Swedish Lapland – What's in the bag?

Today is packing day for my next trip: a weeklong walk along Kungsleden in Swedish Lapland with my friend Rolando. We're both out there to take serious pictures, and of course we need to carry clothes, shelter and food, for ten days away from electricity and cell towers. Getting enough gear for serious pictures to fit inside a backpack along with all the things one needs in the wild just to stay dry, warm and fed is always a challenge. Here's what we'll end up carrying.

Rolando's photo gear:

• Canon EOS7D
• 2 Batteries
• 40GB of CF cards
• Tamron 11-18
• Sigma 30/1.4
• Canon SD860IS pocket camera

My photo gear:

• 5DMk2 w/ RRS L-Plate
• 4 Batteries
• 44GB of CF cards
• 24/1.4 (stand-in for my 16-35 which is getting repaired)
• 50/1.4
• 70-300 DO
• Gitzo 1530 (center column removed)
• Canon SD3500IS pocket camera

While we're both self-sufficient as far as photo gear is concerned, it's nice that we're both using Canon gear and can thus exchange batteries, memory cards and lenses if the need arises.

Camping:

• Tent
• Stove, pot, two gas canisters
• First aid kit
• Sleeping bag, liner, sleeping pad
• Water bottles (cheap plastic disposable ones — they're lighter than Nalgene)
• Three-season hiking clothes (sun, rain and cold all expected)
• Towel, knife, spork, headlamp, compass, cell-phone, iPod

This comes to a 13kg pack before food and water. Certainly not lightweight hiking territory, but we've carried much worse. We'll see how it goes.

Olympic – What worked, what didn't.

Sometimes I start writing something, and then lose interest. Luckily, I never throw anything out, so if for any reason I ever regain interest I just finish it and publish it. That's what just happened for the followup to my article about packing for Olympic National Park, which I give to you now.

As you can probably guess, I ended up making it out of the woods ok, and onto Vancouver where my talk went over very well, at least partly because I gave it in a brand new shirt after taking a couple of extended showers. All the camping and photo gear worked out fine, so there's not that much to say about that, but I did learn a few things along the way.

First, before the actual trip to Olympic, I ended up buying a couple more things in Seattle:

• Lowepro CF card holders. I don't really need those for protection, but they help a lot with keeping cards in sequence and I got really tired of shuffling through all the cards in my pocket looking for the right one. Heartily recommended if you carry more than four cards.
  


• Canon EF 100/2.8 Macro. I bought this after seeing all the wild flowers in Mount Rainier National Park. It proved really useful for the rest of the trip, but three (big) lenses is definitely my upper limit for backpacking. I'm not sure which of these I'd leave at home if I had to do the same trip again but I doubt I'd be carrying all three.


• Bear can. This is mandatory for wilderness camping in bear country. It adds a little weight and makes packing a bit harder, but all in all it's not too much trouble. Lashed on the bottom of the backpack while hiking it's actually a very convenient place to hold all your food.


• A third water bottle. Always useful.

While I didn't discuss food in the previous article, it has now become obvious that I'm terrible at estimating quantities for backpacking trips. I ended up buying way too much and carrying several totally unnecessary pounds on my back for four days. Definitely something to watch for in the future.

It didn't rain at all, which was pleasantly surprising. So obviously my rain jacket, rain pants, and tarp went entirely unused. If I was to do it again, I'd take only the rain jacket, so if it (unexpectedly) started raining I might be uncomfortable, but not in any danger.

I completely forgot to pack a fire starter (I usually carry a magnesium bar) so I felt very stupid when I pitched my tent right next to a perfect fire circle, surrounded by an ample supply of firewood, with no way to make any kind of flame. I briefly tried setting a few tufts of dry moss on fire by catching the sun with the 100/2.8, and, you know, it might even have worked if I had spent a lot more time at it, or if I hadn't tried it near dusk in the middle of a rather dense forest. Oh well.

Instead of packing DEET, I trusted a rather ambitious sunscreen-cum-bug-repellent thing because it came in a very convenient small tube. This is easily the biggest traveling mistake I ever made… The thing turned out ridiculously useless: I sprayed it right on mosquitoes and they didn't even flinch. I ended the trip with more than a hundred mosquito bites, making the skin over my whole body look like an obstacle course on Mars.

