Nikon 1 on mountain trip

Greetings everyone!

 

I am getting back to photo.net after years! I first got onto photo.net when I used to live in the Boston area, in the mid-1990's and I continued through my move to California in the 2000's. In the meantime I had kids, moved continents (to the land of my birth - India), and photography became something I indulged in only on vacations. My weak excuse(s) are work and family. ;-)

 

 

Over the past couple of years, I have had the occasion to go to the mountains in India a few times, each time with my DSLR and a bunch of lenses in tow. To celebrate my 50th in August last year, I went on a week-long trek in the lower Himalayas in the north Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. I was unprepared for how breathtaking the landscapes were, and I had the time of my life photographically with my Nikon D7100 with a Tamron 16-300 mm and a Sigma 10-20 mm, along with a couple of prime Nikkors. Although I was satisfied with some of the pictures I took, the weight of the gear (including a Slik Carbon Fiber tripod and an RRS ballhead) did interfere with my overall experience.

 

 

Which brings me to the views I would like to hear from the folks on this forum. I am heading to the Himalayas again in April for two weeks, and this time I have decided to travel a lighter. While trekking/hiking, I plan to use a Nikon 1 V1 with the 10-100 mm Nikkor as a general purpose setup, where I can take pictures of my companions, and the general sights I see during the trek. For the mornings and evenings, when we camp, and I can do some serious landscape photography during the golden hours, my choice is the Nikon 1 J5 with a bunch of primes - 10 mm f2.8, 18.5 mm f1.8, 35 mm F1.8 (DX), 50 mm f1.8 (FX), and the 85 mm f1.8 (FX) - the DX and FX Nikkors will be usable on the Nikon 1 system via the FT-1 adapter. For tripod I will carry my trusty old Gitzo 1001. I will have some graduated ND filters, and a circular polarizer. Of course a lot of spare batteries and memory cards.

 

 

This is the first time I am ditching my DSLR with the associated big glass for a trip to the hills. While I am glad to shed the weight, I am also a little concerned that I will not have the familiar gear with me, and I will be heading out on a trip with breathtaking landscapes and scenery armed with the Nikon 1 system for the first time.

 

 

I would love to hear your experiences traveling light when in a lap of nature. Is there stuff I should absolutely have? Stuff that I have listed that I can leave at home?

 

 

Thank you all, and may you find the best light!

 

 

Mahesh

Edited February 16, 2017 by PurpWaltz

• PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE, right NOW.
  

• READ the manual.
   
  
  • I don't know either camera, but some of the settings/modes may behave different than you expect. Example, I do NOT use Auto on my D70 or D7200, because Auto uses "closest subject" focus, and will focus on stuff between me and my subject, throwing the subject out of focus.
     
    
  • Can you control the autofocus point/sensor that the cameras uses, and if so HOW? The AI AF on my P&S drives me nuts, because 30% of the time it tries to focus on something other than the subject.
    
  • How do you connect and use the remote?
    
  • How do you adjust the ISO?
    
  • What are the operational limits of "auto ISO" ?
     
    
  • How do you adjust the exposure compensation?
    
  • etc, etc, etc.
    

  [*]Test that all the remotes for the J5 works. Take a spare, maybe 2 spares.

   

  [*]Take the camera manuals with you, or an electronic downloaded manual on your phone. But your phone needs to be charged to use it.

   

  [*]Can you get by with a lighter 3 lens kit for the J5; 10+35+85 ?

  [*]Will the 10-100 fit on the J5 also?

   

  [*]How/where are you going to charge your batteries, or are you? If so, you will need multiple chargers to charge more than one battery at a time, but that is more weight and bulk.

   

  [*]Number your batteries, and use them in order, so you know which ones you used. Same with your memory cards.

   

  [*]You should have a used and and unused container/bag, to keep the used batteries/cards separated from the unused batteries/cards.

