What's your definition of your travel photography?

Through conflict I have changed my tune when I am travelling with other people. So I would choose more compact equipment etc ... and if I cannot wait for that sunset I will skip it. I am looking for a premium compact, although some might just use their smartphone.

 

Through a handful of people I know locally who are into photography they tend to travel alone, or they go together the partner goes that way and the photographer goes the other way.

 

If it is by yourself or you with likeminded shooters you can do any trips you want, like the entire trip fishing, diving or snorkeling but when you are with general people (non photographers) what sort of environment do you travel to? One might do a few days on a walking track living in a tent or the provided camping huts, carrying food and water but for the majority of the trip how is it ....

 

I also found no one really cares about your pictures. For me, the ones that do more is my camera club. But then again photography can be a wide range, not everyone does hardcore landscapes and still prefer to sleep in and have their coffees etc. I found that most people are not into photography but more into snapshots of family and friends. Then begs the question, all that great equipment isn't needed always. It's to be viewed o the TV screen for once and then stored away or shared on social media. That's a question for next time. Many might only print the odd 8x10 or the odd A3. I think people at my camera club is guilty of that, and at times we get discounts from our local lab to support us.

I usually just travel with my wife and spend as much or as little time as we want at any location. She's got a lot of patience when I ask to slow down so I can take photos. As far as gear is concerned, I bring with me the best gear that I can bear to carry and that I think would capture what I want. Otherwise, IMHO, why spend thousands on gear if they're just going to sit in a closet. I've tried different kinds of gear but I've always just been more comfortable and confident with my DSLR's. I've also picked up a Sony RX100 mV for quick grab shots.

 

We don't ever go on tour for an entire trip. When we do join tours, they are the one-day or 2-3 day varieties, usually with a small group of people. On those day trips, I obviously try to be considerate of others' time so I tend to shoot more rapidly. Quite a few people in those small group tours do shoot with their iPhones or a small digi--good for them. I use what makes my photography more enjoyable. I do this for me.

 

As for my preferred destination, it has to be a place that my wife (a non-photographer) wants to visit and would enjoy. I can always find something to photograph. Or, if I have a photo-specific destination in mind, e.g., birding in Belize, then I have to make sure that there are activities that she will enjoy as well. So far--almost 22 years--that's worked out very well for us.

 

-Keith

Edited December 24, 2017 by photo_galleries

Dunno if or how accomodation style, as polled matters. To me mobility provides the bigger photo relevant challenges.

Does a visited city care where I slept?

Catered traveling leaves chances to carry lots of gear while full autonomy might take it's toll, if no cars are involved.

Other people just mean no tripod.

I am looking for a premium compact, although some might just use their smartphone.

I don't really get that. - I'm probably just too cheap. My compacts are all outdated for sure and their results don't make me happy, even just on screen. When modest carried weight is no concern as usual, does shooting a pair of light SLRs or MILCs or even 3 RFs make a difference? - I mean:

• Shooting your choice occupies you, like shooting mine occupies me.
  
• There is no stealth factor! - Phone or 1D, people react the same way.
  

Find some kit that feels right for you, think and in a bright moment maybe better ditch everything else. Sorry, "hardcore landscape photography" sounds like the infinite dream of an 8th day of the week to me. What will be your retirement age? - Do you save enough to afford global shipping of the camper pulling a trailer with ATV or pack animal to carry your tent & monorail into the field? Will you be in sufficient shape to endure the travels? And why should there ever be any reward?

Amateurs need cameras that get taken out. Stay at home bulk does rarely enrich your photography.

most people are not into photography but more into snapshots of family and friends.

- So what is the consequence? - Where do pictures of those folk start to become photography? - When you control the light and them? Time to figure out how to carry your light?

Then begs the question, all that great equipment isn't needed always. It's to be viewed o the TV screen for once and then stored away or shared on social media

I'm sticking to: In low light you capture four pixels, to publish one on a good day. That fact eats a lot of equipment greatness. IDK what social media permit, but guess there will be a day when 4K stills become an option? Or will shining on full HD smart devices remain the ultimate goal?

I usually just travel with my wife and spend as much or as little time as we want at any location.

Same here.

