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We wanted to travel light, but we wanted to make sure that
we had the proper gear to record our journey, both for making
this site and for our long-term memories. Be forewarned,
this section is pretty geeky…
| -Digital SLR camera |
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Nikon D70. This is a relatively new model and is a
great value. It’s also good for the prosumer/hobbyist/novice
combo like us. Grace used to do a fair amount of photography
with film cameras, but is only getting back into it
seriously for this trip. And Susan, who usually takes
more photographs in everyday life, likes having point-and-shoot
options for when she doesn’t feel like mucking
about with a bunch of dials. [Note that we originally
bought (and later returned) a Fuji S2, a somewhat older
model, but very popular among picky photographers for
its great color. This camera is less forgiving for the
novice, and is bigger and heavier than the D70. It also
requires more batteries and costs about twice as much. |
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| -Lenses for the SLR |
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Deciding on the lenses was a long process. We bought
and returned quite a few. After considerable experimentation,
we decided on the following:
Nikkor 24-120mm
f/3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR – This is our everyday
lens. It has a good zoom range, nice optics, and the
nifty VR (vibration reduction) feature.
Nikkor
12-24mm f/4G ED-IF AF-S DX – This is a wide-angle
zoom. It’s good for taking pictures of buildings
or landscapes. It’s also good for when you’re
trying to take a picture indoors and there’s no
more room to step backward.
Nikkor 80-400mm
f/4.5-5.6D ED AF VR – This is our safari
lens. There are better quality lenses, but this one’s
great in terms of price, weight, and size. It’s
not small, but it’s a lot smaller than it could
be. And the VR (vibration reduction) technology actually
allows us to shoot at 400mm without a tripod –
pretty cool.
Nikkor 10.5mm f2.8G ED-IF AF DX – Fisheye,
fisheye, roley-poley fisheye. Ok, so it makes everything
look wacky around the edges, but sometimes it’s
cool getting an 180-degree view. And hey, you can fix
it in Photoshop later if you want to.
Nikkor 50mm f/1.8D AF – This
is a super fast, super small lens, useful for when there’s
not very much light, things are moving quickly, or just
for looking less conspicuous with your camera gear.
It’s fixed length, so it’s not as flexible,
but the optics are high quality. |
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| -Other paraphernalia for the SLR camera |
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A few filters (mostly UV protective types, but also
a polarizer and a half-gray jobbie for dealing with
bright sky horizon shots), some adapter rings so most
of the lenses can use the same filters, SB-600 flash
unit, an extremely portable Bogen Manfrotto tripod,
five 500MB high-speed CompactFlash cards, extra camera
battery. |
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| -Small digital camera |
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Canon Powershot S230 Digital Elph. There are better
ones out now, but we took old faithful. It’s often
very nice to have a small camera. There are a few reasons
for this: 1) people not used to cameras sometimes kinda’
freak out when you pull out a big SLR camera, and that’s
never good for getting interesting photos, 2) a small
camera doesn’t scream “tourist!” and
doesn’t make you look like you’re begging
to get mugged, 3) carrying it is considerably easier
when you’re going to the beach or having a casual
dinner with friends, etc, and 4) since there are two
of us, sometimes it’s nice for both of us to have
a camera at the same time. |
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| -Underwater housing for small camera |
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Taking pictures underwater is pretty nifty if you
can get a better camera than those horrid disposables.
Putting the camera into the housing is pretty neat;
you get to lock it into its own little water-tight spacesuit
– high geek factor enjoyment – synchronize
watches lockdown delta tango. Um… over and out.
|
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| -Portable card-reader/hard drive |
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MindStor PSS-1820. Unfortunately, they don’t
make these anymore (company went out of business), but
you can still buy ‘em on eBay, and there are alternative
brands around, too. This doo-hickey reads flash cards
(usually packed with photos) and stores them on a little
(20GB) hard drive. It’s a bit bigger than a Palm
Pilot in size. It allows us to go for long periods without
the laptop (in Uganda and Tanzania, for example, we
left the laptop locked up in the airport). It costs
about as much as 1GB worth of flash cards and holds
20 times as much, so it’s a cheaper (albeit larger)
alternative to carrying around a boatload of cards. |
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| -Digital camcorder |
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Sony DCR PC-330. This uses miniDV tapes, has a nice
lens, and is fairly small (though not tiny). It’s
not the newest model, but we got it cheap on eBay after
reading a zillion reviews that indicated that it’s
better than some of the current models in the same category.