   

  [*]Several plastic bags to put your gear in when it rains.

gud luk

Hi Gary,

 

Thanks for the great advice! I am not as familiar with both the V1 and the J5 as I am with the D7100, so I need to take lots of pictures with both to increase my familiarity with both. The 10-100 will fit in both cameras, so between this general purpose lens and the primes I think I have a good set of lenses for many situations, without lugging a ton of weight. My trip is planned as follows:

 

Week 1 - Gangtok, Sikkim. We will be staying at a hotel, and playing tourist, but with some hiking thrown in. We will probably drive up to some altitudes (14,500 feet above MSL), and per my research we can expect wet weather. So your tip about plenty of plastic bags is bang-on! :-) While in Gangtok, I plan to have the V1 as my main camera (as it has a viewfinder, and I like its usability a lot more than the J5), while we wander the strets of Gangtok and neighboring areas.

 

Week 2: The actual trek - we will hit the trails for a week, staying in a mix of tents and local "tea houses". No power in tents of course, and I am told not to expect a lot of power options in the tea houses as well. I have 7 batteries for the J5, and 6 for the V1 (both cameras take different batteries). The J5 yields ~200 shots per battery, while the V1 yields ~400 shots per battery, so I should have enough juice for the entire trek without encountering AC power. I will of course carry my chargers with me so I can charge any drained batteries. Numbering the batteries - what a neat idea! :-)

 

BTW, I am taking your advice to heart - starting today, I am going to practice using both cameras as much as I can, particularly stuff like bracketing, changing ISO quickly etc. I would like to take a lot of shots during the golden hour, and being able to bracket shots and do HDR shots with multiple images is something that I am looking forward to doing. Also, since I do not have an extra wide angle option (the 10 mm on a Nikon 1 system is the equivalent of a 27 mm on a full-frame), I plan to do some panorama stitching in Lightroom with multiple shots.

 

Thanks again for your excellent advice!

 

Mahesh

Been there done that. Not the hiking part.

• I once could not figure out how to use the IR remote with my new DSLR (Nikon D70). I had to wait till I got home to read the manual to figure it out and practice. I was not happy. The old manual cable release on my F2 was so much simpler.
   
  
• The other reason for numbering batteries and cards is if you have a problem, when you get home, you want to know which one is the problem battery/card.
  
• The wires in the wired remote is small, and thus easy to damage/break, which is why I recommend taking spares. Or you could use the IR remote, again take a spare one. Treat wires with care, don't just shove them into a bag or twist them, wind them carefully so they do not twist and kink, and they will last.
   
  
• Can you shoot HDR with those cameras (HDR setting), or will you manually have to bracket the shot (don't move the camera)?
  
• I've shot nice sunsets at -2EV on my P&S, to compensate for the BRIGHT sun. -2EV was as much as the P&S could do.
   
  
• On the stitching, make sure you have enough overlap between shots. Some stitching programs need a certain minimum amount of overlap to stitch. Read the manual for your stitching program.
  
• Bring a small flashlight with a RED lens, so you can see and work the controls on the camera and setup the tripod without destroying your night vision. If you are going to shoot sunrise, you need to setup while it is still dark. Practice setting up in the dark, as it may not be as easy as you think, especially since you are changing to new gear.
   
  
• Know how to set the LCD screen brightness down LOW. At its lowest, this may still not be low enough to not damage your night vision. So maybe you need to bring some gray transparent plastic to put over the screen (like an ND filter for the screen). Again, test this in the dark. The LCD screen on my D70 at its dimmest is too bright to look at when doing night photography.
   
  
• At 15,000 ft, it can be COLD, and with cold comes the loss of feeling from your fingers. So you need to be prepared to set up the tripod and work the camera by sight only. Gloves will help, but the thickness of the glove will also make working the controls more difficult. Again practice.
   
  
• When it is COLD, the camera may not behave properly, because the battery will have gotten cold, and lost its ability to produce enough power. So try to shield the camera from the COLD wind, and maybe keep it in your jacket until just before shooting, or have someone make a "jacket" for the camera. Be careful, quick temp shift (cold to warm and warm to cold) can cause moisture to condense on the lens. I don't shoot much in the COLD so I can't give much COLD weather advice.
  

Wow, some phenomenal advice here, Gary - many thanks!

 

HDR:

HDR is supported on the J5, but the image is converted to JPG by the camera. I prefer bracketing and shooting in RAW, then working the final image in Lightroom. There is no bracketing function in either camera (such a shame!), so I need to adjust exposure compensation each time, which is both time consuming and error prone.

