bob_flood1

<p>Andrew - be mindful of your idea of "early" May - the north rim opens May 15, and the north rim is better situated for you to travel to your other destinations, Zion, Bryce, Monument Valley. It will also be distinctly less crowded than the south rim.<br> I haven't used a guide at the Canyon, but I know there are guided hikes led by rangers at no cost and no reservation required. Perhaps a call to the park might get you more details about where the hikes go and if any are photo-oriented.<br> There is also a Grand Canyon Field Institute that does some guided trips, probably larger in scale than you want. But if you call them, someone there might be able to give you some names of people who would be suited to your ambitions.</p>

<p>The Page idea has a further complication. If you want to try getting there, do some Googling/Binging about the roads (89 and 89A). There was a washout some time ago and rebuilding the road has been slow. If construction is ongoing, you may be forced to take a detour route that will make the trip noticeably longer (both ways).</p> <p>When UT59 crosses into AZ you'll find Colorado City on the AZ border. Aside from its history regarding the Mormon Church (Wikipedia info), Colorado City will be the last place you'll be able to get gas or a cold drink until you get over to Fredonia.</p> <p>My wife and I also like the Best Western Zion, too. Good place for dinner as well as breakfast. Have a great trip, and be sure to lose some money in Las Vegas - it's how our taxes get paid!</p>

<p>OK, the reservations in Kanab changes everything. Belay my last post.<br> First, the Victorian Inn was excellent when my wife and I stayed there a few years ago - you should enjoy it. We also liked the family restaurant on the main street in Kanab; I don't recall the name, but there aren't two. There was a time when Hollywood used that area for shooting westerns, and the restaurant had lots of photos from that time. Good food, reasonable prices, filled with mostly local folks (always a good sign).<br> Hitting Cedar Breaks for sunset shots and then driving to Kanab will be a drive that will NOT be the high point of your trip. A few hours of driving two lane roads in the dark with deer infrequently standing on the roadside is probably not a happy time. Going to Cedar Breaks on day 2 on the way to Vegas I think would be a more enjoyable plan.<br> On day one, getting to Kanab via 59&389 will be a good, scenic drive. Good scenery to photograph along the way. I recommend turning off to the Coral Pink Sand Dunes (watch for the sign). If you get into the Kanab area early enough, or maybe first thing on day 2, the Best Friends Animal Society facility just north of Kanab would be a great place to see and photograph a striking variety of animals from around the world. They take in unwanted circus animals among others. Nice people there.</p>

<p>The route you propose (14, 89, 389) is fairly long, something over 200 miles of mostly 2 lane road. You'll spend an awful lot of your one day just driving.<br> I agree with thom - the Kolob Canyon part of Zion NP is a good option. There's that $25 fee again, but the Kolob section is distinct from the Virgin River canyon and photo-worthy on its own merit. Much less crowded than the main canyon, too. No food in there, though - bring whatever you'd want to eat and drink. The entrance is on I-15 between St George and Cedar City.<br> Cedar Breaks is higher altitude than stated earlier - the sign as you enter the parking lot said 10,004 feet that last time I was there, and I'm pretty sure it hasn't changed much. The parking lot is on the rim, so that's about as high as you'd get; if you want to hike, you'd be hiking into lower elevations, but remember the hike would end with the climb back out. The advice about sunset is good - the westward-facing orientation favors the afternoon light, and the hoodoos fairly glow in that last light of day. My suggestion would be to start the day in Kolob Canyon and then head up to Cedar Breaks for sunset. The drive back to St George in the dark would be on good roads.<br> If your itinerary is to stay in St George the night after your Cedar Breaks day, then you would be coming up from Las Vegas (right?). It would be easy and maybe 3 hours of driving from Vegas to the Kolob entrance. That will depend to some degree on how slow the traffic is in the Virgin River Gorge on the NV-AZ-UT border - repaving in the AZ part. It's all single lane, both ways, and you'll go at the speed of the slowest vehicle in the gorge. No place in the gorge to get off the interstate and no food or drink - bring what you want.<br> If your itinerary is to stay in St George the night before your Cedar Breaks day, then you would be driving back to Vegas in the evening. From Cedar Breaks, expect about 4 hours driving plus whatever stops you make, such as dinner in St George or Mesquite.</p>

