Photo Gear for Traveling
As I pack for our summer vacation, I always stop to think what camera gear I want to take with me. Thought it would make a good blog post for anyone interested…
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Camera & Lenses
So I typically avoid taking my Canon 5D due to several factors like its weight and because it is my primary work camera and I don’t want to damage it lugging it around while traveling. Oh, and yea, it wouldn’t be cheap to replace.
So instead I take my old, trusted Rebel XTi that I have had since at least 2007. Compared to the 5D though, she is so much lighter and easier to travel with. It’s also a workhorse of a camera and is more than sufficient to take great vacation photos. That camera has shot almost 20 weddings with me and countless vacations here in the US and in Europe and it still works great. I did invest in getting her all cleaned up last year to help make sure she keeps clicking away.
So what lenses do I take? I take three: a general purpose zoom lens (Canon 24-70mm f/2.8); a wide angle (Canon 10-22mm EF-S) and a fixed macro to use with my TTV contraption (Canon 60mm f/1.8). The 1st two lenses offer a nice complete range for me.
In addition I take my Anscoflex camera to use for my TTVs (easiest to travel with), extra battery and lots of memory cards in my awesome ThinkTank Pixel Pocket Rocket cardholder.
Can’t forget a point & shoot as well for those times when you don’t want to carry the DSLR… I have always had some version of a Canon Elph Powershot and my current P&S is no exception – the Canon Powershot S95. Oh, and of course, there is always your camera phone (see image at the bottom of the post)!
Oh, and yea, I leave the speedlite behind. Can’t really justify the extra weight and potential damage to the flash that might happen when traveling. I have my P&S for night-time party pics and I can bump the ISO up on most everything else. I use flash minimally in my photography so why drag it along?
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Camera Bags
In terms of gear bags, I use various padded inserts and neoprene lens pouches to “hide” my gear in large shoulder bags so I don’t call attention to the fact that I am carrying camera gear when going through the airport. I do switch to a Lowepro Passport Sling bag that I pack flat in my baggage for walking around my vacation destination. It is smaller and more comfortable for daily excursions and still does not look too much like a camera bag.
Oh, and when I do take my 5D and all my gear for a gig like a destination wedding? I pack it all (2 cameras, lots of lenses, 2 flashes, etc.) in my Pelican PCS-172 rolling bag. It even has a slot for my laptop. They don’t make this exact bag anymore but seems like they sell something similar still.
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Computer Hardware & Software
Speaking of laptops, I have dragged my laptop with me in the past so I can edit photos while I am on vacation but this time I have decided to leave the laptop behind and leave Lightroom behind and instead, simply take my netbook (a netbook is too sorely underpowered to run resource hogging photo editing software like LightRoom and PhotoShop).
I’ll download my cards onto an external hard drive, possibly back them up on the netbook itself. FastStone’s free ImageViewer will let me view the RAW files so I can at least scroll though what I shoot. I think I will also shoot JPG+RAW so if I can’t resist, I can upload a few favorites SOOC (straight out of camera with no editing). I will also download Google’s free photo editing software Picasa for some basic editing abilities.
High School Friends
The 20th High School Reunion was nice – good to see old faces, many who still looks the same! Our headmistress Sister Mary Jane (I attended a private all girls Catholic high school) has not changed but she sure seems way less intimidating now. 🙂
Took a tour of the high school as well and man, has that changed! The original class hallways looks the same (minus the shag carpet) and the cafeteria looks like it used to (except for an area added on for more seating). The old gym is still there but it sits right next to a brand new one. The lobby is pretty much the same and the auditorium is seemingly unchanged but other than that, there are new hallways and new rooms and fancy equipment. They now have rooms for dance and choir and a whole new 3-story section just for the science classrooms. The library is completely different too. It was disorienting to say the least because nothing was where it used to be!
I won’t bore you with details of the reunion itself but I had to post this cute before and after of the 3 of us that use to hang out together throughout those 4 years. We called ourselves The 3 Musketeers. I know, we were dorks. 🙂
Foto Friday: Times Square in Motion
Taken during our last trip to New York City back in 2007. We need to make it back within the next year…
Has it been 20 years??!
