jeff_delisio

<p>I have returned from China six times in the last twelve years. Customs could care less about my cameras or lenses, those days are long gone.</p>

<p>That is a LOT to cover, even in three+ weeks. You will be exhausted I think and probably sick of train travel and Indian highway roulette but any proper trip to India should leave you overwhelmed</p>

<p>Here are a few suggestions, take with a hefty grain of salt as they just reflect my preferences and you will certainly bring a fresher eye to every one of these places.</p>

<p>First off you cannot go wrong. You will find wonderful people, architecture, village scenes everywhere and sometimes at the least expected times. I have a wonderful picture of an elephant being transported by truck when we were all stuck at some roadblock so keep your eyes open at all times.</p>

<p>Delhi - old Delhi should afford you more photo opportunities. It is often (always?) hazy there. It gets harder to move around Delhi every time I go there, so plan your routes well and don't try to see everything...</p>

<p>Jaipur, Udaipur - I believe it is Jaipur that has an ancient outdoor astronomy lab - tremendous place. Palace of winds is just a facade on a noisy street so you may not end up spending much time there - monkeys run all over the buildings though. There is an old palace out there that is now a hotel, go out there for a drink at night and relax a bit.</p>

<p>It is more off your track but I would cast my lot with Jodhpur over either of these but I should be trying to get you to whittle down your list. There is also a magnificent Jain temple outside of Udaipur - maybe it is in your list, I can't recall the name right now.</p>

<p>The Taj does not disappoint but see if you can go early and at sunset and also photo from across the river. I think you will really like Fatehpur for photos as well, try and spend some time there .</p>

<p>Your mileage may vary but I think the Tiger safaris are a waste - I've ended up on two against my better judgment. Not only were there no tigers to be seen, but a plethora of jeeps were out at the same time with each driver zooming around to try and get somewhere first (I assume you would tip more with a sighting) and just creating a racket. There will be other animals and birds to enjoy and often the place you stay nearby will be of interest but don't count on tigers.</p>

<p>I have not been in Bodhgaya in thirty years but I hear it is far less tranquil than it used to be - you will see temples (all new) from all nations with strong Buddhist populations which is a treat. Only the Mahabodhi temple has some age to it. It will already be warm there.</p>

<p>This used to be a hard place to get to given train schedules and being out in nowhere. It is probably easier now but try and spend a few days here to rest up or maybe scratch this if you are too worn out. </p>

<p>Personally though I would skip Kolkatta unless it provides a key link in your transport plans. To me it is just not that interesting from a photography point of view. It is an amazingly vibrant city, with a strong artistic and literary tradition, but unless you are there long enough to take part in some of that, it just does not match what you will have already seen. It is crowded and, for me at least, is harder to get around than Delhi or Mumbai - even walking can be difficult. Again just my two cents, but I would do the minimum there to make whatever travel contacts I needed and spend more time in Varanasi and Gaya.</p>

<p>Remember, with any luck you can always go back (I've made nearly a dozen trips) so pace yourself.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>A lot of overall good advice. I heartily recommend any Canon 70 - 200 (I have used three variations of them over time) and while I have really tried to travel with mostly the 24 - 105 on a FF body I would add another nod to having two lenses for better coverage of both the long and short end.</p>

<p>But I am having a hard time understanding what your trip will be - where will you be and what will you be doing. </p>

<p>First of all how does one get from Cape Town to NY overland!</p>

<p>Second it sounds like you will start in Cape Town but as soon as you are done with S. Africa you won't need a long lens! Not knowing your route and what areas you are considering in the South, I assume you mean you will not be seeing animals at some point as you head north. </p>

<p>Having traveled in a number of African countries I would first advise you not to think that, and to also consider other species besides the Big Five and certainly the interesting number of birds.</p>

<p>But even more important will be people, market scenes, villages in the distance any number of great opportunities with a longer lens. I would suggest you leave open the possibility of bringing all your kit with you for certainly the length of Africa - just make sure to have watertight containers for the final Atlantic crossing.</p>

<p>Hope this is a truly great trip and you share some photos with us when you return</p>

<p>Not sure what your question is, or exactly what type of backup you are doing now so my points may be off but hopefully this helps -</p>

