Touring asia - gear checklist!

m0rte

m0rte

m0rte

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I heading out to asia in just over 2 weeks for a 2 month tour of China (+HK), Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand - Beijing to Bangkok
I'm relatively new to DSLRs as I only got my first DSLR, a Canon 400D, in April this year and I just wanted to get some advice on extra gear I might need before I go or stuff I can pick up in Hong Kong.

My kit so far:
Canon 400D (+kit lens which I probably wont be taking)
Tamron SP AF 17-50mm F2.8 XR
Canon EFS 55-250mm IS
2x 4GB Sandisk extreme III CF cards
2x battery (official canon + cheap Canon)
UV + Polarizing filters
LowePro Rezo 160 AW shoulder bag which nicely fits all the above mentioned gear but won't fit anything else. Not taking a camera backpack since i'll have a large travel backpack with all my clothes.
Going to buy a monopod this week, my tripod is a big too big.

I'll be staying in hotels mostly and should have access to computers in most places so i'm taking a 250GB USB portable hard drive for backups.
Will probably buy 1-2 more memory cards and batteries if I find a good store out there but is there anything else you guys would recommend?

This is going to be a pretty epic journey for me so I want to snap as many memories as possible :D
 
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Most internet cafes they have card media readers so you can usually upload pics as well. Although I have heard it can be slow upload speeds.

I'll be in Thailand from 4th September for a month. Might see ya there :)
 
I'd take more batteries and more CF cards.

For two months I'd take either 100GB in CF cards or get something like the Epson P2000.

The rest seems fine.

Blackvault
 
Yeah think I might order an 8GB CF and another battery, doubt i'll fill more memory then that between backups if i'm shooting in HQ L mostly and only the odd RAW
 
battery grip just incase you run out of juice you can use rechargable AA's
 
yer same about cards even to the point of just grabbing some cheap crappy ones for back up did this on my trip to rome to nice high speed and 2 lame ones ok not good for speed but grate to use for something cheap till you can get to a computer,

and same will battery's my friend only had one in his k10d i had 2 in mine with the grip one of my battery's packed in and the other hadn't charged right so i had more stuff but still ran out of power so take 2x on everything if you can.
 
Cleaning gear! consider a hurricane type blower (for sensor) and a lens pen for glass. Accessories are cheap in HK esp memory card. 2 batteries are plenty for me usually but if you need more maybe easier from say 7daysshop.com. Good luck.

No buying or selling outside of the MM....
 
The Wife and I did a month in Cambodia and Thailand last year and my advice would be...

I would take a backup device that you can dump the CF's to without using a computer, you might find that some of the Hotels "computers" a little lacking, and if you are out of the way some of the hotels we stayed in whilst in Cambodia where "the best in town" and had no computer access.

I would also dump the 55-250 and take a ultra wide, we never once wanted a longer lens than the 17-85IS, but where often fighting for the 10-20.

This is the list of what we took,

EOS40D (me)
EOS400D (wife)
Spare battery each
24-85 f3.5-4.5
17-85 IS f4.5-5.6
Sigma 10-22 f4.5-5.6
2x2GB and 2x4GB Extreme III's
Nexto OTG w/128GB hard drive (dumps CF's (adapters available for other card types) to disk - no edit or review, just cheap and reliable). We dropped 4500 photos to the disk in *** month we where away (though there where two of us).
Solar charger with loads of adapters (we used a freeloader)
UV filter for each lens and a polariser for each size mount.

no special backpacks, everything fits in the rucksacks we carry everything else in (water/guides/raincoats/wallets/passport etc) or it doesn't come.

no tripod/monopd - we where on honeymoon, not on a National Geographic photo expedition.

Things I learned.
Take a compact point and shoot camera. There where too many occasions when I wanted a camera that was not an SLR type - usually going out at night to bars and such.
The 17-85 IS an excellent focal range, but it's not a very good lens unless stopped down. The 25-85 is far better optically, though it's not quite wide enough on a 1.6 crop.