I bring with me the best gear that I can bear to carry and that I think would capture what I want. Otherwise, IMHO, why spend thousands on gear if they're just going to sit in a closet.

Same here. Except substitute "I" for "we" as my wife also photographs. We fall in the "mainly rural travel" category of the poll - and like Jochen, I don't understand what the type of accommodation has got to do with anything (we've stayed at resorts, hotels, motels, apartments, houses, B&Bs, cabins, and in tents). Obviously, IF we are in the company of others, we try to be considerate while indulging in our photography. So far, we pretty much avoided "tour packages" of any kind as we very much prefer to explore on our own.

 

Sorry, "hardcore landscape photography" sounds like the infinite dream of an 8th day of the week to me.

To me too. While my wife and I do a lot of landscape photography, we can hardly be considered hardcore as other needs and wants often interfere with a "hardcore landscape photographing schedule". We get to shoot that sunrise or sunset if we can, but often, we can't. And like so often when traveling, one arrives at a good location at the times when the light isn't the best and has to make do with what's available. Photography is a part of our travels, but it's not all of it.

 

I am looking for a premium compact

I've done that before when I didn't want to be burdened with lots of photo equipment. Regretted it afterward every single time and vowed never to go that route again. Trimming down my DSLR or mirrorless equipment for some trips, yes. Replacing with just a compact, no.

Edited December 24, 2017 by Dieter Schaefer

I like to take pics of people so, when I can, I travel with people who like to be in pics. :)

 

I take my 5D Mk II with one fixed and one zoom lens and always have my iPhone in my pocket.

 

My travels are usually with my wife who does NOT share the same passion for photography as I do....luckily she is a late riser so I do have the sunrise and a few hours afterwards all to myself. I wake her up for breakfast at the hotel. I try to pick somewhere interesting for the sunset. My wife loves a good sunset though I'll be the one watching it through a viewfinder. Here's a link to our travels the past dozen years: CLICK HERE.

My travel photography has varied a great deal. Sometimes, my purpose was to see things and people and photograph. Often, the photography part was tacked on to a trip for study or work, which determined where and what I was able to shoot. Now, when I can, I mostly travel to see family and friends scattered in many places around the world. I sometimes photograph them and where they live. The photo below was from a trip taken for yet another reason, an unusual one, a car trip to a memorial for a friend in Montana, in 2009.

Glacier National Park, 2009.

We did a trip last year, and I thought about a premium compact because it's just for the odd street photography as the others are walking down the main road etc, most it is going to be going to cafes, restaurants, malls, dessert shops and ice cream parlours, specialist food places. Then put other photog to the side and just have a holiday. Earlier this year we did a trip more rural but it was in a small town which they didn't like and they didn't hide it. If I was carrying my dSLR I would be carrying it along the main road, into cafes and restaurants, mid afternoon.

 

I've been told that next time please don't invite them if I were to do photography. I am not from the USA, as an example, going to Yosemite wouldn't be an option for them, here in NZ we don't have accommodation in the reserves, but even when we lived in motels etc ... in the township, population 12,000 or something they just don't enjoy it, they say the town is too small, no shops, few cafes and restaurants, they say it's just a place of nowhere just mountain and empty skies. Taking USA as the example, they would prob do holidays in places like LA, NYC and Boston.

a premium compact because it's just for the odd street photography

Maybe a less than ideal choice? - I am neither up to date about that segment of the camera market, nor much of a street shooter. From my limited experience a swiftly focusing journalistic camera seems ideal. Anything elderly premium compact tended to come with admittedly quite decent lens but rarely ever with extremely swift AF. I am not sure which modern compact gives a chance to work around via conveniently accessible zone focusing, if such cameras exist at all.

According to reviews it seems as if we are at the beginning of a wave of tech improvement. Canon's dual pixel AF and Sony's implementation of phase detection AF in mirrorless cameras and latest compacts are starting to make them kind of bearable. Fuji IBIS is at least rumored. Anything elderly that you could buy right now won't make you happy in the long run. So better wait till those technologies reachs the generation of cameras you are shopping for.

For street work I was thinking of the Ricoh GR digital. Or just use snap focussing and get it roughly in focus. But much of the stuff with other are just family/friends snapshots, outside maybe having ice cream or coffee and inside a cafe etc. at the train station and the airport. Weighing 250g doesn't need a bag and can just tag along like another of their luggage.