We’re happy with it so far, but the real test
will be when we finally tackle video editing. |
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| -Laptop computer |
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Gateway 450XL. Now THIS was a tough call. We used
to have a tiny little Dell, but it didn’t seem
sturdy enough for traveling the world (heck, it wasn’t
even sturdy enough to NOT travel the world). Then, in
preparation for the trip, we bought a little-known beast
called a Panasonic Toughbook (the W2 model). These are
amazing (and hard to find if you don’t know where
to look – we got ours used on eBay). They weigh
less than 3 lbs. and they’ll take a lickin’
and keep on tickin’. It’s a scaled down
version of what the military uses, just to give you
an idea of its sturdiness. Its downsides, unfortunately,
were that it didn’t have dedicated video RAM (very
useful for video work) and it couldn’t be outfitted
with an internal DVD-burner (meaning we’d have
to carry another piece of gear). So, because we wanted
to be able to view and edit pictures (and play high
res video games) we finally decided on the Gateway.
It isn’t an ultralight; its fairly normal sized
(which is good for somebody that has a bit of carpal
tunnel) and given the amount of things that we use it
for, exchanging a little extra weight for performance
is okay with us. |
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| -Latop-related doodads |
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Mouse, foldable headphones/microphone headset for
making cheap (or free) long-distance phone calls with
our laptop using Skype (very cool, and when we say cheap,
we mean it: $.02/minute to the States from anywhere),
CompactFlash adapter card so it’s easy to transfer
photos without connecting the cameras, USB flash drive,
Firefly USB hard drive (20GB) for backups (super light
and super small), blank CD’s and DVD’s for
burning archives to send home. |
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| -Software |
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We have the usual suspects, plus some less well known
apps: Microsoft Office, Macromedia Studio MX (Dreamweaver,
Fireworks, Flash, etc.), Adobe Photoshop CS, Phase One
C1 Pro (RAW file editor for photos), Adobe Premier Pro,
QuickTime Pro, Adobe Acrobat, Skype (see above), a variety
of browsers for beta-testing this site, and too many
other culprits to list. |
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| -MPEG music player |
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Apple iPod 20GB. Yes, there are others, but there’s
nothing quite like an iPod. Besides, we were given one
for our wedding, as well as a portable set of speakers
and a headphone splitter. We didn’t bring the
speakers (too big in the end, though it was tempting),
but the headphone splitter is a godsend. We sometimes
wish we had the speakers, but hey, Susan also wishes
she had another 3 pairs of shoes. At 20MB it’s
not the biggest, but it’s plenty for a boatload
of songs and some books on tape. Books on tape –
what a great idea – and we can download more while
on the road. |
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| -Audio recorder |
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Griffen iTalk. Hey Frankie, since the iPod’s
main purpose in life is storing audio, wouldn’t
it be cool if you could record onto it, too? Why yes,
John, it would! That’s why the nifty folks at
Griffen invented the iTalk. It has a microphone built
in, and also allows you to attach your own. (To be fair,
Belkin also makes a couple similar products.) |
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| -Lavalier microphone |
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Sound Professionals SP-LAV-2. An inconspicuous, quality
microphone that can be attached to the above mentioned
iTalk when we want better audio quality than the built-in
mic. |
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| -Binoculars |
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Eagle Optics Ranger Platinum Class (one 10x42 and
one 8x42). We love these things (lightweight, crystal
clear, and rugged) and everybody else who tries ‘em
loves ‘em, too. It is certainly possible to buy
better binocs, but they get pretty expensive and these
are great value for the money (though they’re
more than we originally planned to spend). |
Jump to: gear
& cost intro | luggage
| technology | clothes
| everything
else
|