The sun out there is really strong so.... Shoot RAW all the time and forget any jpegs (we both shot RAW+jpeg most of the time), the RAW is really usefull when you come home and need to try to recover images that have blown highlights, the jpegs just eat up space. If you are happy about the amount of storage you have, then also shoot jpeg. you can print these locally and show them around if you want.

Get a shade for each lens you are taking. They take the first knock and even help against some sun :)

We had no problems with dusty sensors, but we made sure that changing lenses was kept to a minimum, and we both had fairly "standard" ranges. We did take lens cleaning cloth and a microfibre cleaning cloth.

The only thing I would change in the gear we took would be different (better) lenses. a 24-105ef IS F4 and a 17-55efs IS F2.8 would replace the two standard lenses we took.

Have a great trip... and take a raincoat, it's going to rain a lot in the next two months in Cambodia / Vietnam / Thailand.
 
I spent two months in India and Nepal last year. I took:

EOS350D
18-55mm Kit lens
Canon 50mm f1.8
Peleng 8mm fisheye
12Gb of CF
5 batteries
Battery Charger

I have a Tamron 17-50mm now so would probably take that instead of the kit lens and 50mm prime.

My best photos where the portraits taken by the 50mm and landscapes taken by the 8mm fisheye. Some of the one from the kit lens where ok, but didn't stand out as much as from the other lens'

I always shot in RAW because of the ability to post process, white ballance, exposure etc. Whenever I filled up 9Gb I would go to an internet cafe and download them all to DVD's. Then wipe the cards and start again. I brought a 3rd Party battery charger because it was smaller and lighter than the canon one.

Occasionally something longer than 50mm would have been nice, but I don't really do much tele stuff so prefered the less wait especially while Trekking.

Make sure your travel insurance covers your Camera stuff!!!
 
I really want a 10-22mm now but don't think I can afford one :( maybe I can pick one up cheap in Hong kong :D
Got worldwide Photoguard insurance sorted :cool:
 
m0rte said:
I heading out to asia in just over 2 weeks for a 2 month tour of China (+HK), Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand - Beijing to Bangkok
I'm relatively new to DSLRs as I only got my first DSLR, a Canon 400D, in April this year and I just wanted to get some advice on extra gear I might need before I go or stuff I can pick up in Hong Kong.

My kit so far:
Canon 400D (+kit lens which I probably wont be taking)
Tamron SP AF 17-50mm F2.8 XR
Canon EFS 55-250mm IS
2x 4GB Sandisk extreme III CF cards
2x battery (official canon + cheap Canon)
UV + Polarizing filters
LowePro Rezo 160 AW shoulder bag which nicely fits all the above mentioned gear but won't fit anything else. Not taking a camera backpack since i'll have a large travel backpack with all my clothes.
Going to buy a monopod this week, my tripod is a big too big.

I'll be staying in hotels mostly and should have access to computers in most places so i'm taking a 250GB USB portable hard drive for backups.
Will probably buy 1-2 more memory cards and batteries if I find a good store out there but is there anything else you guys would recommend?

This is going to be a pretty epic journey for me so I want to snap as many memories as possible :D
Click to expand...

Where's your image dump?? ;)

They can be hard dirt cheap. I think mine was ~£25 (Digimate) then shove any 2.5" hd in it. I have a 80gb, not that I'll EVER fill it on a trip!
 
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I have a 250GB WD passport portable USB HDD - can I just buy an enclosure with CF reader and stick the drive from the WD into that?
Whats the enclosure called so I know what to search for?
 
There is one obvious thing missing from your list ....meeee, take me with you, it sounds like a fantastic trip.
 
You'll already know this, be careful what you photo too. In China, guards questioned what I was carrying near a government building. Tin of Tesco shortbread. Bring a compact digital camera too. I would travel as light as possible, especially in humid climates.

Capture memories on your camera and in your mind. Dont worry too much about equipment you wish for. oh, and have a safe trip!
 
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