Travel tips?

Inquisitor · 18 Jun 2009 at 19:50

I'm going to the north of India in July for 5 weeks or so with a few friends and will obviously be taking my camera – I've never been on an extended trip like this so I'm after some advice

My current kit is:

D80
Nikon 18-200mm
Nikon 35mm f/1.8
Sigma 10-20mm
1 battery
8GB card
A smallish Lowepro shoulder bag

I'll need a bigger bag as the Lowepro one doesn't fit the body and all three lenses in it, but I'm not sure what to get. I'm going to be taking a 65 litre backpack with me (which will start off half empty), so it'll live in there most of the time, though I'd like it to be accessible for emergency photo opportunities. I'll also obviously need a load more cards as 8GB will be gone in no time

Can anyone offer any advice on what to take with me or just anything I should know? Non-photography-related advice also welcome!

Thanks!

diverse180 · 19 Jun 2009 at 09:45

If you have one, take a little compact with you and just keep it in your pocket (keep an eye on it though, if you know what I mean

)

India is a fantastic place and very fast moving, so having a compact ready to go at all times is a good idea

greedy123 · 19 Jun 2009 at 09:48

get another memory card. in 5 weeks i'd fill 10 8gb cards lol! also take a spare battery.

dekez · 19 Jun 2009 at 09:55

India is a beautiful place, but very intense. It all depends where you go but be prepared for a lot of poverty, if you've never been before it can be a bit of a shock.

Amp34 · 19 Jun 2009 at 10:17

Get some lens cases instead of a bag, or even just wrap them up in clothes (what i do). Also giottos do a small tripod (less than a kg and only 30 or so cm long when packed) for 25 quid, maybe worth getting (i used it for my coast path walks and its pretty good). use raw instead of raw and jpeg, saves about a third of the space, and lots of spare batteries too, kerso should do them for around 8 quid each.

aztechnology · 19 Jun 2009 at 10:22

Spare battery,
Extra Memory Card
A Hard drive to dump cards to.
Some way of charging everything that need it.

Don't take as many lenses, I think they just get in the way - especially when travelling out of a backpack. Take two.
Take a compact. I've made the mistake of not doing so, and regretted it.

I'm not sure how you will be travelling with the your stuff (big pack included), but I like to carry camera kit in a tatty old rucksack, rather than a "look at my expensive stuff" bag. You need to give some thought to the fact you might be travelling in a poor area, carrying effectively a families income for 2 years around your neck. I've never had trouble, but I don't invite it.

sid · 19 Jun 2009 at 10:31

If you gonna be doing serious shooting in RAW every day then I'd suggest around 50gb in memory cards. I went on a 2 week one to peru and took 20gb in memory cards. The cheaper ones off ebay are fine tbh.

sid

Inquisitor · 19 Jun 2009 at 13:46

Thanks for tips. I have compact, so I'll take that. It's not a brilliant specimen but I guess it'll do the job.

aztechnology said:
Spare battery,
Extra Memory Card
A Hard drive to dump cards to.
Some way of charging everything that need it.

What would you suggest in the way of hard drives? Also, I'm not sure how easy it'll be to charge things when I'm there; we'll be staying in a fairly remote village for a couple of weeks and then travelling around in the north for 3 weeks after that, with some trekking involved. I've been thinking about getting a solar charger but I don't know how useful/cost-effective that'll be.

aztechnology said:
Don't take as many lenses, I think they just get in the way - especially when travelling out of a backpack. Take two.
Take a compact. I've made the mistake of not doing so, and regretted it.

I don't think space in the backpack will be an issue, so I am tempted to take all three; they'll certainly all have their uses when I'm there. Not sure about it yet though.

aztechnology said:
I'm not sure how you will be travelling with the your stuff (big pack included), but I like to carry camera kit in a tatty old rucksack, rather than a "look at my expensive stuff" bag. You need to give some thought to the fact you might be travelling in a poor area, carrying effectively a families income for 2 years around your neck. I've never had trouble, but I don't invite it.

Yeah, security was one thing I'm a little worried about. I don't want to have an expensive looking camera bag visible too often, so like I said it'll stay in my backpack most of the time and only come out when I wantto use it I expect.

Would small padlocks for the zips be a good idea too if I'm travelling in poorer areas of large cities?