<ul>

<li>The LR 'backup' feature itself is not sufficient. It is not backing up your images but rather the organization and (I believe history) around them. If your internal drive crashes, the LR backup on an external drive will not bring you back your complete catalog and photos </li>

<li>There are probably many ways to do a full back up that you can access, here are two -</li>

</ul>

<ol>

<li>simply do a full backup of ALL your files or at least ALL your LR directories (assuming you remember where they all are) from your internal to your external drive. I use a Mac so I have Time Machine backing up everything. When, not if, my internal drive fails I can start from the external drive. This way you have ALL your photos, edit history, directories etc. </li>

<li>Another variation - I do both by the way, is to periodically Export your catalog(s) to an external drive - this will take a long time if you have a lot of photos, I kick it off at night so I don't care, and this way you have a complete catalog that you can open any time by pointing LR to it. Again it will guarantee that your work is available</li>

</ol>

<p>What you ideally want is to have two completely functioning catalog(s) on different hard drives, or at least on a RAID drive that will let you replace disks with no data loss when they die.</p>

<p>Benro carbon tripod and B-1 head <br>

-- there are light alternatives that won't cost as much. I use a Velbon that weighs under what many of the carbon fiber rigs do and has survived two rugged trips to Tibet<br>

<br /> Sandisk 16GB CF card<br>

-- 8GB cards are usually less than half the cost of 16GB, cards are pretty light and small to carry<br>

Light meter<br>

-- Stopped using them when I went digital and do any corrections in post-process<br>

Various filters-Grad ND, Polarizers<br>

-- nice to have but given the tools available for post-processing you would only 'need' the polarizer.</p>

 

<p>I don't want to drag the same sub-thread on too long, but as others have already pointed out - white (off white) lenses don't scream out anything to people who don't follow lists like this one... </p>

<p>To most of the world ANY camera signifies $$$$ and by now in the states any DSLR looks 'expensive' or out of place compared to point and shoots or camera phones. Pointing big lenses attached to big cameras are going have an effect on someone regardless of whether the lens is black or beige. </p>

<p>As soon as you stop noticing and behave as you normally do, I don't think you will notice any difference in how people react to you.</p>

<p>My friend Karen Ande has been traveling to Kenya for many years to document (photograph) the work of a number of AIDS/HIV projects in Kenya -- http://andephotos.com/ I would suggest you contact her for some advice for your time in Kenya</p>

<p>Here are some performance metrics from MacWorld -<br /> http://www.macworld.com/article/143970/2009/11/core15_imac.html</p>

<p>My guess is you will be fine, what I can tell you for sure is that the quad i5 will handle just about anything you can throw at it, in LR or PS and that for me is working on 5D MKII RAW files.</p>

<p>I think Johathan's advice is right on - the graphics card will largely be irrelevant for PS and you should put in as much memory as you can. I have 8 GB RAM on my machine and with PS that really helps. Given the prices you mention, you might want the re-furb set up with 8 GB as well - however it depends on what the mem config is currently - you might have to replace all the current RAM to do that. Do they allow you to upgrade RAM or will you have to do that on your own?</p>

<p>One other thing though is that the HD sounds pretty small. Though I keep many things on external drive (and back everything up externally to) I now have my primary LR catalogs on the internal drive, and love the fact that Time Machine backs that up to an external 2TB drive automatically. I now find myself putting more on the internal drive than I used to and wishing I had 2 TB there as well.</p>

<p>I'm actually amazed that it works!</p>

<p>I was in the far west of Tibet with a 5d MKII and as we drove we created our own dust storms. At one point I noticed quite a spot in the sky when reviewing a shot and saw it in a few previous ones. I did a sensor clean, then turned camera off and back on - I had it set to clean when turned off. I snapped a few more similar scenes - no more spots, amazing.</p>

<p>I leave mine on to clean when powered off and have seen no ill effects.</p>

<p>Simon I had similar issues with an old G5 iMac. I stopped using the brush because I would just have to wait and watch the colorwheel spin while the machine caught up.</p>

<p>I now have a new iMac 27" quad core model with 8GM RAM. The brush flies, it will paint as fast as I can move it even when I have multiple features set on the sliders. </p>

