Category: Blitherings

A Stop Along the Way

We are actually in the Jackson Lake Lodge in the Teton National Park.  Today will be the first day out – we had a long drive from Laramie.  Without a laptop, much less good internet connections in the Wild West, it’s been difficult to edit pictures or make an entry to a blog here or there.

I’ve been using Polarr editing software with my Chrome Book, and I have rather mixed feelings about it but that is just because I am not sure how things look in the final edit.  Still, it is an easy-to-use editor, and given that, I am not going to complain.  I just need to master it, and when home, compare the images I see on the screen of the Chrome Book to my 27″ monitors at home.

We have really been enjoying the trip!  We started out in California, and the first stop was in Flagstaff, Arizona.  I really like Flag – as we are known to call it – and we stayed at a wonderful B&B.  Knowledgeable hosts are one of the draws of a good B&B, along with great breakfasts.  We had both.  We were in Flagstaff for two full days, taking in Shoshone Point in the Grand Canyon, and a drive through Oak Creek Canyon to see Sedona.  The Grand Canyon is truly grand, and unfathomable, so to speak, until you are on the edge, looking down and across from the rim.  Sedona is a tourist town surrounded by incredible red rocks, buttes, mesas and cliffs.  To get there, one drives through a lovely canyon, and it is worthwhile to stop at Oak Canyon to wander through it.

Oak Creek Canyon is a deep, narrow canyon, complete with creek, old buildings, and a former apple orchard put in by some of the original families who settled there.  It was my favorite part of the day out to Sedona, other than fantastic food at a restaurant – Mariposa – which has 360 degree views of the rocks surrounding Sedona.  The canyon is surrounded by red cliffs and traversed by a winding road.  The drive is one to take slowly, stopping, hiking, gawking.  It’s a wonderful corner of the world to see.

 

Tripod or Not?

I rummaged through the pile of camera gear cluttering the studio.  And then I discovered a tripod I had bought some time ago:  The Manfrotto MKC3-H01.  It will fit in my suitcase!  And, with small cameras, it should be just fine.

Image result for manfrotto mkc3-h01

It’s really small and lightweight.  I like the lever clamps, instead of twisty ones.  It’s got nice features, such as a swivel head, thumb thingies, and can handle up to 3.3 lbs (2.5 kilos) of camera.  Given I am bringing only small and light – except when the V3 has the 70-300 on it – it should work out really well.

Image result for manfrotto mkc3-h01

A tripod is honestly something I have been wanting to bring as I want to get the long exposures you can get with ND filters.  The smoothness of water can make for great photographs – and I want to do this with both film and digital.  Maybe I will even do a video, just for grins, but they aren’t things I really ever do.  So, problem solved, eh?  At least, I think it is!!  An 18-inch-tall-when-compacted tripod is a pretty cool thing.

 

 

Photography Decisions for Vacation

 

Yesterday, I packed up the rest of the choices I’d made for the photographic gear I want to take on our trip.  It was a really hard, but choices had to be made.

My first decision was the bag size.  I have back packs and over-the-shoulder bags of varying sizes, along with a sling bag.  I decided on an over-the-shoulder bag, which is roomy, but not large, and is now carrying the following:

  • Nikon V3
  • 1 Nikon 70-300mm
  • 1 Nikon 10-110mm
  • 1 Nikon 6.7-13mm
  • 1 Nikon 10mm
  • 1 Nikon 18.5mm
  • 1 Nikon 32mm
  • Olympus OM-1n
  • Olympus Zuiko 50mm
  • Olympus Zuiko 35-70mm Close Focus
  • 49mm yellow, orange, and UV filters
  • 55mm ND filters

The OM system and the Nikon 1 system were chosen because they are small and lightweight, but deliver good quality.

I am also bringing 12 rolls of 35mm film, in black and white, and in color, ranging in speed.  It’s still a toss-up between the XA4 and the Trip 35, but I am inclined to take the XA4 as it is more diverse, smaller, and has a covered lens.  No medium format camera made it to the final mix.  I may bring a tripod.   I am also packing some art supplies and my Kindle.  Some knitting, too.  Headphones.  Chrome Book.  Plugs and cords and a power strip.  Yeah, stuff.  Clothes, shoes, and a toothbrush!