Phate · 19 Jun 2009 at 13:48

I'd take lots of bubble wrap

Inquisitor · 19 Jun 2009 at 14:03

Amp34 said:
Get some lens cases instead of a bag, or even just wrap them up in clothes (what i do). Also giottos do a small tripod (less than a kg and only 30 or so cm long when packed) for 25 quid, maybe worth getting (i used it for my coast path walks and its pretty good). use raw instead of raw and jpeg, saves about a third of the space, and lots of spare batteries too, kerso should do them for around 8 quid each.

Thanks, I'll look into that tripod. I have a Gorillapod SLR Zoom too, which I'm going to take.

As for lens cases\clothes, that's probably a good idea. I have their original bags/cases anyway so I'll use those and wrap them up a bit more.

Amp34 · 19 Jun 2009 at 14:30

The tripod is a Giottos GB1060 (have a look on everybodies favorite rainforest). The tripod itself is a proper one, and almost certainly far sturdier than the gorillapod, although it can't be wrapped round things, which means the low height can be a pain.

As for number of cards, pace yourself with your images, try and compose your shot and only get one and at most 2 of everything you want, then review in camera and remove ones that don't work. It can be a bit difficult deleting what is a perfectly mediocre photo but you want to keep space or the superb photos. I try and limit myslef to 50 a day on average, which means a 4GB card last up to 8 days, saving lots of money on cards. It also means when you get back you don't have to wade through thousands of images, and I find that my keepers (display on the web) go through the roof, from arond 2-3% to 10-20%.

aztechnology · 19 Jun 2009 at 14:44

I'm not sure about Hard drives on the market at the moment, but for a honeymoon trip of a month to SE Asia 2 years ago, we took a Nexto OTG, which is just a cheap battery powered laptop drive enclosure with enough control to dump a CF card to the drive. It was pretty cheap, but we didn't want to spend the extra money to get a fancy one with a screen.

We took a solar charger with enough adapters for everything we needed, though we only needed to rely on it once i think, as we found power in all but 2 places we stayed. We made sure we minimised power usage, by not reviewing images after the fact and not deleting anything on camera (uses batteries quickly). We still drained a battery about every other day. We used a solar charger that charged an internal battery and then you can charge off that.

Taking lots of lens is nearly always a bind (for me). We took 3 lenses between us for 2 DSLRs, a sigma 10-20, canon 17-85 and canon 24-85. We never really needed anything longer, and the walk-a-rounds where on most of the time.

One of the problems with making stuff secure is that it makes you a target. Only you (or someone who has been before) can determin what you need, and how you feel comfortable. In the end we make sure we are insured and take the risk by not looking too secure. Mind you, we still stick out as "rich westerners", so far we have got a way with it.

Secure zips are a good idea against casual theft, but so is keeping an eye out in those situations.

Inquisitor · 20 Jun 2009 at 09:14

aztechnology said:
I'm not sure about Hard drives on the market at the moment, but for a honeymoon trip of a month to SE Asia 2 years ago, we took a Nexto OTG, which is just a cheap battery powered laptop drive enclosure with enough control to dump a CF card to the drive. It was pretty cheap, but we didn't want to spend the extra money to get a fancy one with a screen.

I'm not too bothered about having lots of features, so I'll look into that – thanks!

aztechnology said:
We took a solar charger with enough adapters for everything we needed, though we only needed to rely on it once i think, as we found power in all but 2 places we stayed. We made sure we minimised power usage, by not reviewing images after the fact and not deleting anything on camera (uses batteries quickly). We still drained a battery about every other day. We used a solar charger that charged an internal battery and then you can charge off that.

Which charger did you use, and how much was it? There seems to be quite a range of them available.

aztechnology said:
One of the problems with making stuff secure is that it makes you a target. Only you (or someone who has been before) can determin what you need, and how you feel comfortable. In the end we make sure we are insured and take the risk by not looking too secure. Mind you, we still stick out as "rich westerners", so far we have got a way with it.

Good point; I'll take that into consideration!

diverse180 · 20 Jun 2009 at 10:10

Don't worry too much about security o.k...I'm sure you'll be fine

I spent quite a while in India, with a couple of grands worth of kit on my back, and I never had any problems, at all. To be honest though I used my compacts most of the time, so don't overload yourself with equipment o.k