<p>KEH has been the definition of reliability for decades - hard to find someone who is a dissatisfied customer of theirs these days. They (keh.com) have a Nikon D80 in EX condition for about $250 and a Nikon 18-70 lens for about $150. That meets the $400 hoped-for budget and should do just fine for what you say you'll be doing with the system. The D80 offers great color, but doesn't prosper at ISO settings above 400 (my opinion). The conditions you describe seem to play right into the D80's strengths. You could even go cheaper with a D70S body. A 6 megapixel camera (D70S) should do just fine for creating web page images, and even can make a decent 16X20 print if the image is handled carefully.</p>

<p>Plus one on Shun's recommendation. The free RescuePro that came with a Sandisk card I bought several years ago did the trick when I had file problems on an Alaska trip. And coincidentally, it was a card in a D70.</p>

<p>Over the past decade plus, there have been recurring questions and complaints about memory cards not behaving in a user's camera, and I've noticed a bit of a pattern in the circumstances. People seem to run into problems when trying to use a card that either has a larger capacity or a faster speed than was available at the time the camera model was introduced. I realize why folks are attracted to higher speed or larger capacity cards, but venturing into territory that the designers of the camera didn't have available has to carry some opportunity for surprises in performance.</p>

<p>If you do a Google/Bing search for New Hampshire covered bridges, you find a wealth of places, each of course with a bridge, but that also means a river crossing, which tends to be very nice for photography. Also, do a search on the New Hampshire White Mountains, too. You'll get a lot of web sites devoted to tourism in the state, and they will include not just the mountains themselves, but also the variety of things you'll find in the mountain range, like waterfalls and gorges, the Cannon Mountain cable car (great ride and views), and so on.</p> <p>The coast of Maine is very good, whether you want to shoot the rocky coast or lighthouses, or colonial villages and seaports. And like Mr. Whirlow, I can recommend going up the coast to Acadia where the scenery will be excellent.</p>

<p>Answering a question with a question is bad form, but that's me all over.<br> Enrique, what would you prefer to photograph? It makes a big difference in what kind of recommendations you can get. You will be in a part of the country that will offer urban colonial historic sites and scenery, small town and remote New England colonial history, mountain/river/lake scenery, coastal scenery, and as John noted, Cape Cod, which is an environmental unto itself. You should also do a bit of Google/Bing searching for festivals by state - that time of year many of the communities across New England have local festivals, each with a distinctive theme, that happen in interesting old towns. You may find something that appeals strongly to you or to your wife.</p>

<p>I agree you'll want a good wide lens, particularly for the thermal features in Yellowstone and when you get in around the smaller lakes in GTNP. I use the 16-85 and have been very happy with it, but there's a factor to bear in mind when considering focal lengths. A polarizer is a very, very good idea for scenery in these parks, but the width of the polarizing effect is limited. If you want to make extensive use of a polarizer, there's no real value in getting something wider than 16 mm for a DX format camera - there will be a visible edge to the polarized region in the images if you shoot too wide. Also, pay attention in your viewfinder to how strong the polarizing effect is - at some of the elevations you can/will encounter in these parks, the effect may be stronger than you want, resulting in an unnaturally dark sky. If you get to a high enough altitude, the sky can almost look black!</p>

<p>I'm not sure there's anything wrong. Technically, the Nikon 16-85 is not a zoom lens (and almost no other "zoom" lens for a still camera actually meets the strict definition for a zoom). A true zoom lens must maintain focus as the focal length is changed, and pretty much nothing in the still camera world meets that specification. The correct description of the lens is variable focal length. "Zoom" works much better for marketing and advertising.</p> <p>So, did your lens ever allow you to focus and then change focal length while maintaining focus? Mine doesn't, and none of my other zooms do, either. Standard procedure is that one must refocus each time a lens is zoomed. True zoom lenses are really expensive and can be found mostly in the motion picture industry and other high-quality cinema applications.</p>

<p>Buying something this late brings a learning curve that's a problem, so if she gets a camera for the trip, do it right away and have her play with it and take shots while you're there to help. That way you'll have a chance to identify anything she might do inadvertently that could ruin her shots. Don't let her find this out after she gets back!<br> 1 - don't worry about megapixels - everything for sale today has enough.<br> 2 - buy a camera made by a camera company. Don't expect much quality in a lens made by a company that's has no history making cameras. Some modern non-camera companies buy quality lenses from good lens makers, but you won't find them in the price range you mentioned.<br> 3 - I second the idea of a big memory card - the file sizes she'll have will allow storage of weeks of shooting on a 16 or 32 gb card.<br> 4 - have her choose the camera after fiddling with a variety in a local store. The camera should feel comfortable to her. It'll have various modes for shooting scenics, portraits, etc - have her try them so she'll be comfortable selecting one on her trip.<br> Advise her about the flash activating automatically and find out how to disable the flash and shoot without it. That will be important if she wants to take interior shots in places like the great cathedrals - flash won't be allowed. Show her how to find something to rest the camera on to brace it for shooting in low light.</p>

