Today’s Post by Joe Farace
“One’s destination is never a place, but a new way of seeing things.” – Henry Miller
Just in case your momma didn’t already tell you, whenever you travel be sure to bring comfortable (and appropriate) shoes, a hat, and depending on the climate, sunscreen. Another important travel necessity is comfortable underwear. I’m unable recommend anything for female photographers but Ex Officio’s Give-N-Go men’s underwear can’t be beat for comfort during a long airline trip and the company does have many items for women as well.
A collapsible umbrella that easily slips inside your camera bag is a good idea as is a rain cover for your camera. Op/Tech USA Rainsleeves are hard to beat for what they do—protect your gear—and their price. Rainsleeves fold up so they are easy to pack but if you forget to buy or pack one, an alternative is sometime available in many hotel rooms for free! For some reason they are are labeled “shower cap” and provide great protection for your camera when the going gets wet. Some hotels provide nice little boxes with the caps, so I usually keep one in my camera bag for soggy days.
Don’t forget batteries and a charger. But before plugging anything electronic into an outlet in a foreign country, make sure the current requirements of your charger and the outlet are compatible. Research the power situation at your destination and if you need a converter visit Magellan’s to find a converter to save you from frying those batteries and maybe the charger too.
The other side of image capture is on-the-go storage. Here you have some alternatives: You can copy images to your laptop computer’s hard drive then back them up to disk/disc later. I prefer external storage.These days some laptops have relatively small capacity hard drives, so I usually travel with one of Western Digital’s My Passport portable drives and download each day’s take onto it.
When I get back home, I plug the My Passport Studio drive into my computer and copy the files onto my hard drive. Because I am a “belt and suspenders kind of guy”—I learned it from my Dad—I’ll also burn a DVD of all the images I made during the trip that to be kept in cold storage. Just in case…
How I Made this photo: I shot this image of what I think is a department store one night while I was visiting the Akihabara ares of Tokyo. It was made using a Canon EOS Digital Rebel with an EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 lens (at 18mm) with an exposure of 1/5 sec at f/16 and ISO 400. And if you ever get to Akihabara and are a person, like me, who has a sweet tooth, visit The Ringer Hut (if it’s still there) for the most amazing donuts on the planet.
Along with photographer Barry Staver, I’m co-author of Better Available Light Digital Photography that’s available new from Amazon with used copies selling at the giveaway price of around five bucks.