 

I don't do it anymore. They just don't like away from cities. In the past we have spent 90% of the 2 week or even once 3 weeks in rural or small towns. One could just station in the same place for 5 days and revisit and revisit until the ideal weather conditions arise. Carry own food and cooking utensils and cook ones own food every day. We even did that on 2 Christmas, not Christmas Day, but Boxing Day and the festival week. Self catering, with packaged and canned foods, stocking up at home and on the road when we got a semi decent township that had a relatively affordable supermarket.

For street work I was thinking of the Ricoh GR digital. Or just use snap focussing and get it roughly in focus.

Check out how accessible it is, before you'll spend. - I'm really not happy with the manual focus via menu options offered by Coolpix 990 or Cybershot N50. Speaking iof tiny sensors I'd very much appreciate real mechanical manual focus like on a Minox C, that can be done before you even rise the camera into shooting position.

much of the stuff with other are just family/friends snapshots, outside maybe having ice cream or coffee and inside a cafe etc. at the train station and the airport.

IMHO such doesn't reduce the need for a responsive and swift AF; especially when you are after natural candid real snapshots instead of formalized ones when people consciously put on mask like grins towards your camera. Family get weary of their shutterbugs, teens and similar start turning counterproductive / uncooperative. If a camera hunts focus for ages for each single shot it doesn't get you very far. I considered some I tried so unresponsive that I became really uncomfortable attempting to shoot people with them. A conventional manual focus and responsive shutter would have kept me happy.

I'm not familiar with the GR. Best of luck. - Keep in mind that smaller sensors might be in bigger need of IBIS than bigger ones.

Thr GR has a aps-c sensor.

 

Going with IBIS. The only option I think with a larger sensor is the Canon G1 series which isn't that small, then it's the Micro four thirds which is a bit smaller sensor or the Sony's. The M4/3 are about the same body size as othe rmirroeless like the Fuji's which doesn't have IBIS. The Fuji X100F which has a reputation for street work also doesn't have IBIS.

 

Or the Panasonic LX100. Sony RX100 but that's a bit smaller sensor thou still a bit larger than usual compacts.

When I travel, I try to analyze what I find interesting or attractive about the things I see, and compose photographs which capture those impressions in a way others can appreciate. I try to be a minimalist when composing photos, which generally requires more equipment to deal with composition and perspective.

 

My ideal travel style revolves around photography. I travel by car, which gives me the ability to stop at will, spend as long as I need at that location, and to divert from my rough plan when something interesting presents itself. I plan a rough route along with places to stay in the evening, but even lodging tends to be flexible. I need a place to stay, backup daily, recharge batteries and sleep in relative comfort. Those needs, along with my age and proclivities, precludes tents.

 

There's no real limit to the amount of equipment I carry on the trip, but usually limit myself to one, two or three lenses at a particular site. I pursue landscapes, and cities are things I must endure. Nonetheless, cities are where you find people and buildings, and a single lens is all I carry on the hoof, usually a 25 mm prime. My main lenses are three zooms, ranging from 16 mm to 200 mm (with a 100-400 on my short list), and a sprinkling of primes (which don't see much use). My most-used lens is an excellent 24-70/2.8. On a trip like this I always carry a sturdy tripod, but more for consistency, e.g., panoramas, long exposures and bracketed.HDR images. Image stabilization is enough to reduce camera shake to the pixel-level for most shots..

 

SE Iceland

Edited December 31, 2017 by Ed_Ingold

I am a hotel and resort photographer professionally, but also take a lot of travel photography just for pleasure.

 

As a far as I am concerned anything which captures the essence of a place can be termed travel photography, regardless of what camera it is taken on.

