Travel with D70 or Film?

[zac williams www.williams]

In November, I am traveling to Venice, Slovenia and Croatia. Last time I went I took my F3

and N80. I've since sold the N80 and now have a D70. I had originally planned to buy

another film body (N80, N90s or F100?) for this trip, take that with the F3 and leave the

D70 home. I really don't want to take my laptop. I also don't want to sacrifice image

quality using the D70 vs. slide film. <p> Now after using the D70 extensively I'm

beginning to rethink leaving it home. It's great. My goal is to come back with images

suitable for

printing (16x24, maybe even 20x30), similiar to what you see on my website <a

href="(www.williamsvisual.com)">http://www.williamsvisual.com</a>

<p>I would appreciate any suggestions or advice, particularly regarding the storage of

digital images. I was thinking that I may be able to take a couple of 512mb CF cards and

dump those to CDs when possible (if I can find a kiosk or friend with a burner). I really

don't want to deal with the laptop. Maybe film is the answer for simplicity and ultimate

quality. I will take the F3 regardless, as I need two cameras (one for my wife). I've even

thought about maybe picking up a medium format camera for better enlargements, but

that opens up another can of worms. Any experience you might share would be

appreciated.

[ilkka_nissila]

I was in San Francisco with my D70 and F100 and used both, but the results from the D70 seem to be quite a bit better than those from Velvia 100F. I still like black and white film and the results from that.

 

I think no 35 mm colour film can compare with the print quality from the D70 provided that you can get the images in focus (which is a big challenge for me and the D70). I had 3 1 GB cards and shot RAW. I recommend you to buy more storage. Take the film body with you this time ... maybe you won't the next time :-).

[scott_eaton]

If you're getting better image quality from your 35mm slides than your D70, then ya ain't using the D70 right. Or, your one of those who simply likes the cliche' look of Velvia, or you have a pretty darn good drum scanner and LightJet printer in your basement.

 

The medium format gear is another matter, but if you think hauling around a Hassie or RB is going to be less hassle than the D70, you're dreaming. A Fuji or Mamiya MF Rangefinder compliments a dSLR wonderfully though. I'd have no issues keeping one of those gems in my camera bag along side my 10D to handle the wide angle stuff.

 

Get some extra capture cards, and format them multiple times to burn them in. For every horror story somebody will tell you about their cousin Tony losing his CF card on his trip to the the North Pole, I'll show you 10 labs that trash more C-41 and E-6 film on a daily basis.

[EricM]

two 512 cards? travel? slide quality better than D70? MF?

 

Confusing. If money is tight then I'd sell the MF and buy more cards. It seems to be a trend too. I'd dedicate myself to the D70 and get your kit in order, then bring your film cam for back up and low light/interior stuff.

 

OT; I'm astonished at what MF gear is selling for now.

[rustys pics]

Considering the hassles with X-Rays and hand inspection of film, the D70 is the way to go.

You can get an Apple iPod and Belkin compact flash card adaptor to download them. That

you way you've also got some tunes for the flight and train trips too.

 

It sure would be nice to shoot some TMAX 3200 or Ilford Delta 3200 for lowlight

interiors...but probably not worth the hassle unless you can get it processed over there.

Yep, airline security in the Brave New World Order is rapidly making film obsolete.

[zac williams www.williams]

Thanks for the quick responses. The iPod is something I've considered. I have a 40gb iPod

that is great, but I've heard that the Belkin adapter is slow and drains the batteries. Any

experience with this? If I could solve the storage problem without spending a ton on CF

cards it would be great.

 

The MF rangefinder is exactly what I was considering. Either a Mamiya 7 or a Bronica RF. At

the same time, as DSLRs become better (D2X?), I see less of a need for MF and am

reluctant

to spend the money on MF.

 

The input regarding quality of the D70 vs. transparency really helps me put together a

plan for the trip. Short of drum

scanning, I'm "almost" convinced that the D70 exceeds film quality. I'm printing everything

digitally anyway, as Ilfochromes are nonexistent as of a few months ago in my area.

[jim_zwig]

If only one camera is allowed, it should be D70 plus a laptop. If you are afraid of losing battery charge. Take a Nion FM2/N as a backup. Film are easier to get then battery.

[bill_chiarchiaro]

Zac,

 

I'm sure you have your reasons for not wanting to bring along your computer, but if it's because of luggage concerns, there are convenient options available.