<p>Luis, you need to say when you plan to go. The time of year makes a huge difference at Glacier NP.</p>

<p>I'll add another vote for the Nikon 16-85. The 18-70 is also a good lens and can be had (used only) for noticeably less money, but the difference between 16 and 18 mm at the wide end of the zoom range is significant on a DX body. I suspect that you'll be shooting interiors in places like cathedrals and ancient Roman structures. The wider angle will be irreplaceable under those circumstances. The Sigmas that start at 17 mm would also be good, but they would involve giving away something that you don't have to give away. The Sigmas offer wider apertures than the Nikon, but shooting interiors at those wider apertures will probably not yield sufficient depth of field to please you for interior shots.</p> <p>The D7000 helps in this regard. It has very good control of electronic noise in its images when shooting at higher ISO settings. You can't expect to be allowed to use a flash in a cathedral, and it wouldn't provide good illumination over the inside of a cathedral anyway. So using a higher ISO will be necessary. Depending on how large you might print an image, you could easily shoot at 1600 and 6400 is realistic for smaller prints (< 8X10).</p> <p>Whatever lens you choose, get it soon enough to get out and learn what it can and can't do, and try some high ISO shots, just to learn how high a setting you'd want to use in Rome. You don't want to find out after you get back that you shot too many at an ISO that produces more noise than you care to see.</p> <p>Have fun.</p>

<p>Tom - before you send back the Lexar cards, I suggest you try them for the HDR bracketing you want to do. Just set up any place and run some bracketed shots and see if the write speed is a problem - I think you'll find it isn't. It's worth a try before making a decision.</p> <p>Mules - the mules are safer than humans on the trails. First, they have as much aversion to falling off a cliff as any of us, but they have an advantage that's the reason mules are used for this - a mule's eyes are positioned and have sufficient peripheral vision to be able to see all four feet at the same time. That's why they are known for being sure-footed. But that's not the big issue. First, the rides don't stop for photographers. A tour will have scheduled stops at specific places the tour uses for lecture opportunities about the canyon. The rides that go all the way down are overnight deals that include a stay at Phantom Ranch and cost around $500 per person. 3-4 hour rides go for $80-100 per person. But the bad news is, they book up many months in advance and, while they offer a waiting list to make use of cancellations, the odds of getting a ride that way are effectively zilch.</p> <p>I use the Nikon grip on my D7000, and when shooting scenery, I use mainly a monopod, which with the grip gives me adequate support to get steady shots. But I wouldn't want to try shooting of the same exact framing at differing exposure settings for HDR purposes that way - a tripod will be mandatory for that.</p>

<p>I strongly agree with packing light and carrying water. You don't say, but from your post I assume you plan to go down into the canyon and not just shoot from the rim. If you are in reasonable condition with some hiking experience, plan for the climb back to the rim to take about 2 hours for every hour you hiked down. An old cripple like me needs more like 3-3.5 hours to climb out for every hour down. Naturally you'll need water, and you have to take it with you - don't expect it to be available below the rim.</p> <p>I'm not a flash user, so I may be missing something that's obvious to you, but I don't see a need to take a flash into the canyon, so I sure don't understand why you'd need 2. The tripod is a good idea if you will use it. I always use a tripod, but that a personal thing based on my health; I didn't use one for lots of years, and plenty of folks shoot just fine without one. If you are confident you'll make good use of it (there's no substitute for sunrise/sunset shooting), then take it. If you may or may not use it, then you should think hard about whether to take it.</p> <p>I expect you'll have good use for all three lenses you plan to take. Wildlife isn't a big feature at the GC; squirrels and ravens may well be all you'll see. You might see vultures cruising over the canyon, and if you are very lucky, maybe a condor. But if you do see a condor, it's unlikely that 200 mm + 1.4x would be enough to get a shot you'd like. You may see elk grazing up on the rim (too hot for them in the canyon) - the lawns around the hotels are a treat that they normally don't find, and you would be most likely to find them in the cool of the morning near sunrise. If you do find them, they will the well acclimated to humans, and a 70-200 would be more than adequate.</p> <p>You are the best judge of whether 6 16 GB cards are enough for the length of time you'll be there. I'm wholeheartedly paranoid and always have duplicate storage. If I don't take a laptop on a particular trip, I have a Wolverine disk drive that has card slots and internal software that allows the drive to copy a card onto the drive without the need of a computer of any type. If a trip involves wildlife shooting (like Yellowstone), I can fill a 16 GB card each day with my D7000. But on a primarily scenic shooting trip like the Hawaii trip my wife and I will do this summer, I'll need far less storage. The only thing you need to guard against is running out - you may be able to get more cards in the gift shops/RV stores out on the rim, but they'll be fresh out of bargains. You'd find reasonable prices in Flagstaff, but that's hours driving each way from the south rim. If you have any misgivings about whether you have enough cards, a small assortment of the slowest and cheapest that Sandisk offers would be cheap insurance (about $10 each for 16 GB Sandisk on Amazon).</p>

