A Journey of a Thousand Miles

Well as a quick reminder, check your import location each and every time you import files into lightroom. I didn’t. For some reason lightroom decided it was going to reset itself to the default import location in “myphotos” not where I usually store them. Now I will have to spend the next hour locating photos manually and chaning where the catalog points to. Thankfully it is not all that hard, just time consuming. So just a reminder, double check things before you do them even if you have done them many times before without consiquence.

Photographically speaking the trip had it’s ups and downs. The gear I was using for the most part  held up brilliantly. I am very pleased with the quality of images from the new 50D. Though I was shocked at how big the files really are out of this camera and how much memory was needed to compensate. I took with me nearly (correction from previous posts where I said 20GB) nearly 40GB of memory and shot nearly all of this.

I also took 4 batteries with me. Usually this is more than enough by a factor of two. Four batteries will usually last me minimum of four days of shooting between charges and while I have never been in a situation that put me longer than four days between charges, this trip was nearly a challenge to this. However, not because charges were not available but because they are so expensive that one stops to think twice about charging batteries at the end of the day. Charges are so expensive in fact that a single battery charge in the mountains, will buy an aftermarket battery back home. Done differently I would have taken two extra batteries (a total of six) with me. I would rather pay the money and have an extra battery in my bag than have to pay $10 for a single battery charge.

One of the other pieces of gear that I experienced problems with on the trip was the  Foto File Traveler AW T-1 camera bag that I had been using for a number of years prior to the trip. To be honest I didn’t really know what I was getting into in the way of gear I would be having to carry personally. I found out the first day that the porters were far fitter than our group and had a tendency to be either way behind (talking with friends and family) or way ahead. This meant that I had to carry all of the gear that I wanted to use in the day myself.  This meant that I was carrying two camera bodies, five lenses, filters, batteries memory cards and other bits and bobs of camera gear. I also had to carry a jacket two liters of water and other things that I would need during the day. I had many of these strapped to the outside of the bag because the bag simply did not have enough room to accommodate everything. Long story short the bag failed. One of the shoulder straps began to rip off at the seam half way through the trip, and at the bottom three quarters of the way through. Thankfully the bag made it to the end of the trip in tack, only on the last day once we were back in Kathmandu did the strap finally break fully. I was not a problem but it could have potentially been a big problem, had it happened at the start of the trip, carrying that much gear on one shoulder would have been a nightmare. Not to mention putting twice the load on the other remaining strap.

The bag also failed to stand up to half a day of medium heavy snow. The in pack rain cover was quickly soaked through. Thankfully I had a dry bag with me which I placed over the bag to keep the snows from soaking through the pack. However the straps as such that they absorb water and send it dripping down into the top of the pack. My gear got a thorough soaking that day, thankfully the gear stood up to the soaking far better than the pack did.

So I guess I will be in search of a new pack in the next few months. I am not in too much of a hurry because I don’t have travel planed that will require more gear than the Lowepro Inverse AW100 that I am using for short day and weekend shooting. I have been hearing a lot of good things about Thinktank and Lowepro bags lately but I still have not completely discounted Fotofile. Their bags have shown a lot of improvement in the few years since I had purchased this bag. The quality and craftsmanship has gone way up, so they are not off the list just yet.

Monkey before the eyes at Monkey Temple, Kathmandu

I returned from the Nepal trip nearly two months ago now and I have been more than a little lax in my posting lately. Opon my return, I immediately started a new job at the University of Chiang Mai, I love the job but it is quite a time commitment. The up side is, there is a lot of time off and the University is very good about me taking extra time off when needed. My apologies for the lack of posts lately.

Photographically speaking the trip was a mixed bag, some things went really well others offered more challenges than I had expected. I took a lot of photos during the trip, close to the full 20GB that I brought with me and some of the images I am very happy with while others I missed.  I think my biggest let down this trip was of photographing Mt. Everest. The mountain was covered with cloud for most of the trip and from all of the view points that we hiked to. The one exception was on the last day that we were to see Everest.

The original plan was to hike up Kalipatar early in the morning because our guide has said that this offered the best chance to catch Mt.Everest with no cloud cover. We set out at about six thirty but by the time we reached the summit of Katlipatar clouds had completely obscured the view. Not to mention the howling wind that blew through us chilling us to the bone.  Despite my earnest desire to stay and wait for better weather and conditions, I simply could not. Our group had to back off to the relative warmth of the valley below. That afternoon we watched the small sliver of Mt.Everest that would have been visible if clouds had not been obscuring it. All afternoon, nothing was visible.

