera's monitor. I usually shoot both raw and jpeg and the net book is a good way to back up files, although it doesn't have enough processing power to do very much with the raw files. It also lets me stay up emails and some web browsing if I happen to have internet access.

Mike

[GlamperGirl]

Hey, thanks everyone for the great input. Gives me lots to thnk about! I love my SLR digital even though it is old because there is an actual viewfinder to look through and it has the weight and feel of my traditional SLR camera. But the simplicity of the Olympus point and shoot is great to have in a pocket, especially (as already mentioned) when you are in a canoe with fishing gear.

[ssrjim]

Hey, thanks everyone for the great input. Gives me lots to thnk about! I love my SLR digital even though it is old because there is an actual viewfinder to look through and it has the weight and feel of my traditional SLR camera. But the simplicity of the Olympus point and shoot is great to have in a pocket, especially (as already mentioned) when you are in a canoe with fishing gear.

or you could get one of these
http://us.leica-camera.com/photography/m_system/m9/

If you all want to pitch in you could get me one too....

[asianflava]

^ I don't even have to click on that link to know that it's gonna be pricey. Anything with "Leica" on it is expen$ive.

[ssrjim]

^ I don't even have to click on that link to know that it's gonna be pricey. Anything with "Leica" on it is expen$ive.

Click it, you know you will want one

[myoung]

In May we spent two weeks in Europe. I expected to take many pictures and didn't want to overburden myself with my usual bag of lenses and other toys so I shrunk my system down to the Nikon D300 camera body and a single 18-200 mm zoom. I only took two 4 GB cards and two batteries.

As it turned out, I shot 1,500 JPEG pictures but had to buy another 4 GB card toward the end of the trip. The D300 consumes little battery power so I only needed one battery, but having the other one along just in case, was comforting.

Knowing how much stuff to take along comes from experience not just in shooting but in your equipment. Some cameras eat batteries while others only sip a bit. Using a flash can suck the life out of batteries quickly, but I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've used a flash in the last year or two. Changing the ISO speed to match the lighting situation is much more effective and produces superior images, IMHO.

Having a good vibration reduction lens along with adjustments in ISO obviates the need for carrying a tripod. If you have the time and are so inclined, then a tripod can be helpful at times. But, so many photo ops on a vacation trip are fleeting moments that can be captured in the time it takes to set up a tripod.

Each evening, friends with whom we traveled downloaded my card along with theirs to their MacBook Pro laptop. I just kept everything on a card and downloaded once we got home. I could have downloaded to my iPad, I suppose.

[wincrasher]

Often times the best camera you can have is one that fits in a pocket.

I've taken thousands of pics with my Nikon S8100. It's a 12MP point and shoot with 10x optical zoom. Plenty of camera for most shots. Sometimes I just take pics with the iPhone, pretty crappy generally, but convenient and easy to post online almost instantly, or email to a friend.

In the camera, I use a 32 GB card. These are pretty cheap on Amazon. It can store about 4 thousand pics, I think. If I think I'll want to edit or upload on the trip, I carry a Macbook Air.

[aggie79]

I would not place myself in the "professional amateur" photographer category; however, I have been to Europe many times, and have taken PnS, SLR, and both. For us, overall we pack very light so that we can easily be on the move at all times. We don't usually have itinerary. So, this means that we now just take a PnS. Internet cares are still abundant so you can burn a disc if you want to transfer images, but we just take a few extra memory cards. Another bit of advice - enjoy your travels and don't focus on photography. Memories are often better than the photos.