Rick Waller

July 2, 2013

Just a few added thoughts. I noticed you said you were interested in architectural details. That would raise Barca on your list - the Gaudi architecture is something to see as are the other buildings in town. It is an architectural wonderland.

And as far as London being "language friendly", have no fear. In my substantial travels, I have found that almost everyone in the main cities of Europe are fluent in English. I have almost never had a language problem other than in St. Petersburg. Oh - and in Paris too of course, but that is not because the Parisians don't speak English; rather it is because they often get prickly toward Americans and choose not to.

July 2, 2013

Just curious - if you have already seen London and Madrid (which I too enjoyed), why wouldn't you choose to go elsewhere for your return Europe visit? I can second the thinking on Barcelona (one of my favorite cities on the planet and the pick pocket capital of the world, by the way), but how about other obvious choices like Paris, Rome, Prague, Vienna and on and on.

If you are interested in a big city experience with spectacular scenery, lower prices, great street photography (great people period), the best beer in the world and close proximity to 2 other spectacularly photogenic medieval towns, then definitely give Prague a look. If you go there, Cesky Krumlov and Ceske Budejovice are must see towns a short drive or train ride from downtown Prague. Google them.

And if you happen to be single - the women of Prague are even more beautiful than the lovely inhabitans of Madrid (my second favorite) and the rest of the continent.

July 2, 2013

And even less of a drive is a trip to the Catskills and surrounding Mohonks. Lots of camping, nature, trails and scenery a mere 90 minutes from downtown Manhattan. Another place closer in are the Berkshires just over the NY/ MA line. Lots to see and do and only 2 hrs from Manhattan.

July 2, 2013

Pretty much anywhere in upstate NY is grand. Adirondacks and Finger Lakes fit your needs to a tee. Shenandoah is spectacular (Especially the Skyline Drive), but the 2 NY areas I mention above are a significantly shorter ride.

June 21, 2013

Where is XQD? On closet shelves around the world next to Betamaxes.

June 20, 2013

".......as I have come to prefer available light. That seems to be particularly true these days when high ISO settings are possible."

Not arguing with what works for you, but high ISO settings have little effect on subjects lit with harsh, midday available light. If pleasing available light is present, I will choose that every time, but I find that this is seldom the case. More often, I find that it is the available light itself which requires the use of flash for fill. I carry a flash with me (and use it quite often) to remedy poor light, not to increase my shutter speeds.

June 20, 2013

"It is not the lens that causes more or less noise, but the camera exposure".

Bingo!

June 20, 2013

i am a lifelong New Yorker and I am often walking around with a camera on my shoulder or in my hand. With all respect to the suggestion about keeping your gear in a backpack until needed, I totally disagree for two reasons - first, you will miss too many shots while you are trying to retrive your gear from your backpack. Second - a backpack is unquestionably one of the least safe ways to carry anything in a big city. Way too easy for a miscreant to unzip and loot a backpack carried on a "non-tourist's" back.

I find that an R-Strap is most convenient in a crowded city since one can just swing the camera behind him when squeezing into a crowded spot and I often carry the camera in my hand with the strap wrapped around my wrist if not on my shoulder. If you insist on carrying a backpack in a crowd, take a tip from the folks in Barcelona who wear backpacks with the pack in front to thwart pickpockets. Learned that first hand when visiting that pickpocket capital of the world.

As far as lenses go, primes may be light weight, but again, you waste too much time switching out and have a good chance of missing the action. While I love primes in studio or landscape settings, for city photography, to my mind nothing beats high quality zoom. If you want to save weight, look into slower zooms. One of my favorite lenses for city touring (assuming that weight is an issue) is my old 28-105/3.4-5.6, coupled with a 70-300 if I think I need add'l reach (rather than my 24-70 and 70-200) or just a 24-120/4. The 24-120 is a recent addition and is fast becoming my go to lens for exploring cities. Not a lightweght combo on the D800, but will yield excellent results.

June 1, 2013

You say that your are allocating 4 days to NYC and expect to spend 10 additional days in the surrounding area. I am a life long NY'er and, while there are literally hundreds of interesting and enjoyable sights to do near NYC, I respectfully suggest that your time allocation is less than ideal. I recommend that you spend at least a week enjoying the NYC sites and then just a few days visiting nearby locales if you become bored with NYC proper. (Difficult for me to imagine anyone getting bored in NYC on a 2 week holiday.)