 

The photograph below was taken on Nikon's first pro digital camera - the Nikon D1. A real dog but I still managed to get a great shot (I hope you agree)

 

http://www.hotelresortphotography.co.uk/hotelresortphotography.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Resort-Photographers-001a.jpg

For travel with my wife, I bought a Sony 1" with 4K video and medium zoom that I can keep in my breast pocket. While there's plenty of pixels for the occasional print, I reduce the file size down to 8mb for display of my smart 4k UHDTV. I set the format, usually, to wide format to fit the screen size. Before the Sony 1", I used a micro 4/3 but even that was too big. It's nice now to carry a camera in my pocket. At home, I'll go out and shoot Mamiya medium format film camera on a heavy tripod. Without my wife :)

<< What's your definition of your travel photography? >>

 

Anywhere I happen to travel to and happen to find something I consider interesting that can make a satisfactory composition, memory: Landscape, wildlife, people, abstracts, interesting locations, situations, things unique to the area...

Edited January 16, 2018 by Mary Doo

<< What's your definition of your travel photography? >>

 

Anywhere I happen to travel to and happen to find something I consider interesting that can make a satisfactory composition, memory: Landscape, wildlife, people, abstracts, interesting locations, situations, things unique to the area...

 

Shot two weeks ago when I was visiting Davao, Philippines: I decided to capture this situation immediately when I saw it. The condition, lighting, and composition seemed right with this split-second opportunity of this sweet little girl on the street looking at me.

 

 

Olympus EM1 II with 12-100 lens @12mm: 1/400s f/4 ISO 800

Edited January 16, 2018 by Mary Doo

package photo tours when I don't speak the local languages.

Otherwise, rent a car and go where I want to go

 

I always travel independently with my wife. Not really into big tour groups as I like the flexibility to be able to spend as much or as little tile at a location as I like.

I avoid tours if at all possible. So it helps a lot to speak the native language. Tours make things much easier for you since you don't need to arrange transportation and lodging, but it also is very limiting if you want to stay longer to photograph that awesome crane in the water while the rest of the tour wants to move on, or to change your itinerary and either stay longer or shorter than planned. Airbnb has been great for arranging accommodations on the fly. I've made last minute (i.e. accommodations for the next evening either the night before or the morning of) through Airbnb and almost uniformly they have been superior to motels or hotels. It's great to meet and interact with the local people as compared with a hotel maitre'd.

I have travel a lot, and they were not photography related til the past few years. Since the start of photography, i tend to plan the trip, find a local guide, and direct them when and where to go. this has worked out well as "we" photographers tend to go at a slow pace with different requirement compared with other tourist. we also tend to want to be up early and stay late ,sunrise/sunset. the planning systole for a private tour is usually a year lead time. even with repeat tour to the same location with the same guide, i still advise the guide with a year lead-time. Also, i offer these tour to friends that are in my camera club/meet up group without any markup.

 

here is a photos of my last trips.

I am not able to upload photos. i don't know why.

I agree with tycin on groups and tours - not for me. My wife does not share my passion for photography. For the last ten years or so, she has been very understanding as I have taken a series of two week solo trips to a foreign destination (China, Thailand, Morocco, Korea, Japan, Croatia, Greece, France, Germany, and Italy). To me these trips and their inherent ability to explore the local culture and sights are the essence of travel photography. I am free to explore to my heart's content, and have no one to blame but myself if I don't like the company. I can be up before the sun, take an afternoon nap, eat when and what I want,and be back out as the sun goes down without conforming to someone else's expectations.

Here's one take on vacation photography from the "What the Duck" cartoons:

W.T. Duck by Aaron Johnson for May 29, 2018 | GoComics.com

My priority for any travel (and we do a lot) is to learn about the local culture. How are they different, what's better, what's not, why. We want to become a part of the local culture as much as possible. Why do we (U.S.) have such a lower life expectancy than other developed countries and why do we have the highest rates of preventable diseases? Why do we have the highest road fatality rates? Why do we have more human trafficking and drug problems than Amsterdam? Is the seeming happiness and contentment of people in Copenhagen, Utrecht and Stockholm real or imagined? We spend very little time in tourist areas. I'd rather hang out in a suburban village getting to know it than looking at sites I've seen a thousand pictures of.

 

My photography follows this. How can photo's tell a story? Probably the most frequent comment I hear from people returning to the U.S. from Europe is "I wish I could live there". Why? So I take a lot of photos of the places that people say they'd like to live to tell the story of why. Photos of the local people and photos of the streets with narrower lanes and fewer cars. I've a gob of photos of people walking and riding bicycles in cities around the world and of what people are eating in cafés.