“I don’t want to brag or make anybody jealous or anything…
but I can still fit into my earrings that I wore in high school!” 🙂
So this weekend is my 20th High School Reunion… yikes, it frightens me to think that I have lived longer since I graduated than the age I was when I graduated!
Let me take you down memory lane… Below is a pic of my 4 school IDs so you can see my progression from freshman (horrible, horrible poodle perm & horrible glasses) to sophomore (being artsy in a vintage dress from the 50’s) to junior (wearing a traditional Mayan huipil from my travels to Guatemala) to my senior year (wearing my Buddy Holly-style glasses and vintage silver Taxco jewelry I collected). Please take note I started high school a year younger than everyone and graduated at 17 hence the baby face.
Below that is the picture I chose for the senior yearbook. Check the 80’s style of bleached jeans, baggy shirt & big glasses. Please disregard the bad haircut. The cute white fluffiness next to me is my pet bunny, Betsy. She even went to college with me!
So yea, aren’t I adorable? LOL. And so cute and tiny. *sigh* Oh well… we can’t stay young forever, right?
So when announcements for the reunion appeared on Facebook and in my email, I went back and forth on whether I’d go. Ticket prices were high and I was at my heaviest weight ever. I was never close to anyone in high school either. But for some reason, I still wanted to go, maybe because Tropical Storm Allison made me miss my 10 year reunion…
So here I am, going to the reunion events this weekend and even getting all dolled up for it. Since I wasn’t going to miraculously shed 30 lbs., I figured the dress had to be great (the Saturday event is a cocktail-attire) and was thrilled when I found the dress (see pic below) on my first stop. The sapphire color is gorgeous and the rouching hides my stomach. Then I had to find the shoes and once again, luck was on my side as I found them on my first stop as well – I was going to go with a silver/chrome shoe but fell in love with the ones pictured below (in real life, the shoe is less turquoise and has darker blues that coordinate with the blue of the dress). I love the shape of the heel and the watercolor satin fabric.
So there you go, I am getting all girly and it’s odd to see me like this. Even Kenny is going WTF? Throw in a mani/pedi, a friend helping me with eye makeup (I have no idea how to put on mascara even) and the help of some “shapewear“, I think I’ll look nice. Our old high school party pic photographer will be on hand to take our pictures so if they look good, I’ll post them here so you can see the complete package!
Now if I can only remember how to walk in heels! Eep!! Good thing Kenny will be at my side to help me walk. 🙂
A productive weekend for sure!
Hello! Thought I’d actually get my weekend re-cap in relatively quickly!! Hope you had a great weekend! Mine was busy but productive!
Friday: Lazy day – stayed in! I really needed this after an exhausting week at work with early morning starts.
Saturday: Recycled the cardboard boxes littering our garage, went to Goodwill, visited NCI’s Baker-Ripley House to discuss a summer youth photography class I will be teaching, got a haircut, took my Mom to lunch, exchanged some shoes and went shopping.
Saturday night: Another night in which was fine with me! I didn’t get home till almost 8 PM anyway!
Sunday: Went to Goodwill again (we had a lot of donations we’d accumulated), had a family portrait session in Hermann Park then dropped off prints to a client.
After a nice nap (man it was hot out there!!) I then started the task of putting away all of my clean clothes, tidying up the bathroom and closet and going through all of my clothes in order to purge the items that simply no longer fit. I now have to make yet another trip to Goodwill this week to donate the two ginormous heavy-duty bags of clothes I piled up! It feels nice to clear some space out in the closet though for the new stuff I’ve been buying, LOL. 🙂
Review: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
What can I say? This is classic David Sedaris book – witty short stories, wonderful quick reads. He packs so much into such compact stories! He has you laughing at the absurdities of his life because you recognize some similarities between his experiences and your own. All are upbeat, even the ones with serious overtones.
What’s especially fun is if you have seen him read his stories in person (I saw him here in Houston at Jones Hall) – you can’t help but read his stories in his charmingly funny monotone voice. It’s like I have a mini-David Sedaris in my head reading his book to me… 🙂
A must-read for those of us with a dark, wry sense of humor.