I am also taking graduated ND filters, so I try and get a sunrise/sunset situation right without having to resort to HDR.

 

Cold:

Yes, it will get cold, and sunrise is expected around 5:30 AM in those parts, so I need to prepare well for those conditions.

 

Great idea about bringing a flashlight with a Red lens! Had not thought of that, but it is so obvious! :-)

 

I will post updates post my trip with learnings, so it may help other folks as well.

 

Thanks,

Mahesh

The red lens idea is obvious to those of us that printed in a wet darkroom, but not to the general public.

Be careful when using the red light, as your vision and depth perception may be affected by the red color, until you get used to it.

Also take a WHITE flashlight for general use or when you are done shooting.

 

Oh bummer that those cameras can't shoot in RAW. I've come to like the extra exposure and color balance flexibility that RAW gives to me. One more reason to keep shooting my DLSR.

 

For your HDR bracketing, write a procedure on a card, and make it a rule to do exactly as on the card. Standardizing on a procedure will help reduce the errors.

Gary - both the J5 and the V1 shoot in RAW. It is only when I use the built-in HDR function on the J5 that it switches to JPG. I will practice the HDR procedure as you suggest before the trip. On the D7100 HDR is very simple, as I have to set bracketing parameters and keep pushing the remote control. On both the J5 and V1, I need to manually adjust exposure compensation for each shot, making the setup more prone to shake and errors. But with practice I am hoping I will get better, and let Lightroom's align function sort out any minor camera shake. The other thing that I want to do is take panoramas, as the landscapes are likely to be breathtaking, and I don't have a wide-angle (or at least any wider than 27 mm in FX terms). I am hoping to get some wider angles of view using multiple shots with various primes - 10 mm (equivalent to 27 mm on FX), 18.5 mm (equivalent to 50 mm on FX) and even 50 mm (equivalent to 135 mm on FX). May also order a couple more extra batteries for the J5, whose batteries only yield 200 shots per charge. Your advice has been phenomenal - I am going to heed it for sure. :-) Thanks!

Excuse me I don't understand the choice of the 2nd Nikon 1 with that many primes for a mountain trip. - To my limited understanding a Nikon 1 weighs 500g less than your DX body and about 300g less than the lightest D3200 or such. Is the 85mm lens justified at a 3x crop factor, when weight is slightly an issue? - Will you have to carry your camera system or will the golden hour kit get transported by some service provider?

I haven't used Nikon 1 myself. - I looked at it pondering an AW1. - To me the images seemed falling apart on a 4K screen and aparently the cameras shout for lowest possible ISO and tripod.

 

My own last hiking experience was with a 50mm out on my M and 21, 35, 90 and even 15 and 135mm pocketed but barely used. - I didn't have time, lacking hiking speed & stamina + being there with non-photographers.

 

I can imagine the V1 with the endless zoom being handy by day. I would just try either condensing the other lens kit drastically or even sticking to a DX camera in that field and of course leaving some of the bulkier stuff that spoiled your previous trip at home. - I don't have Nikon with Pentax / Samsung 2 bodies 18-55mm kit zoom 50mm f1.4 and 135mm f2.8 + 12-24mm f4 were kind of OK as a vacation pack. Kit zoom picked on purpose to provide no weight. - 135mm as my long couinter weight on the other body feels OK to me and stays quite busy. 12-24mm is a lot of bulk and while a decent lens probably the stay at home candidate in that bag. 50mm f1.4 was handy for portraits in the evenings but saw little or no daylight at all. - OTOH it did backup the kit zoom for a worst case.

 

I'd really run a statistics program over previous trips' files and evaluate what you were using. from there on I'd wonder what you might be able to leave at home. - I see quite little value in a huge bag full of primes mirrored by tourist zooms. A "less is more" approach might be a way to happiness.

I also assume that a DX camera with zoom might still blow the Nikon 1 stuff out of the water and could maybe even weigh less? - I don't have an 18-140mm but would guess it cuts a lot of folks' cake? - Here I go for a pair of Fujis with light consumer zooms for static subjects in sunlight.