Regarding photography, in four days I took about 26GB of pictures, so my 30GB of CF cards proved just enough. The limiting factor was actually battery life: I ended up with barely 20% remaining in the second battery despite trying really hard to preserve power on the last day. While live view is the best way of ensuring sharp photos, it really eats up batteries like there's no tomorrow. On longer trips I'll obviously have to live without it.

Last but not least: Olympic is beautiful. Go there. Go there now. You'll love it.

Photo or Video ?

About twelve years ago, Philip Greenspun wrote this in an article about "old" cameras:

If you have or inherit an extensive manual-focus system, you should get the bodies professionally cleaned and adjusted and then enjoy the system for another decade or two. After that, we'll all probably just be using high-resolution video cameras and picking out interesting still frames.

Freeze frames good enough to pass as photos? I was doubtful at the time, but look at this picture from my second New York post:



It isn't really a photograph in the usual sense, but indeed a still from a movie. Could you tell? Even in the low light of Washington Square at dusk, a 5DmkII movie freeze frame is good enough to pass as a photo on the Web.

But that's the Web. Surely this doesn't apply to serious photographs… or does it? Actually it does. A year ago, Esquire's cover was a still from a movie filmed expressly for the purpose of making a magazine cover. Arguably the Red One video camera used for this is too expensive for most photographers, but we're getting there.

So was Philip right? I'm still doubtful… For me, 99.9% of the time, filming and making stills are completely different processes. I just focus on different aspects of a scene when I'm capturing motion pictures. I think I'm far from alone in this: since the momentous Esquire cover, photographers have not exactly stampeded to video cameras, even those with the budget to do so. I'd guess they still believe that still cameras are still the best tools for taking still pictures. (No pun intended.) But maybe that's only their prejudice. We'll see. The quality certainly is there.

Concert Photography

Nifty piece by Jeff Spirer about Photographing Bands and Musicians on photo.net. It's full of really good tips and tricks that you can find out by yourself by shooting a few dozen shows, but if you're just starting out it might save you quite a bit of time.

I was (pleasantly) surprised at how close his gear list recommendation matches my own:

• DSLR (either a Canon EOS 1DMkIII or Canon EOS 40D)


• 35/2


• 50/1.4


• either a 20/2.8 or 85/1.8


• 580EXII flash


• spare camera battery


• extra rechargeable batteries for the flash


• memory cards (at least 8GB)


• business cards


• earplugs


• clear lens filter and lens hood on every lens

I have the "old" 1DMkII, and I substitute 24/1.4 and 100/2 for his 20/2.8 and 85/1.8, but apart from that this is pretty much my list. Except I really need to get some business cards.

What's in the bag?

This morning I had the privilege of speaking at the GeoWeb conference in sunny Vancouver. The conference looks again very promising, but that is not my subject today. Rather, I am writing about what I did before arriving in Vancouver: just to make this trip a bit more challenging, I decided to fly in a little early, visit Seattle and Victoria, go hiking in Olympic National Park, and try to take a few interesting pictures along the way.

If you've ever done any backpacking, you might spot a little logistics challenge here: I need enough photo gear for serious pictures, enough camping gear to survive a few days in the wild, and clothes that won't look entirely out of place at the conference. Obviously I'll be flying in and out, and once there I'll travel only on foot and public transport, as I'm allergic to cars, so I can't take more than I can comfortably carry on my back for days on end. Not trivial.

Below is my solution: everything I'm packing plus the bags I'm carrying it in, photographed and listed in no particular order. If you've ever had to sit on your suitcase to close it, or felt miserable carrying too much stuff on a long trip, I hope you'll find a few useful things in there.

• One body, two lenses


• Spare battery, charger


• 7x 4GB CF Cards


• 2x 500GB portable hard drive


• Laptop, USB hub, VGA and AC adapters


• Cell phone


• Wallet, passport


• Tripod with ball-head and leveling base


• Day pack: unpadded messenger bag (shown rolled)


• Sleeping bag, liner, sleeping pad


• Bivy


• Lots of garbage bags and ziplock bags


• Tarp


• First aid kit


• Towel


• Rope, compass, knife/multi-tool, spork, headlamp, water purification tablets...


• Maps, guide book and Carl Sagan's Demon-Haunted World


• 2x water bottle


• Hiking outfit (shell pants + long-sleeved shirt)


• Town outfit (Slightly classier pants + long-sleeved shirt. Although it doesn't look like one, this is technically also a hiking outfit, and is very comfortable in a variety of conditions.)


