Please equip me for my trip!

Scam · 28 Jul 2006 at 18:12

So as some of you might remember i'm off to NZ, Oz and Asia for 6 weeks come September and with my new-ish D50 i'm looking at doing a fair amount of photography. I've already had some advice about a decent bag, now i'm after all the little bits that might improve my results.

Unfortunately i cant afford a nice wide-angle for all those lovely NZ landscapes, so i've been wondering about getting a filter (or a few depending on price). I havent got much of a clue on what would be a good buy, but i've read about polarisers and it seems they might aid me somewhat. So, for a guy with a D50 and kit lens, err.. what should i be looking at? I cant really make sense of any of the stuff on offer at any online stores.

I also love the effect a Grad-ND filter puts on, if i were to get one what should i be looking at? :confused:

I'd also like to get a spare battery and possible another 1gig memory card (i only have one atm). So, what the hell battery do i need for my D50? Would i be better off waiting until i get to Hong Kong to get these -- as that is my first stop.

Thanks for any advice

cyKey · 28 Jul 2006 at 18:19

Get as much memory as you can. I took 20gb of photos during my 3 weeks in Toronto. Another photographer I know took 30gb during his 2 weeks in France / Italy. Stock up on that

A polarizer would be a good idea too. It will deepen blue skies and remove the glare from the sun on most things.

sunlitsix · 28 Jul 2006 at 18:24

if you are planning on taking lots of photos, would be able to take a laptop?
just an idea so you can transfer a days photos onto the laptop so you have an empty card for the next day

Scam · 28 Jul 2006 at 18:37

cyKey said:
Get as much memory as you can. I took 20gb of photos during my 3 weeks in Toronto. Another photographer I know took 30gb during his 2 weeks in France / Italy. Stock up on that A polarizer would be a good idea too. It will deepen blue skies and remove the glare from the sun on most things.

Yeah, i know storage is going to be a problem, but unfortunately myself nor any of my travelling buddies have a laptop to take. I'm going to have to rely on Internet cafes to burn my pics to CD or something! I'm certainly not expecting my 1gig card to do me for 6 weeks!

I've been taking a few test shots in JPG - fine setting on my D50 and medium resolution. Seems to be absolutely fine and with those settings i can get 507 shots to my memory card.

Could i have a bit more detail about the polarizer filter please? What size do i need for my kit lens? Is there a big difference between circular and normal? A big difference between the Nikon £124 one and the Hoya £24 one?

cyKey · 28 Jul 2006 at 18:50

The Hoya one will be fine. I'm not sure on the size of the Nikon lens you have. It might say on the front. Get a circular one so you can adjust it.

Scam · 28 Jul 2006 at 19:01

cyKey said:
The Hoya one will be fine. I'm not sure on the size of the Nikon lens you have. It might say on the front. Get a circular one so you can adjust it.

Aha, silly me. On the inside of the lens cap it says "LC-52 - 52mm" so i guess i want that then?

And a circular polariser as opposed to a linear for better results?

cyKey · 28 Jul 2006 at 19:15

Scam said:
Aha, silly me. On the inside of the lens cap it says "LC-52 - 52mm" so i guess i want that then? And a circular polariser as opposed to a linear for better results?

Yeah.

Broadbandplacey · 28 Jul 2006 at 22:28

are you taking an ipod photo or video?

if you or someone in your party is, the £19 camera connector is very good and does what it says on the tin

will solve your storage problems as long as it's not too full of music

bigredshark · 28 Jul 2006 at 23:16

Broadbandplacey said:
are you taking an ipod photo or video?

if you or someone in your party is, the £19 camera connector is very good and does what it says on the tin

will solve your storage problems as long as it's not too full of music

it will, but downloading a 1GB compact flash card will flatten the battery of your ipod, which isn't great, cheap for what it is though. the other option is somehting like the epson p2000 (£300 or so)

