Please equip me for my trip!

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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?

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

 

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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?

 

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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?

 

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

 

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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

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?

 

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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 )

 

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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

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

Anyone? Sorry for the daft question!

 

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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