I would dare to suggest that your primary consideration in selecting gear for such a trip is, who is carring what for whom and how. I mean, is your trekking group using porters, or is each participant supposed to carry all of his own stuff plus a share of the collective equipment? If the latter, anything with a cumulative weight in excess of 2kg max. is clearly out of the question,, discussion closed. If the former, how do you intend to distribute your load? Everything you would give to the porters will only be accessible at the campsite in the evening, and the "golden hour" in the morning could be difficult to exploit in that typically porters leave camp well ahead of the trekkers.

 

I assume you will follow the common practice of giving your load to the porters but for a pullover and a wind jacket, and carrying your photo gear with you - more precisely, on you, because this is a key point. If you intend to carry cameras, lenses, etc. in a backpack, by the end of the second day you will have lost virtually all interest in photography and the procedure of stopping, putting the backpack down, opening it, taking out the gear you intend to use, compose and take you shot, putting everything back into the backpack, closing it, putting the backpack on again, and resuming the treck - that is, even assuming that your companions will tolerate this sort of "stop and go".

 

The only photo gear that is actually being used during a trek over rugged terrain, particularly at altitude, is what is immediately available - a camera (fastened to the shoulder straps of your backpack, not loosely hanging around your neck) and one or max. two alternate lenses in a belt pouch. A tripod and a high-luminosity lens can go with the porters, to be used at the campsite.

 

The suggestion that you should become highly familiar with your equipment was very sensible, but I would recommend you should also decide how to carry it well in advance, and through trials and tests. Put your hiking clothes and boots on, load your backpack to the expected average weight, attach/hang the photo gear, and then move for quite a few km uphill and downhill. How if feels? Is everthing handy when I need it? What I put this here rather than here? Etc etct

Hi Jochen and bonsignore_ezio - very valid points raised. Maybe a bit of detail about the trek logistics will help clarify my choices. We will trek for six days at altitudes in excess of 10,000 feet, with views of the Himalayas in the distance on most days. The trek will be on well defined trails, and we will have villages en route with access to snacks and water throughout the route. I have opted to have my backpack carried by porters (I have to adhere to a weight limit of 8 kgs for the backpack), so I intend traveling with only a small day pack with some water, snacks and a poncho in case it rains. We will probably trek 6 hours each day (except for one day when we may be walking for ~10 hours), starting around 9:00 AM. During the trek, I intend carrying the Nikon V1 body on an Op/Tech sling with the 10-100 mm lens (FX equivalent 27-270 mm), along with the 10 mm prime, a couple of spare batteries and a spare memory card. This will allow me to capture the trek itself - candids, local scenes, etc. I will have a MountainSmith trekking pole that also doubles up as a monopod in case I need additional support for my camera. The Nikon J5 along with the primes, filters, tripod will be carried via porters to the camp site. On most evenings, I anticipate that I will have time to head out of camp to photograph during the golden hours (dawn and dusk) with the Gitzo 1001 tripod, and the J5 along with the 10-100 zoom and the primes. I believe that the J5 with its superior sensor will be better suited to landscape shots than the older V1. For wide angle shots I am limited to using the 10 mm (FX equivalent 27 mm) and the 18.5 mm (FX equivalent 50 mm). At the longer end I have the Nikkor 35 mm, 50 mm and the 85 mm. After reading your posts, I am leaning towards dumping the 35 mm, and carrying only the 50 mm and the 85 mm lenses. On the J5, the 50 mm is like a 135 mm lens, and the 85 mm is like a 230 mm lens, which should be well suited for situations where I would want to use a tele. I am keen on the primes because I do want image sharpness, which I am not sure that the 10-100 mm zoom will give me. Thanks much for your inputs - they are forcing me to think harder about my choices, and to carry with me only what I am sure I will use. Edited February 23, 2017 by PurpWaltz

I did some testing today to evaluate the sharpness of the Nikon 10-100 mm lens (for the Nikon 1 system) relative to the Nikon primes 35 mm f1.8G, 50 mm f1.8G and 85 m f1.8G. The link is:

 

https://purpwaltz.wordpress.com/2017/02/24/nikon-1-nikkor-10-100-mm-4-5-6-vr-lens-a-note-on-sharpness/

 

From my tests, I walked away with a lot of respect for the sharpness of the 10-100 mm lens, relative to the primes. As a result of these tests, I have decided to leave the 35 mm prime at home.

 

Hope this article is helpful. Thanks.