Traveling Light, and the Laptop Adventure

In about 5 days we leave for a 2-week road trip throughout the American Southwest.  We leave California and head to Flagstaff, AZ, for a few days, then on to Four Corners in Colorado and Mesa Verde National Park.  Then, a stopover in Colorado Springs.  From there, we will be in Laramie, Wyoming about 4 days, to explore as well as to visit the University of Wyoming and Fort Laramie as there is family history related to Fort Laramie in particular.  After that, on to the Teton National Park and Yellowstone, home of beautiful mountains and hot springs and geysers like Old Faithful.  Then, Salt Lake City, Utah, and St. George, Utah, and finally, home.

There will be four adults, two of whom are photographers.  We take up space.  Then there is the need for technology, too.  Not to mention knitting and drawing and reading (thank goodness for the Kindle!).  Space needs to be considered very, very seriously.  I’ve narrowed it down:  I am going to take only my Nikon V3 and its small lenses – I can pack them up quite tidily.  I am also going to bring the Olympus OM-1n and its 50mm and 35-70mm lenses, the latter of which has a close-focus element.  I also want a point-and-shoot film camera, which will be either the Trip 35 or the XA4 – possibly the latter as it is more versatile and has a wider lens, having close-up and 28mm capacities.  I will also tuck a medium format folder in amongst the camera selection, and maybe a tripod, though I seldom use them.

And then . . . there is the laptop.  It pays to have a serious IT guy in the house.  He restored the laptop to Windows 8.1 by doing some research and installing it as a bare-bones system.  I need to still install Lightroom and such on it – but I’ve decided I am not going to spend the time on it between now and the day of our departure.  I will bring my Chrome Book and use Pixlr and Polarr for post processing, and use an external 1.5 TB mini hard drive as storage.  This should do.  I would prefer to bring the laptop – thank goodness I have a genius of a husband! – but don’t want the time hassles at the moment.

Film is another decision which needs to be made.  I have JCH B&W in the OM-1n at the present, and a yellow filter as I want to try my hand at b&w landscape and nature photography (and maybe some street).  The 120 film decision can be either Kodak or Fuji . . . I chose the Perkeo as it has an automatic film stop that works, and with Kodak not having numbers dark enough to read through a red window, it’s important when choosing cameras and film.

By choosing the V3, I am going to give myself an opportunity to master some of its features that I have not yet done.  I want to try long exposures with it, to smooth out waterfalls or just the rivers we will cross.  I may need to bring a bushing for the Perkeo if I want to use it for landscape and a tripod . . . but that may be more than I want to think about!  The OM-1n should be fine as it is, and the point-and-shoots are fine in the hand.  The Chrome Book and affiliated software will be another learning curve, and it should be fun.  Polarr seems to leave a signature on all the images, but it might be it can be removed.  I haven’t had time to fidget with it too much, but like what I see.  Pixlr is like Photoshop, and some of its key features should work well in conjunction with Polarr.

So, the technology and camera questions have been sorted.  Now I have to do the bills and begin putting things in the suitcase, tech bag, and camera bag.  So much to do!  So little time!

Traveling Light with Photography

I am finding myself in a bit of a dilemma.

My laptop took a bit of a dump, and I really don’t feel like messing around with it.  However, it is a very important piece of equipment when traveling and taking digital photos – I need to store my images somewhere.  Basically, it is a system running Windows 8.1, and when I fired it up a couple of weeks ago, it wouldn’t start properly.  Eventually I managed to roll back the system to Windows 8.0.  Upgrades to 8.1 failed multiple times, so now I have a laptop that I really don’t feel I can rely on to deliver.

So, the dilemma.  Do I invest in a new laptop?  Should I take a chance on the Windows 8.0 system?  Do I take an old and very slow one for the trip, and hope for the best?  Or, is there some way, using my Chrome Book and the Cloud, or an external HD, to back up my SD cards?

I need to back up my SD cards – I take too many pictures.  Buying oodles of SD cards seems rather dumb, and potentially expensive.

I have small external HD I used on my questionable laptop . . . . so this afternoon, when I get home from work, I plan to take a camera, take some pictures – maybe a lot of them – and connect it to the Chrome Book.   The external HD will be in the other USB port.  And then let’s see how the transfer works out.  I might be able to use a USB flash drive instead – and it will be smaller in size than the external HD.

I expect it may be horribly slow.  And, I will not be too happy.

Another option is to use a cloud-based storage system, but I need to find out about that one.

And I also need to look at one of our old laptops from 1732.  Considering we are leaving in 10 days, I better get my ass in gear.