• Spare long-sleeved shirt


• Light socks


• Heavy socks


• Underwear


• Swimsuit


• Fleece top


• Rain jacket


• Rain pants


• Hiking shoes (not shown)


• Hiking poles (not shown)


• Backpack to hold all of this in

By the way, I am not listing exact model references because I think the general equipment choices are a lot more important than the precise models and brands bought. However, if anyone's interested in exactly what those items are and the rationale behind them I'll be glad to add that information.

The backpack is a 75+10 liters model, definitely on the roomy side although larger ones certainly exist. On planes and city trips, the day pack holds my wallet, passport, photo gear and laptop, while everything else goes inside the backpack. While hiking, I'm using the trekking poles and the tripod gets lashed to the exterior of the backpack, freeing enough space to empty the day pack inside it and carry everything in reasonable comfort -- or at least that was the plan. I'll post a follow-up in a few days about how well it all worked.

'til then, I'll be thinking of my next walk in the woods...

What camera should I buy?

You're interested in photography, and you want to buy a serious camera that will not only take good pictures but also help you learn this craft and remain a useful tool as you improve. If you're the kind of person who absolutely has to know everything and can't stand to have anything but "the best", I suggest you go over these review sites, read every single article they have and make your own opinion. On the other hand, if you have anything remotely approaching a life, you might be better of following the decision chart below. This way you'll chose your camera in three minutes, leaving you with all your remaining life minus 180 seconds to actually learn to take great photos — a much more rewarding experience.



(*) "passionate" really is terribly inappropriate here, but I couldn't think of a better word, so please indulge me in redefining this term for the sake of this chart. What I mean by someone being "passionate" is that he's the kind of photographer who would benefit from owning lots of gear, and is motivated enough that one day he will. By that definition, Henri-Cartier Bresson was *not* a passionate photographer. Rather fittingly, he rarely used Canon nor Nikon cameras. In case you're in doubt, if you answer "yes" to any or all of the following questions, you're probably "passionate":

• You fully expect that at some point in the future you'll own more than three lenses.


• You're interested in technically challenging photography, e.g.: concert photography, (indoor) sports, wildlife, birds, all of the above.


• You plan vacations to maximise photographic opportunities.


• You'd like to try taking unusual photos, e.g. of very small objects or with Fisheye or Tilt/Shift lenses.


• You actually know what Fisheye and T/S lenses are, or if you don't you plan on looking them up on Google as soon as you're done here.

So here it is! If you're currently on the market for your first (serious) camera I hope you find this chart useful. If you've already made that decision and have anything to say about any of the above, I'd really like to hear from you. In both cases, the comment form is there for you. Enjoy!

Ten Signs You Want to Be a "Serious" Photographer

I know those "Ten Things" lists can get pretty lame, but I couldn't find any like this one, and I thought it would be an easy way to conclusively prove to my esteemed readers that I am, indeed, slightly mad.

1. You have a special B&H wishlist just for camera bags.


2. You chose your whole camera system in a week and never looked back, but four years later you're still looking for the right tripod.


3. You sort national parks in preferred visiting order.


4. During holidays, you get up three hours earlier than on working days.


5. You don't understand why anyone would buy a car when they could get a 600/4.0 for the same price.


6. You don't see anything ridiculous in staying in the exact same spot for forty minutes waiting for the light to improve.


7. You consider anyone who doesn't know about adjustment layers technologically illiterate.


8. You think of your laptop mainly as a Portable Storage Device.


9. You refer to your travel companions as "interesting compositional elements".


10. And, last but not least, you get really sick of hearing "Wow. You must have a really good camera".

Chris Jordan

From Nick Baum:

Chris Jordan quit his job as a corporate lawyer to take high resolution pictures of huge piles of garbage. In his words, we have access to the good information about our consumption (through commercials, noticeable quality of life improvements, etc.) but we can’t see the cumulative, negative effects of this consumption. Chris’ goal is to make people aware of this waste… [...] He also creates very large-scale composites that illustrate various statistics about the environment and the world.

Equivalent lenses and diffraction limits

Luminous-landscape has a very thorough article about equivalent focal length and how diffraction limits resolution at low aperture. The fun part is that it's written by two very knowledgeable people and yet they apparently can't agree on the minimum aperture at which resolution becomes diffraction-limited for a given sensor.