<p>So it is indeed not unique to you and it does change dramatically with a faster machine (I unfortunately don't know if it is the processor or the RAM that is more responsible for this particular performance). It would be nice if LR improved the implementation of this in v3 as it does seem the only feature that is really not usable on older machines.</p>

<p>Slight tangent to the original question....</p>

<p>I no longer use LR's backup after reading one of the LR gurus blogs (Scott Kilby??). Since LR does not backup the photos themselves, but just the file structure and (I assume) the edit history, I now backup the whole catalog periodically myself.</p>

<p>I kick the process off at night ( 1/week or less depending on activity) and make a copy of the catalog and send it off to an external drive and/or and external RAID drive. Yes it cranks for a long time (one of my catalogs is nearing 19K of photos - time to split that one) but I don't care, I am asleep. I then have full catalogs that I can access simply and easily whenever I need to.</p>

<p>Regardless of whether this is a good course of action to recommend, I would recommend that at some point, and hopefully before you need it, you actually go through the exercise of restoring from a LR backup to see - if it works, does it do what you think it does, etc. </p>

<p>A drawback on this method is deleting old versions of the catalog takes a long time as well, but again machines are happy to work while we sleep.</p>

 

<p>As Alan mentions either will be miles beyond what you are using now and should bring a smile to your face. </p>

<p>Past the new features and specs, to my aging eyes there is quite a difference between the two.</p>

<p>I originally borrowed a friends 5D for awhile a little over a year ago and to emphasize Ken's point, was not sufficiently blown away compared to my 40D to spring for it. I did grab the 5D II when it came out and was instantly happy. When I compare MY test shots from the 5D to similar ones from the 5D II the difference was very obvious - this is while using the same lenses (good L glass).</p>

<p>While I'm sure counter-examples exist, and as much as I like to think I keep improving as a photographer, to me the new body shows much better results for the photos I take. Only you can decide whether the improvements folks have listed are 'worth it', but to me it is not even a close contest.</p>

<p>As Sheldon points out there are many benchmarks one can look to.... Just prior to getting the 27" iMac i5 (the i7 was having problems with shipping etc and I was in a hurry) I looked at this one -<br>

http://www.macworld.com/article/143970/2009/11/core15_imac.html<br>

which showed both the quad-core iMacs outperforming Mac Pros in some benchmarks.</p>

<p>Regardless of that, what I can tell you is that my 5D MKII Raw files load like lightening on this box and all the LR operations, including the local effects brush, are smooth and fast. Switching to PS for editing is quick - I don't do that much in PS so I can't truly evaluate performance there except that I've never had to wait on the machine yet. The screen is excellent - my lighting has always been set up to avoid glare and I get none from this new screen.</p>

<p>I'm sure there will be new Mac Pros that leap ahead, but when you consider the price difference, for me the 27" iMac was the right choice and I am really enjoying working with it. I set mine up with 8GB RAM which is not that big a bite $$$-wise like the 16GB RAM option.</p>

<p>BTW - why are your files so large? My Raw files are on the order of 26MB from the 5D II. Even if you are saving with Raw + Large JPEG I can't see how you would get 60MB files...</p>

<p>You can visit a number of sites to see comparisons on new iMacs and even some that will let you see results from your machine compared to a new iMac. Here is one comparison of new machines by MacWorld - http://www.macworld.com/article/143970/2009/11/core15_imac.html<br /> <p><br /> I recently traded in my old PowerPC iMac 20" for a new iMac 27" Quad Core i5 and I am constantly grinning at the performance improvement - there is simply no comparison. Raw files from my 5D MKII that used to take forever to load into LR 2.5 now just pop right up. I pretty much never used the local Brush tool because I could not see the changes in anything approaching realtime and now I can simply paint along as I please. <br /> <p><br /> The biggest improvement you can make to the standard box is to add more RAM. I have 8GB on mine and would suggest you max out the 21" as high as your budget will allow. Apple used to charge an enormous premium on adding memory but that is no longer the case. While you probably can save a little by getting extra Ram online, the last time I looked the difference was not that great to justify the hassle (at least for me).<br /> <p><br /> You will not have quite as fast performance if you get the Dual Core (which all the 21" iMacs are) but it will still be extremely faster than what you have now. The monitor on the 27" is spectacular and I believe the internals are roughly the same on the 21" (don't remember if the graphics cards are different) so you should be very happy there as well.<br /> <p><br /> External storage should not really be much of a factor any longer - I just bought a 2TB drive already setup for using Time Machine for about $240 at Frys, so I'm sure you can find even better deals if you need that. I'm a bit extreme but I now back the new iMac to that drive and periodically back that drive up to a Raid-Array NAS device and on occasion to another external drive I keep off site. But in any case storage has just become a non-issue $$-wise and we should all backup - and floss too.</p>

Short answer - Yes, of course.