 

In July, my wife and I spent 2.5 weeks in France, following the last two weeks of the Tour de France and then spending some extra time around Paris. I had my D70, 18-70mm kit lens, 70-200mm f/2.8 VR, TC-14E II, SB-800, batteries, chargers, filters, cables, notebook computer, computer accessories, etc. in a Lowepro CompuTrekker AW backpack. This backpack fit in the airliners' overhead luggage compartments. In France, it was with me every day, and spent many hours, fully loaded, on my back while alongside the Tour course. The only times I took the computer (and some other items) out of the backpack was when we hiked up and down the Col du Tourmalet in the Pyrenees and l'Alpe d'Huez in the Alps. The backpack's built-in rain cover was very handy during a torrential thunderstorm on the Tourmalet.

 

Every day, I transferred my photos onto the computer's 80-GB hard drive. I also had a 30-GB drive in an external USB case, and every few days I'd make backup copies onto it. I had the computer's CD burner and a supply of CD-Rs with me, but I never used them.

 

It was really nice to be able to review photos on the computer. Also, some of our hotels had in-room Internet service, which was very useful and would have been useless without the computer. Email and instant messaging were much more convenient than telephones for keeping in touch with people back in the US, and posting same-day photos to my Web site was certainly fun.

 

--Bill

[bruce_rubenstein]

You don't need to carry around a laptop. There are all sorts of battery powered hard drives with a built in card reader designed for downloading and storing pictures. Some of them even have an LCD for viewing thumbnails of the downloaded images.

[Wayne Melia]

re: storage. My choice was the Apacer 100 portable cd burner. Comes with rechargable (12v or 120v) battery. You then have unlimited storage, and instant backup (if you wish) by burning multiple copies (mail one home?). One 512 mb card nicely fits on one CD. Other variations are available. Just have to be sure you're covered with respect to possible power incompatabilities (120v <> 240v) in Europe?

[Jerry_]

...if you like the F3, find a good, used Nikon N8008s body for your wife to use on the trip. It'll take just about any Nikkor lens, runs on four AAs, has three meters, and the AF works (just not on the same level of a F5.)

[EricM]

good times Bill? sure sounds like it! i dig your style too.

[Karim Ghantous]

I'd go with the sensible suggestions above, i.e. portable CD burner/portable HD/iPod (as long as the iPod is plugged into a power source while you're transferring data). Or just CF cards.

 

Just think for a second: how ridiculous it is to carry around a laptop computer to back up your camera. The camera and lenses are big enough already and some people are suggesting you add another bulky, expensive item to your kit. In my not so humble opinion, a stack of CF cards is a more practical and logical option, perhaps with one of the portable storage solutions.

 

Scott, is that right about 'burning in' CF cards? How come?

[walter_sudetic]

For what it's worth, I've spent 4 weeks in Croatia (July & August) with the D70, and 2 512MB CF cards. I also took the kit 18-70 DX, and AF28-105 f3.5-4.5D lenses, the SB600 flash, and a laptop. Every evening I'd dump the CF card(s) to the laptop. Most (~98%) of my images were taken with the 18-70DX kit lens, and of those, most (>75%) were at or near the 18mm end. I only wish, I had a 12-24DX lens. I'll never again carry a film + film camera on a vacation/travel. The digital kit is not only smaller/lighter, but also the gives the ability to change the ISO and WB between shots; which is just light years ahead of having to change film mid-roll. Now, if the laptop is a burden, (for me it was not), there are other portable digital storage media out there (Nikon has that new overpriced? 30GB "Coolwalker" thinggy).

[zac williams www.williams]

Good suggestions and ideas I hadn't considered. The big reason I don't want to take a

laptop is airport security. We will be taking our two young children and airport security is

hassle enough. The LowePro Compu Trekker looks like a good solution if I bring a laptop.

(Too bad I have a Mini Trekker already!) The other reason I'd like to avoid the laptop is just

the addition of too much stuff. I went to Zion NP a few months ago and thought it a little

crazy that I had with me five seperate battery/power systems! (Power Book, DSLR, iPod, DV

Camcorder, Cell Phone) I guess that's progress. That's why I thought taking 15 rolls of film

or so might be the simple solution. Definitely no camcorder this trip.

 

The Apacer CD Burners are products of which I was not aware. The CP80 might work. No

battery, but does run off 120V-240V and is fairly resonable at $130. I wish the iPod could

work as a solution, but I don't think I would be happy with the Belkin card reader's slow

transfer and battery drain. I also ran across a 20GB standalone storage device called a

Wolverine SixPac for $200. I will do some research on that unit. If I can't figure out a better

solution, the laptop will be the last resort. Thanks for the great comments.