Artisan Market, New Car & a Baby Shower
Happy Hump-day everyone! The weekend was busy as always… here is my overdue re-cap, complete with pictures!
Saturday: I started the day off at the Baker-Ripley Neighborhood Center as a participant of their May Artisan Market. This is the second time I participated and I always have a good time talking to people and selling my photography prints. I like how easy it is to set up as well as they provide the shady tent and the 10 ft. table. It’s a short 4 hour market but I have done fine each time. Look forward to participating in future markets. Below is a pic of my table set-up.
Saturday night: We changed plans and decided to head down to Clear Lake Honda. I had settled in the idea that I wanted a used late-model Honda Accord Couple EX-L and there were not many in the city of Houston, especially once I struck out the white or black models (sorry, I prefer metallic paint colors)….
Oh wait – I didn’t tell you?? I had a car accident a week and a half ago on my way to shoot a wedding – a lady ran a red light. No one was injured thank goodness & it was not my fault but my 11 year old VW Beetle was considered totaled by the insurance company. Hence the reason I was car-shopping… so, now back to the re-cap (p.s. I barely made it to the wedding but I made it)…
So we get to dealership and the car I wanted to see was already sold but I fell in love with a similar car. It was not the V6 I had wanted but it still drove well and I loved the color (polished metal) and the interior color (beautiful tan leather). Pics of my new-to-me car are at the end of the post!
Sunday: Sunday was spent catching up with friends at their baby shower – they are having twin girls! It had been a long weekend so we spent the rest of the day vegging at home. The End.
Foto Friday: Whee!!
This is one of my more popular shots over at Flickr… I love how you can feel the motion in the picture. I took it while on the swings at the Navy Pier in Chicago – I was holding on tightly to my point & shoot and not really aiming as we swung out! It was a beautiful view of the sunset up there though!
Review: In the Time of the Butterflies
In the Time of the Butterflies by Julia Alvarez
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
I finally got through this book – it is a fictional novel that is based on historical figures, the Dominican Mariposa sisters. The author herself is Dominican and her family left as political refugees. Through research she found her family’s life crossed with the Mirabels (the Mariposas’ family name) and as a novelist, she began to flesh out the characters and lives. Before she knew it she had written the book.
It was well written but I have to drop it a few stars because it needed to be better organized. The story followed 4 sisters and the chapters focused on one sister which would have worked but then the timeline also skipped around within the chapter. Between 4 sisters, their respective husbands, their nicknames, their children and assorted relatives, it got a little confusing. I am actually glad I read the book version instead of the Kindle version because I had to flip around a lot to stay on top of things. It also fleshed out the sisters *so* much that the story dragged on. Sorry, I did enjoy the writing overall and found the history behind it fascinating but think it could have been a little more condensed.
If I were president…
Over the past years I have collected (in my mind) random ideas that I would implement if I were president. OK, I know legally the president couldn’t put many of these into affect but you get my drift…
So if I were president…
> Large event centers would be required to have twice as many bathroom stalls for women as they do for men (sorry guys, women take longer so the line gets long for us).
> Pets would count for some sort of tax deduction if you have them spayed and registered; licensed legitimate breeders would be exempt from spaying; the deduction would be higher if you adopt a rescued animal.
> Parking badly would be a ticketable offense.
> Same-sex marriage would be legal nation-wide.
> Printers would be required to have trays that take full reams of paper OR half reams that would now be also available. (Who can ever properly re-close a torn open ream of paper?)
> The drinking age would be brought back down to 18. If you can vote, legally enter into contracts and you can fight & die defending our country, you should be able to have a beer legally too.
> Daily recess would be a mandatory part of the elementary and middle-school curriculum. Stop taking away recess to worry about stupid aptitude scores.
> Donating your services and/or products to charity events would be tax-deductible like donating cash (I photograph several events as an in-kind sponsor and donate prints to various charity auctions throughout the year but can’t claim a deduction for their value per current tax code, or so I’ve been told).
So you tell me – what would YOU implement if you were president?
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