 

First, the 27" iMac screen has extremely good resolution and sufficient 'oomph' (technical term but the previous models had indeed been skimped upon) and traditionally Macs have had better calibration out of the box and, in my experience stayed calibrated longer than the Dell and HP monitors I have also worked with.

 

Second the Quad Core screams (another technical term). I only opted for the i5 but I am able to load my 25MB files from the 5D MKII instantly into Lightroom and even tools like the Local Area brush work in real time on them - I can literally paint away and see the effects immediately. Photoshop comes up very quickly for me on this machine.

 

I am a sample of one only, but I am having a delightful time with this new iMac and now going back to some old scanned film work and touching some of that up now that my tools are so responsive.

<p>Delhi is not a place to relax, but unless you are traveling only to villages in South India it would be as good a place as any to adjust.<br>

Depending on your level of enthusiasm/fatigue there are any number of sights in Delhi to photograph and for sure-fire immersion going over to old Delhi.</p>

<p>There is a crafts museum in Delhi, not to be confused with the crafts market or any number of the government emporiums there. This one is a real gem that will give you a taste for the diversity of India and not subject you to hard sell.</p>

<p>You are also a day away from the Taj. You can take a train down there and back in one day - which I would not recommend. Rather you can hire a car and driver, get shots at dusk, stay the night down there, get shots early and then also visit Fatehpur Sikri (sp?) - an ancient city with extremely interesting architecture.</p>

<p>Delhi traffic is an adventure trip in itself, as is riding the roads on down to the Taj. If it all seems too much at first, get a cab over to the Imperial or one of the other grand hotels and have a drink in the lobby.</p>

<p>There will always be too much to take in. I have been to India on eight separate occasions and spent over a year in total there and still have places I want to see. Try to relax in the chaos, record what you can and sort it out later.<br>

Enjoy</p>

 

<p>Arie -<br>

Can the Zoom H2 be set to record to the camera's card or do you have to mix the sound in yourself in post process?</p>

I have had all four lenses at some point in time -

 

<P> yes the 70 - 300 is a really big step up from the older 75 - 300, and there were many posts about choosing between that and the 70 - 200 but it really can hunt around when focusing, and as Alan mentions, I think the colors and clarity don't come through as well. The last travel trip I took it on I vowed would be my last - I'd be happy to sell you mine.

 

<p> the 70 - 200 f/4 non-IS is a lovely lens but I missed some shots from time to time so I upgraded to the IS version and remain a happy camper - from time to time I miss not having the 300 range but not as much as I thought I would

 

<p> I also have the 24 - 105 and while there is overlap I consider that a plus - I don't like to switch lenses often when I travel and I try and stretch the time between changes

 

<p> My current solution is not cheap but works well for me, I have a FF camera for the 24 - 105 and kept my 20D for the 70 - 200. I will probably upgrade that to a 7D at some point if the dollar every stops losing value...

Because my Mac has failed on me more than once, I keep nothing on the local hard drive. My LR Catalogs and any miscellaneous photos are all on an external drive.

 

<p>

I back those catalogs up to a Network RAID drive - it consists of 4 separate drives and if one goes down I can easily replace it and nothing is lost (I use a ReadyNas). If my 'working' external drive goes down I can simply point LR over to the Catalogs on the RAID drive.

<p>

I originally worked directly off the RAID drive, but sometimes complications arise with that and I've found operations work faster with the external drive - I have that drive connected through a hub to my Mac and through a Router to my RAID drive. Backing up to the RAID can be slow but I don't care, I set it off at night.

<p>

I have also exported my photos - both the original RAW files and either JPGs or TIFFs (depending on how much I care about them...) and then written those out to DVDs which I keep at work so I have something in case of a real disaster.