Who's right ? I have no idea. I just know that when I use a good tripod and a good lens opened-up to oh-I-don't-know,-about-f/8.0, the result is generally sharp enough.

Who needs Photoshop ?

Great collection of Photographs that Changed the world at neatorama. I'm quite admirative of this one by Philippe Halsman :

It took six hours, 28 jumps, and a roomful of assistants throwing angry cats and buckets of water into the air to get the perfect exposure.

Wow. Most of the time I'm too lazy to set up a tripod...

To France

I'll be spending the next few days in the south of France, doing much the same thing I'm doing here but in a place where the wind is warmer and breakfasts are tastier. I'll be traveling by train, partly because it's cheaper and faster than a car and more peaceful than a plane, but mostly because I like it. (The fact that I lack both a car and a driver's license made the decision that much easier.)

As I've learnt over the years, traveling always brings about its fair share of annoyances :

• Filling up your suitcase is going to take three times longer than you estimated and five times longer than it should.


• You better pack your luggage so that you can comfortably carry it along three miles of dirt tracks under pouring rain, because you'll probably have to.


• No matter how early you get to the station, at some point you'll have to run in order to be on the train in time.


• Although the train/plane is in theory as fine a place as can be to read/relax/play/work, you won't be able to do so because of some small trifling detail that ruins everything (The actual cause is of course never the same. It may be a baby crying like those WW2 air-strike warning sirens, the old man next to you falling asleep with his head on your lap, anyone of the 120 people in the compartment snoring like an asthmatic elephant, an attractive girl sitting in front of you with a pleasing but extremely distracting negligé, or, my own personal nemesis, 75 boy scouts who enter the train twelve minutes after you've chosen your place and spend the next four hours singing heart warming anthems to keep them in high spirits and the rest of the world miserable.)

Except for the last one, which deals with how human beings are by and large extremely irritating creatures, a fact about which the traveller can't do much, all of these can be made inconsequential by simply traveling as light as you possibly can.

This, however, is easier said than done. Especially when there's many things you plan to do on your trip (eg reading, blogging, taking photographs, general nerding, and coming up with a flexible GML schema for VPF data -- in no particular order) and each of them usually requires quite a bit of hardware. Since in about a month I'll be leaving for Switzerland with much of the same objectives in mind, I've tried to use these four days as a test for what I really needed to take with me on a trip like this.

Here's what I elected to take and why :

• Apple PowerBook G4 12" : working, organizing, storing photos, watching SICP lectures, learning Ruby, and quite a lot of other fun and/or geeky activities.


• About 300 pages of printed specs : light reading on the train journey, which is a bit longer than my PB's battery life.


• 60GB iPod : data and photo backups, listening to Notes from a small Island, catching up on TWiT.


• Sony DSC-T1 + charger : snapshots and visual note taking.


• Canon EOS-1DMkII with EF16-35/2.8 : so-called "serious" photography.


• Polarizing filter, 2GB CF card, 1GB SD card : see above.


• Sleeping bag, clothes, cell-phone etc.

More to the point, here's what I left at home :

• More books, specs, etc. : well, there's only so much you can comfortably carry on a train. Which in this case is perfectly fine because there's only so much you can read in four days. But had this been a longer trip, I'd have had to rely much more on ebooks, which I find tiresome to read on a computer screen. (I would really like to see an ebook reader with a screen that really looks like ink on paper.)


• The EOS-1DMkII's charger. This thing is just huge and cumbersome and annoying and I guess the battery life will be good enough for me since I don't have the time to shoot all that much anyway.


• More lenses for the 1D. My wide-angle zoom gives an EFL of 21-45, or quite-wide to nearly normal. Although this is the focal length range I use most of the time, it's still pretty limited. Oh well, at least I won't have to worry about changing lenses.


• Tripod : I know I'm going to miss this. But my tripod is big and heavy so it's really difficult to justify on a trip where photography's not the main priority. A light carbon-fiber travel tripod would be really nice, but those aren't cheap.


• Camera bag : I never use one unless I'm carrying more than two lenses.


• Portable photo hard drive : I have the powerbook and iPod, and don't intend to travel far, so why bother ?

So here I am, on a train bound for the south of France, with all this stuff in two small bags, and a bunch of things to do. I'll get back to you in a few days to tell you how it all worked out.