<p>Peter - something to watch out for: I researched Windows * laptops with a detachable screen that can be used as a tablet, and some systems are misleading. Be sure to look at the details in the product description if you decide to go this route. There are laptops that advertise the detachable screen but use a sort of "slight-of-hand" lack of info to minimize the fact that the screen, when it is detached from the laptop, does NOT run Windows 8, but runs Android, and does not share applications or their data files with the Windows 8 laptop. A far cry from the versatility one would expect from an all Windows 8 system. Others are 100% Windows 8, so it pays to zoom in on the details.</p>

<p>The standard advice for Alaska is to dress in layers to be able to adjust what you are wearing as the day and weather changes (take layers off as needed). The reason this is standard advice is it's true - and the outermost layer needs to be waterproof or water-resistant.</p> <p>My wife bought me a water-resistant jacket with a large hood (Columbia brand, at a Dick's Sporting Good store), and it was easily a size too large. It proved to be excellent for Alaska. I carried a camera around my neck and if it rained or drizzled, I simply closed the jacket front over the camera - protected the camera very nicely, and still kept the camera available for use all the time. The large hood was big enough to shelter the camera in light rain while taking a picture. The hood obviously didn't extend over a long lens, and if you plan to take a long lens, I suggest the OpTec "disposable" plastic covers that can be had in decent camera stores or online.</p> <p>As for which camera, take the one you like better - you'll get more and better images using a camera you're comfortable with. Have a great time on your trip.</p>

<p>Thought I'd broadcast this to the group population since Utah has so many good destinations.<br> If you plan to travel from Las Vegas up to Utah by car, there's a problem that isn't going away any time soon. I-15 makes for an easy drive northeastward out of Las Vegas into southwest Utah, but the road goes through the Virgin River Gorge on the NV-AZ-UT border area. The Gorge is very narrow, with no wiggle room at all, and has many bridges that criss-cross the Virgin River. The Gorge itself is in the extreme northwest corner of AZ, and although no one lives there, the state of AZ is going to refurbish all seven bridges and repave the interstate. The project has already started and is planned to take 2 years.<br> Given the absence of alternate routes, I-15 gets a fairly large amount of car traffic, and a very large amount of big truck traffic. While NV and CA both schedule road work 2 shifts a day, and shut down the work and clear the road to the extent practical during high traffic times, AZ refuses to do this, even though NV and UT have offered to help. So the traffic lanes will be constantly changing, with single lane travel in each direction for the next couple of years. Delays are expected to be substantial.<br> There's a wide spot in the road named Littlefield, AZ just outside the Gorge on the western side. One can get off I-15 there and take state road 91 (usually known as Old Hwy 91) northward. This road turns eastward and goes into St George, UT. Taking I-15, it's about 30 miles from Littlefield to St George, and the Hwy 91 route is about 40 miles, but it's a slower road. Right now, the 91 route is an hour's drive, but I expect some I-15 traffic to take this route and slow it further. There aren't any other routes available on the Las Vegas to St George trail.<br> I hate that AZ is being so unfriendly about the project, but no one's been able to do anything to alter the plan. Forewarned is forearmed. It's best that y'all be able to make informed decisions about your travels.</p>