I have flown on at least five carriers in China, out of airports across all areas of the country over the last ten years and my experience has been -

<p>

-- Policies, regulations, protocol vary widely - sometimes an airline/airport cares about onboard luggage weight or contents and sometimes they don't check at all. I have seen extreme examples of this at the same airport on the same day - just different times of day...

<p>

-- I have never had anything turn up missing from checked luggage and my checked luggage has always found me. As Edward mentions you can lock your bags up as tightly as you want once you are there.

<p>

-- Airlines and airports are updating at an amazing rate. While I still would not fly China Air (or am I thinking of Air China...) to get there, flying has become a very straightforward proposition once there and on some routes much more pleasant than here.

Purely subjective experience.

 

Had a 30D and borrowed a friends 5D to compare on a few local snaps. Other than the larger field of view the photos did not look dramatically different to me once processed in Lightroom and viewed on screen or in medium-sized prints.

 

Later purchased the new 5D MK II and was very impressed by the results shooting around town and now coming back from an extended trip in Tibet have a huge smile on my face.

 

Not only do I like the results but also noticed how little I felt I needed to do in processing them AND how much I COULD do in the few cases where I chose to.

 

So I have nothing to add to discussions of pixel pitch etc. but would urge you to seriously consider forgoing the certainly more reasonably priced 5D and either buy now, or wait till you can justify the 5D MK II. To my eyes the differences were clear and more easily realized.

 

 

Jeff

<p>Has anyone been in Lhasa recently and in general central and western Tibet?<br>

I will heading over to Mt. Kailash in September starting out in Lhasa and visiting Gyantse, Shigatse etc. I keep reading different accounts of where you can photograph. While older posts talk about high fees to shoot in the Potala, others simply state that photography is no longer allowed there at all. Other sites have various fees but it is hard to discern whether flash is allowed or tripods permitted. </p>

<p>In eastern Tibet it varied a lot but tripods were never an issue and few places had a fee - but they were less regulated by the state and more by the monks it seemed. If anyone has had any recent experience I'd would love to hear about it.</p>

<p>My current plan is to take two cameras - my new 5D II with the 24 - 105 and my trusty 20D with the 70 - 200 f/4 - I've often found the longer lens better for people shots and for isolating sections of the mtns. I wanted to minimize lens changes as everyone keeps mentioning dust problems in the west - not much of an issue in Amdo and Kham, at least in rainy season... </p>

<p>But I'm not keen on trekking around Kailash lugging both. Again, has anyone been out that way that can comment on the dust issue and lens changes.<br>

Many thanks,<br>

Jeff</p>

<p>Where in Tibet? I was in Amdo and Kham in July two years ago traveling down from Xining south and west then eventually swinging over to Chendgu. Normally the height of the rainy season but in an entire month we were rained on only twice. Some days were quite warm and evenings get quite cold - especially over 13,000 ft. Dust is not as much a problem as it seems in central and Western Tibet. There are more and more well paved roads in that area but as you get off those you are often on tracks and rather rudimentary one lane roads that could be problematic with lots of rain. The light was astounding every day. Go and try and spread some of your wealth around to the Tibetans there.</p>

<p>Guilin was the start of a trip we did in Guizhou several springs ago. It has become a real tourist area, see if you can get out from there further out as the other posters have noted. There are some truly beautiful areas to the north and west - we went for weeks without seeing a belching factory. The Dong and Miao people still retain some of their original culture but it is all changing very fast, get there as soon as you can. There was a lot of road construction going out of Guilin - it may be easier to move out to the hills for a few days.</p>

Julie -

 

I just bought a 1.5TB external disk at our local Fry's. It is a very sleek and fast Seagate SATA that hums along with barely a sound. I would imagine an internal version for your Pro would be far less.

 

I don't think you'll need to save much for a drive for the 25MB files and at least you have a Pro so you won't sit there for 10 seconds like me when LR tries to load one on an old iMac (pre Intel)...

A search on this site will reveal that this is an astounding lens (you can factor in weight and cost as you wish). A search on Flickr will reveal several hundred photos for you to look at - besides the obvious ones of the camera itself you will see landscape, portraits, action...