Scam · 28 Jul 2006 at 23:56

Hmn i dont have a video iPod but i've got a regular one. :\

Scam · 29 Jul 2006 at 12:37

Ok sorry just wanted to check this battery would be ok before i buy;

Ansmann Lithium-ion EN-EL3 (Nikon) 1300mAh £24.99
Equivalent to Nikon EN-EL 3

My battery is a EN-EL3a, just wanted to check if theres any difference :confused:

I've also hunted around online for some comparisons of shots with a CP and without, without much luck. I think i need to see a few more just before i can tell myself that spending £55 on camera accessories even before i've left the country is a good idea

So has anyone got any links pretty please?

jhmaeng · 30 Jul 2006 at 01:18

Scam said:
My battery is a EN-EL3a, just wanted to check if theres any difference

I've also hunted around online for some comparisons of shots with a CP and without, without much luck. I think i need to see a few more just before i can tell myself that spending £55 on camera accessories even before i've left the country is a good idea So has anyone got any links pretty please?

1. Different strokes for different folks, but if there is less than £15 difference between the genuine battery and a compatible battery, I'd always go for the genuine one. However good the compatible one may be, there's no need to unnecessarily increase the number of things that can go wrong, especially on a long trip

2. Circular Polarizer (well, polarizers in general) have a specific effect that is very noticeable. They basically cut down a lot of reflections off the reflected surfaces (window, water surface, etc) and also improve the "blueness" of the sky because a lot of reflected (stray?) light is eliminated from the sky.

3. You can get PSDs (Portable Storage Devices) that will allow you to dump the card's content onto the built-in hard disk of the PSD, freeing up your card for the new batch of photos. Think of it as a 2.5 inch external hard disk, with a built-in battery and a CF slot. They vary a lot in price depending on whether they have a display, what size hard disk they have inside etc, but lots of discussions on dpreview and other forums that you can check out.

4. Things like filters will most likely be much cheaper in Hong Kong, so I'd wait till arriving there to buy the filters (but really only for the best ones like B+W or Hoya HMC etc - the rest won't be expensive enough to have a huge difference in price)

5. If you do manage to find a way to dump data on the trip, I'd strongly suggest taking the photos in RAW+JPEG - you're only going to be there once (unless you go again), and shooting in RAW+JPEG will allow you to 1. view the photos immediately in full size with the JPEG as usual but 2. also leave you with the RAW files that leave a lot more room for mistakes with things like exposure (highlight recovery, better for pushing exposure etc).

Scam · 30 Jul 2006 at 12:14

Thanks for the info. I hadnt actually heard of the PSDs but at a quick glance they're way out of my price range

I'm very much on a budget at the moment, which brings me to my next question.

I'm looking at spending £30 on a basic Hoya CP, £25 on a second basic Kingston 1GB SD card, and £30 on a spare battery. Considering i'm going for the budget stuff (i simply cant afford anything else, all my money is going on the trip itself), would there be a worthwhile saving if i were to get all that in Hong Kong? It is our first stop which is useful, but i dont want to end up wasting away a day whilst trying to shop over there if it's only gonna save me a tenner or so. We're only there for 4 days!

It's gonna be tough to decide what to shoot in. The difference between getting ~960 shots on JPG at medium resolution (which looks fine on screen as long as i get the shot right) or 137 with RAW is just staggering. I doubt very much i'll be looking at getting anything printed, although if i were to get a great shot it could be worthwhile. I wondering if that should affect my decision. How big can you print a 2256x14xx image anyway?

(i'm still looking for with/without comparisons of Polarizers to persuade me

)

Scam · 3 Aug 2006 at 20:17

Sorry for shameless bump, i earned myself a bit of money in the past few days so i think i'm gonna buy up some of this gear i wanted

Scam said:
Ok sorry just wanted to check this battery would be ok before i buy;

Ansmann Lithium-ion EN-EL3 (Nikon) 1300mAh £24.99
Equivalent to Nikon EN-EL 3

Click to expand...

