Category Archives: Photography Lessons

Photography techniques.

Photography, Photography Lessons

Cameras! (Boring Gear Blog)

Warning: This particular blog is probably dull to all but the photo gear freaks out there.

I got two new spaceships, as my lovely Italian friend Irene would call them. I spent more money yesterday then I’ve ever spent before. As I’ve mentioned, I lost my great little Canon SD500 Digital camera. It’s been gone now for what seems like months and I’ve been missing it, especially shooting little movies with it and snaps of friends along the way. I’ve also heard about by dream camera being released, the Canon 5D. A full frame 12 MP SLR. I researched prices online at B&H Photo, and tried to figure out how much time & money it would cost me to ship them here. It would have ending up costing more (and would have been a huge customs headache) than if I just bought the stuff here, so I ended up finding the best pro camera shop in Bangkok and buying here! First of all, the Canon SD550 (IXUS 750). This this is truly a spaceship. It’s like a tiny computer with a lens and and 7.1 MP sensor. Even though I had it’s predecessor, I still needed to study the manual for over an hour and take notes. Insane. At 450.00, it’s not cheap. It can be found for under 400.00 back home. Now I can shoot videos again! Yeah!
Then there’s the dream camera. This is the camera I’ve been wanting since digital SLRs first came out: A full frame digital SLR. This is the third model released by Canon, and only the fourth one ever made by any company. Canon is definitely leading the way for digital SLRs. It’s also the first full frame SLR to be “affordable” as the others were closer to eight thousand dollars when they were first released. It’s basically a Canon 20D with a better sensor, so I am completely comfortable shooting with it. It’s also got a nice big review screen, which I am very happy about. It cost me about $3200.00. Scary. I hope it pays for itself before it’s replaced by something even better. I better get to work shooting some great photos! Anyway, that price is about 150 dollars more that if I bought it in the USA. But the owner of this great camera store in Bangkok was so nice, I told him the price differences and he helped to make it up by giving me a free memory card and some lens/body protection bags. So ultimately, I’ve only paid about 100 dollars more for everything. Not bad at all actually. I was worried about not having a USA warranty…but then I realized I won’t be in the USA very much in the next year, so it doesn’t matter! Now I have two Digital SLRs and the great little pocket camera. I am totally set!
—-
My Photo Gear:
Canon 20D (x1.6 CMOS sensor)
Canon 5D (Full Frame CMOS sensor)
Canon 16-35mm 2.8L
Canon 50mm 1.4L
Canon 70-200mm 2.8L IS
5 batteries
6.5 GB worth of CF cards
(Range of Lenses:16mm-320mm at f2.8, up to 448mm at f4.0)
Canon SD550
2 batteries
1.5 GB worth of SD cards
—-
I don’t want to tell you what all of this is worth. I don’t even want to think about it.

My 20D has the 16-35mm lens on it (making it a 24-53mm), and the 5D has the 70-200mm on it, So I have just about everything covered from 24-200 at f2.8 without having to change lenses! I also have a 1.4 50mm lens, and a 1.4x extension for the 70-200mm. This is truly a dream kit. No more switching lenses all the time!!! It’s taken me 10 years, but I am finally really happy about my photo gear. Who wouldn’t be? If I want, I can also switch the lenses, and then I have from 16-35mm and 112-320mm. So, because it’s a full frame sensor, it’s also like I got 3 new lenses! The new camera addition obviously makes my bag a little heavier, but not by much. The 5D weights just a little more the the 20D, so it’s almost nothing compared to that insanely heavy 70-200 I’m hauling around. Hopefully this will allow me to get shots much faster. The last thing I need to figure out is my camera bag. It’s a great bag, a good size, but it’s not really designed to carry cameras and lenses around. My 50mm has been damaged from hauling it around, and is in repair here in Bangkok. I am thinking about how to tweak the bag almost every day, and now I am on a quest to find some plastic inserts to give the bag some better structure and cushion. Ok, sorry to bore you with my camera gear business. I am just so excited about my new gear! First thing I need to do is INSURE it! God help me if I get it stolen.

I am really enjoying Bangkok much more this time around. I still haven’t met anyone to hang out with, which I seem to have a problem with here, but I am actually liking the city much more now. Everything I need is here, and much of what I don’t need. Tomorrow night I will head down to Koh Lak for a diving adventure in the Similan Islands! Then I come back to Bangkok once again, and fly off to Burma! Please note, I will be COMPLETELY UNAVAILABLE for the entire month I am in Burma. There is NO email that I know of.
Greg

Personal, Photography, Photography Lessons, Travel

Things I’ve Lost

1 Comment

When you are traveling as long and moving as much as I am on this trip, you are bound to lose things. Everything you lose is important in some way, or you wouldn’t be carrying it, so it’s always painful to discover that you’ve lost even the smallest thing. When it’s a big thing that you’ve lost, it becomes that much more painful, especially if it’s difficult to replace and/or expensive. So, as a cathartic way for me to get over my losses, I am listing everything I’ve lost up to now, three months into my trip, listed roughly chronologically.