At 7:00 I decided that I would abandon all hope of getting a good shot of Everest and decided to simply spend the remainder of the  day in the lodge. Just as the sun was going down and the light was getting good, the small band of cloud that had been hiding Mt.Everest all day, evaporated, leaving the mountain bathed in the last beautiful rays of the day. Unfortunately by this point I was still drinking tea in the lodge, and had not made the hour and a half trip to a higher vantage point where Everest would have been fully visible. The only photos that I was able to get were of the peak of Everest sticking out behind Mt. Nuptste.

I am quite fond of this photo but still wish I had managed to capture the full view of Mt.Everest. A quick browse through flickr or google images and you will see what I mean. The Everest with white fluffy clouds (but not the ones that cover the mountain) and the deep blue saturated skies is one of the images that I had set out to capture this trip. I think to do that I would need a few more days at Gorakshep, just camping and waiting for the right combination of weather, light and place.

In reaction to an upcoming trip to Nepal I have succumbed and purchased a Canon 50D my previous camera, a Canon 350D was getting on in years and with more than 50,000 shots on the clock it is breaking into the range of potential problems. Not something I want to deal with when I am in the heart of the Himalayas and thousands of miles from the nearest camera store. I had not initially been swayed by the 50D’s extra mega pixel count or the ISO boost offered over the 40D. The 50D offered a number of features that I wanted in a camera but at a cost $500 more than the 40D. I was ready to sink my money into the 40D but when I waled into the store with money in hand, I found out that the 50D had dropped in price by $200 a difference of $300 was enough to sway me toward the 50D.

So what do I think of the camera? I won’t go into a full review that has already been done, in far more depth and far better then I ever could. What I will say is that the 50D is a joy to use. The buttons are all in the right places, the menu is easy to navigate and the camera, unlike the 350D does not feel too small in my hands.
Image quality has so far been a bit confusing, with huge file sizes it is very hard to make judgements on noise. The camera seems to have a bit more noise than the 350D at similar ISOs. However when viewing photos you have to keep in mind that the file sizes are huge and the noise levels at similar file sizes is much better. The noise also has a very soft feel and looks much better than digital noise I am use to. It looks very similar to film grain and has a very appealing effect.

The other thing I was surprised by was how few shots I got from the camera. The huge files sizes also function to reducing a 4gb cf card to 180 or so shots. This means that extended shoots with this camera will need a lot more memory than I had previously been using.

So far I have been very pleased with this camera and I imagine that I will be pleased for years to come as I tend to hold on to bodies for much longer than the current market cycle.

One thing that has been reinforced by this purchase is how little quality difference is made by an upgrade of bodies in comparison to and upgrade in lenses. When I traded my 70-300 f4-5.6 lens for the 200mm f 2.8 L, the jump in image quality was unbelievable.  I would highly recommend getting good glass before getting concerned that the newest camera has five more mega pixels or a boost in ISO.

Ok I know this is a bit off topic but it is really interesting to see what has become a national icon, the Obama pictures being recreated into something completely different while still using the same slogan. It really speaks for itself so I don’t think I need to say that much about it. Other than pointing out how powerful an image can really be.

It is also availible as a shirt and all proceeds will be in support of charity.

Art Wolfe along with PBS and Canon have also produced a wonderful series called “Travels To The Edge”. The series follows Art Wolfe as he travels and photographs around the world and spends a good deal of time talking about photography tecniques to maximize the quality of images taken. I have only had the priveledge of watching the first season as sadly I don’t get PBS in Thailand.  However the first season was more than enough to captivate me and make me want to watch more. The website is also a good place to pick up some smaller videos and tips from Art, as well as to view some of the spectacular photos that he has brought back from his unique travels.

Andaman Rising is a fantastic site that I keep coming back to time and time again. Full of wonderful photography and mulitmedia stories about lives in the south of Thailand. The stories focus on lives along the coastline that on December 2004 was struck by the tsunami that ended nearly 200,000 lives and affected countless others. Now five years on Andaman Rising documents the lives and the recovery of this wonderful region and its fantastic people.

Desktop.

As a gift for the new year, please help yourself to this high resolution desk top wall paper.  I hope you enjoy and I hope this photo brings the same solitude and sense of relaxed adventure I felt when sitting on the banks of the Mekong at sunset, taking this photo.

Just click on the photo to access the full resolution photos and then right click and choose the option “set as desktop background”.