My battery is a EN-EL3a, just wanted to check if theres any difference

Anyone? Sorry for the daft question!

jhmaeng · 3 Aug 2006 at 21:52

No, no difference between the EL3a and EL3, except EL3a being slightly higher capacity. It's only the D200 that specifically needs the EN-EL3e, because of the battery gauge feature.

I must still repeat my point though - unless it's a huge price difference, it's better to go for the Nikon genuine version. How about waiting until you get to HK - I think they should be around £40 or less in HK, which makes it less than £15 in price difference.

Also, you'll find that the battery usually lasts absolutely ages unless 1. you're using a lens with VR (not in your case), or 2. you're using the onboard flash very frequently. I'd be very surprised if you run down the battery with normal use in less than 3 days. (Presumably you're going to have a power source to recharge battery with regular intervals, aren't you?)

And going back to my point about getting a PSD - looking at the latest Amateur Photographer magazine, you can get the most basic model for £100 or so, which includes a 40GB hard disk. If you can spare the extra £60 over getting a 2nd SD card, I'd definitely go for the PSD route. (The two models were Jobo Giga One 40GB, and Vosonic XS Drive 2XL 40GB - both £100).

Finally, the RAW vs. JPG Medium Normal debate? I dunno. Personally, I don't think it's a good idea to take pictures during a rare trip in the file size that will only allow you to share online and maybe print 4x6 - what if you really really love one of the pictures and want to print a huge poster from it? You wouldn't have the choice after you've saved it as a Medium Normal...

Scam · 4 Aug 2006 at 19:50

Thanks for the advice. I think half a day spent in HK looking at electronics wouldnt be the worst idea for my two travelling companions so i think what i'm going to do is buy my CP filter so i can get used to it and possibly use it for the odd photo on the plane

p ) or whatever, then wait until HK for a spare battery and probably another memory card. One of those PSDs would be fantastic but i really dont think it would be wise to spend that amount of money right now. It would be perfect though

We're not trekking into the wilderness really so finding a net cafe and burning photos to CD should be fine. A pain, but it should do the trick. Which brings me to another question.. assuming i go to a net cafe which obviously wont have Nikon Picture Project installed, if it's running (hopefully) XP and i plug in my camera will it just appear as an external drive? Then i can manually copy/cut the files over onto the hard-drive to burn to disc?

As for the RAW/JPG.. you've convinced me to stay at maximum resolution. Getting a decent photo worthy of hanging on the wall then finding i cant print it big enough would be gutting. Maybe i'll stick with JPG for wandering about but in the NZ landscapes or other places where it's worthy of RAW i will switch. The wonders of digital eh

jhmaeng · 4 Aug 2006 at 23:26

Scam said:
Which brings me to another question.. assuming i go to a net cafe which obviously wont have Nikon Picture Project installed, if it's running (hopefully) XP and i plug in my camera will it just appear as an external drive? Then i can manually copy/cut the files over onto the hard-drive to burn to disc?

That would work, assuming it's WXP. Otherwise, if you get a card reader (Card readers are generally advisable anyway - much better for me than connecting to the camera directly, because it's much faster and less likely to go wrong) then you can connect the card reader to WXP/2000 with no drivers required and be recognized straight away.

As for the RAW/JPG.. you've convinced me to stay at maximum resolution. Getting a decent photo worthy of hanging on the wall then finding i cant print it big enough would be gutting. Maybe i'll stick with JPG for wandering about but in the NZ landscapes or other places where it's worthy of RAW i will switch. The wonders of digital eh

That's what I would do. Also, you can review the shots on camera (again, wonders of digital

) so that you can always delete the duffers after you've taken them. The advantage of RAW (particularly with landscape shots) is that RAW files retain a lot more information from the shot whereas a JPG is basically final. For example, you can often recover blown highlights (white-out) by adjusting the exposure with the RAW program, whereas the same on a JPG will be final and no more information can be recovered than what's shown on the picture.