—-
My Journal. I lost it before I even got to Bangkok on the stopover in Taipai. Not a great way to start the trip. Fortunately only two days were written in it.

Vancouver baseball cap. The second thing I lost after my journal. Left it hanging behind a towel in a room, I think.

My Wallet. Don’t know how or where, but somewhere in Sihanoukville. Only 10 bucks in it, and it was falling apart anyway, so I wasn’t too upset.

My shark bag: Left on bus from Hanoi to Halong Bay.
I loved this bag. I’ve had it for years and I took it with me almost everywhere I went. I made this small bag from leftover silcone-nylon when I made all of my ultralight gear for Hawaii. II called it the “shark bag” because it had a small plastic shark attached to the drawcord. Inside was a collection of bits and pieces that I liked to have with me with regularly. Fortuntately for me, I had just slimmed it down for my trip to Halong Bay, where I only brought my daypack and my camera bag, so I only lost some dramamine, some band-aids, a blister kit, emergin-c, insect repellent, a lighter, earplugs, glass cleaner, lip balm, and some assorted drugs for pain/poops. It normally also contained my headlamp, swiss army knife, and my compass, all of which I would have been additionally bummed to lose. I’ve replaced it with a sandwich baggie that I’ve drawn a shark on.

Big red bandana. Lost in Vang Vien when I had a bag of laundry done and it was never returned to me. Remarkably, hard to replace here in Asia.

Red plastic carabineer. used it to hang my daypack on bus seatbacks. Lost on bus from Vang Vien to Luang Prabang.

A nice pen I bought in Vientianne. have no idea where or when exactly.

An almost brand new cell phone. Bought in in Saigon the end of October. Disappeared less than 2 months later sometime between leaving Luang Prabang by bus and coming back to Luang Prabang by boat 10 days later. Very irritating that I lost it so soon after buying it, I really liked it, and it wasn’t cheap.

A lens cap and a lens end cap while hiking in villages around Moung Ngoi.

Canon SD500 Digital Camera. Ouch. This one hurts. Lost on boat from Nong Kiow to Luang Prabang. I’m sad about this one. I loved this camera and all the images on the card are obviously also gone. Hopefully I can replace the camera in Bangkok. It too was almost brand new. I bought it in September just before my trip. I am hoping my travel insurance will cover it and the cell phone loss together, because combined, they are a considerable chunk of money, and there is a 200.00 deductible on every claim.

A 1000 Bhat note (worth about 25.00) Lost most recently in the night market in Luang Prabang. It must have fallen out of my pocket or something. Still a big mystery. This was my holiday spending money, so I’m still quite vexed about it’s disappearance.

It seems buses and boats tend to eat my stuff, so I must learn to be VERY careful about my gear when traveling by bus and boat. It’s very easy for gear to be jostled from pockets and seats and fall to the floor where they are often never seen again. Also, if you determine that you’ve lost the item after the bus or boat has left, you are almost guaranteed never to see them again, as the busses and boats aren’t reachable or identifiable once they’ve left, and, chances are, someone has already grabbed it anyway. Your stuff is gone gone gone. Take my word – be very careful of gear on boats and buses. I fairly certain that nothing I’ve lost was stolen, except perhaps that one red carabineer. Everything else has simply dropped away from me never to be seen again. It sucks. I don’t consider myself a clumsy or bumbling traveller nor overly burdened with luggage and gear, but here I am losing things left and right and I hate it. So, I have to try to be even more careful in the future. Here’s to not losing anything for the rest of the trip!

Things I THOUGHT I lost, but then found:

My digital camera

My ability to take a decent travel photo

My sunglasses

My SE Asia Phrase book

Things I’ve found:

Lots of friends

Cool culture

Great people

Unforgetable memories that I will probably forget by the time I reach India.

Photography, Photography Lessons, Portrait

Last Photo Test


I shot a test with two models yesterday. Shari Noble did the styling and Katie Maco did the hair & make up. We shot at Jive Time Records on Pine St. It was great fun! Everyone; the models, the parents, the people at Jive Time, everyone, was so nice. God that helps. I still haven’t looked at all the photos. But here’s one…. (Click on the photo to see it bigger.)