Margaret’s Travel Log 1: Planning and Packing

August 29, 2005: When I fly out of Australia today it will be my first major trip without a film camera. All the photos I take in the next five weeks will be digital. The Photo Review team decided I should share my experiences with readers as many more people are now relying exclusively on digital capture, not only when they travel but for all their other photography.

At the same time, we decided I should look at the different qualities of light in other parts of the world [this trip is to tropical South Asia, southern and central England, and the Orkney and Shetland islands] and compare and contrast them with Australian conditions, with the aim of producing an Insider feature on how ambient lighting can influence the quality of digital pictures. I expect the main effect will be on the dynamic range cameras can record. In other words, I’ll be seeing whether two quite different, high-resolution cameras (a compact digicam and a DSLR) can record a full range of tones from very bright to very dark in differing environments.

These two cameras are my Canon EOS 300D and the new Canon Digital Ixus 750, which I will be reviewing for the Issue 26 of Photo Review. With a 7-megapixel sensor that measures 7.18 x 5.32 mm, the Ixus 750 will provide a good comparison with the 6.3-megapixel EOS 300D whose sensor is 22.7 x 15.1 mm (roughly nine times larger).

My gut feeling is that ambient brightness spans overseas will be much narrower than they are in Australia due to the higher levels of moisture in more humid climates and aerosols in large population centres. In my experience, few – if any – compact digicams can capture the full brightness range of a typical sunlit Australian day – and even digital DSLR cameras can be hard pressed to do so. The reason: the typical brightness range of a sunlit scene in Australia is approximately 250:1 in winter (equivalent to eight f-stops); in summer it’s probably closer to 500:1 or even 750:1.

One reason for exploring these differences is to evaluate the effect they can have on camera testing, which we in the Photo Review team believe may be significant. We feel it’s unlikely that equipment reviews carried out in the UK, Europe or North America, where the lighting is quite different, could detect the dynamic range problems we encounter when we take test shots. This trip will provide an opportunity to make brightness range measurements in a variety of environments: tropical South Asia (Bangkok), southern and central England and the Orkney and Shetland islands. My trip will span a range of latitudes from approximately 13 degrees to just over 60 degrees north, covering different sun angles and varying levels of air clarity. I plan to report on the differences I find and the ways in which they affect digital camera performance and shooting techniques in a special Insider feature in Issue 26 of Photo Review.

Equipment

Choosing the right equipment to take on a trip is challenging: you need to cover all the shooting situations you can predict but not burden yourself with unnecessary gear. With my EOS 300D I’ll have two lenses: the EF-S 18-55mm f/3.5-5.6 and the EF 55-200mm f/4.5-5.6. Polarising filters will be carried for both these lenses. The Ixus 750 will be carried as is. With the cameras – although not necessarily in the camera bag – I’m taking the necessary battery chargers plus the camera manuals. I have a spare battery for the 300D and an RS60-E3 remote switch so I can use the camera in bulb mode for long exposures. A compact tripod is also included, along with an LED head-light (for after-dark set-ups).

For storage, I have three 1 GB CompactFlash cards for the 300D and a 1GB SD card for the Ixus 750. My notebook PC, which has SD and CF card slots, will be used for reviewing and storing images and writing this online diary. I don’t need USB cables for the cameras as I won’t make prints until I return. I will, however, take a 128 MB USB flash drive for transferring files between computers, should the need arise.

I thought long and hard about which camera bag to take – an 18-year-old LowePro Nova 2 bag that has accompanied me on most trips or a mini backpack, which holds more gear. I finally decided on the former because it makes the equipment much more accessible – and it’s less conspicuous. I’m also taking a soft backpack that packs flat in my suitcase, which I can use for carrying the tripod and extra clothing on long walks, plus a small towel for use as padding and for drying equipment that gets damp in wet or humid conditions. Several large plastic bags will be added for housing cameras in wet conditions, along with a sachet of silica gel.

I’ll be making regular postings online each time can access the Internet during my trip so readers can track my progress and share some of the new things I learn about travelling with digital cameras. We hope you’ll find these postings useful for your own future travels.