[klix]

My 2 cents... D70 and 2-3 lenses, and 2-3 CF cards. Also, I use Vosonic's X's Drive Pro for storage.

 

http://www.xs-drive.com/xsdrivepro/

[EricM]

Here's a <a href="http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009KXp">thread</a> I was just in discussing drives and such. Might want to check it out too.

[george_newbury]

D70!

As fas as the numerous wall warts think of this -

2 multi chargers with adapters (ends) and settings for all your power needs. This solves two problems - it reduces the number of wall warts and you don't have to worry about a critical wall wart dying. Just be careful to keep all your batteries charged as much as possible. As far as a laptop - how big is your laptop ? I've got an HP Jornada 720 that does 90% of what I need to do, has a CF slot and fits in a big pocket, it's about the size of a VHS tape.

[armando_roldan]

I shot 25-30 rolls of film in Australia 18 months ago with my F100 and spent about $400 in processing. Thats about 500-600 shots... a 1 gig card should get you like 300 JPG FINE LARGE images that you can transfer over and shoot another 300 for no extra cost.

 

I would still take my Film camera for the sake of the wide angle but

I don't do that much landscape or interiors.

[james_ogara1]

Armando wrote: I shot 25-30 rolls of film in Australia 18 months ago with my F100 and spent about $400 in processing. Thats about 500-600 shots... a 1 gig card should get you like 300 JPG FINE LARGE images that you can transfer over and shoot another 300 for no extra cost.

 

Armando, my hat's off to you, but I can't make this math work the same as everybody else. I have two F-4s that have paid for themselves many times over.

 

Instead of these trusty machines, I am supposed to buy two (fill in the blank) say D-2H at $3K a pop, plus assume 30 percent depreciation per year. So that's $6000 -- heck even two D70s is $2000. Then, plan on spending another X amount in three years.

 

Then, get rid of your SB-28, buy a new flash (two actually) that's $300, oh yeah buy a laptop of some other backup device, and get a cool 10.5 mm fisheye DX and a 17-35.

 

That's going to take a lot of film savings to pay for.

[rjacksonphoto]

I haven't used my FM2n's, F5, or 501CM since I got the D70. I've quit carrying film cameras on trips (especially trips requiring x-ray inspection) as well. Life is much simpler. I took a small laptop to Yellowstone for a week but would go with an ImageTank if I could afford it now.

 

As it is, I'll take the D70 to Kauai in October, with a CP 4300 as a backup. I'm considering taking 2 GB of CF cards which, with the D70, would give 360 RAW images. This or an ImageTank would be the way to go, IMHO. I still may take the laptop, depending on what else I think I might use it for, but it won't be absolutely necessary.

[Jim_Tardio]

I own the Apacer CD200 portable disc burner. It's small, light and works great. I would never use an Ipod...the two that I've owned both had battery problems, and just seemed very touchy overall.

<p>

A 512 card filled with raw+jpeg format images from a D70 nicely fills a CD-R. You'll be able to plug your Apacer right into wall in all of the places you mention. It comes with a 110-240V charger. All you need is the adapter to fit the wall socket.

<p>

Also, instead of a medium format rangefinder, consider a Hasselblad XPAN. It's smaller, uses 35mm film, and has the option of panoramic or standard format. With the release of the XPAN II, there are plenty of good deals for the original XPAN.

<p>

Have a great trip.

[ilkka_nissila]

Do you people really believe that carry-on luggage x-rays have a measurable effect on film? I've never heard of it happening, let alone it happening to me. It seems that the film manufacturers agree about it. But if D70 helps with your paranoia, good for you. Me, I carry both.

[aeiffel]

One can ask for a manual inspection of the films. This is smtg I do systematically, just in case I need to have some of the rolls pushed @1600 or 3200 (and yes, in this case you can have fogging, depending on the stength of their equipment).<br>

I'll fly to Daghestan soon and am glad to bring my newly-used F100 and trusty F90X in this country. The D1X will stay at home cause I really don't know if - and when - I could find appropriate power sources for the camera and backup devices on a daily basis there. Temperature should be quite low at night too, which doesn't help a lot to save energy.<br><br>

Well, bringing your F3 and a couple of rolls shouldn't hurt IMHO.<br>

Just my 0.02<br><br>

Have a nice trip, Fred.

[aeiffel]

I meant "bringing your F3 as well as your D70", of course...