As others have mentioned, do not rent a car on days where you are staying in the city. There is absolutely no need for a car unless you plan on leaving the 5 boroughs. The cost to park is prohibitive and driving is nearly impossible from a time perspective. Subways are the way to travel. Buses are caught in the same traffic that makes driving impractical (read impossilbe.) It may take an hour to travel the distance by bus that would take a subway 10 minutes to navigate. In fact, it is generally faster to walk than to travel by bus in midtown Manhattan.

Hotels are expensive in Manhattan, as they are in London, but I do not recommend scrimping on hotel costs by staying in inconveneient locations. Obviously, those hotels that are more centrally located in Manhattan are more expensive than those in less convenient locations, but the time you save in traveling about is often worth the extra cost/night. Don't discount the ability to be able to drop back at your hotel midday for a quick change of clothes, nap etc. Central convenient location is a big plus worth the extra dollars. What is not critical in a Manhattan hotel room are the "luxury" amenities. Odds are you will be spending very little time in your hotel (other than sleeping) so "extras" like a gym, fancy bar, fancy lobby are totally unnecessary. Pick a hotel that offers clean accomodations in a centrally located area and ignore the hype and you will save some dollars.

As far as dining, NYC is one of the great cities for eating. There are dining options galore and spending big dollars on name restaurants is just not worth it in my mind. My wife and I dine often in NYC and we seldom spend large amounts for a great meal. There are literally thousands of quality restaurants where you can have a memorable meal for a reasonable price. One of the joys of eating in NYC is the ability to sample an almost unlimited number of cuisines, many of which are actually quite inexpensive. In my experience, because there are so many choices of restaurants, that almost any restaurant that has been in business for more than 6 months is a good one since with the choices available, a NY'er will not patronize a poor restaurant. If the restaurant does not serve a great meal, it will go out of businsess in a flash. Last thought on restaurants - try not to eat in a restaurant near a tourist attraction and never eat in one that is part of a chain. That means nothing in Times Square for example.

No matter how many days you allocate to your NYC visit, avoid overprogramming your day. It is easy to plan a days itinerary and find that in practice, you will not be able to maintain the schedule. That is why I suggest that 4 days is not nearly enough time to hit the highlights of NYC. NYC is a city of neigborhoods and a tourist would be wise to schedule his days in one or two adjacent areas. Skipping uptown, downtown and crosstown in one long day is impractical and will exhaust you. For example, you might allocate one day to visiting the old World Trade Center site which is far downtown and then spend the remainder of the day seeing Chinatown, Wall Steet and the Statue of Liberty on the same day. Then another day you can concentrate on Midtown with Central Park, the shopping on 5th Ave and Madison Avenues, museums, Times Square and the theater distict. If you only have 4 days, you are going to miss a lot of what NY has to offer.

There is just too much advice to offer on a wb site. Feel free to email me if you want to pick my brains for ideas and suggestions. I love NYC and enjoy sharing my experiences with tourists.

May 28, 2013

I read this thread with great regret since I have enjoyed my visits to Greece and the Agean islands. I was last there something like 20 years ago and can still vividly remember the unbelievable fruits (especially tomato and peach), the freshest fish expertly prepared, glorious beaches, wonderfully friendly people, spectacular scenery on Mykonos, Sanorini, Rhodes, Crete and some of the other less well know islands and more history in Athens and the Pelopones (spelling?) than one could hope to absorb. Ouzo wasn't too shabby either.

Sorry to hear that the country has fallen on such hard times. When I was there, the only downgrade that I noticed was that Plaka had turned into an overpriced tourist trap compared to what it once was - that is a place to grab a great meal, good wine and a street show for little money.

April 30, 2013

It might make your decision easier if you did not insist that the device will allow you to edit your images when you return. Not sure I understand your reasoning. If your main objective is to dump photos while on the road, just buy some sort of portable hard drive. Relatively inexpensive and effective way to store (or backup- which is more important to me) data.

As noted by one reply above, if you just want to store the data, buy more cards. Least expensive way to go. But if your goal is to both store and keep safe backups, use a portable hard drive. then when you return, you can edit the images to your heart's content using any software you want by simply connecting the drive to the home machine.

I use this device for storage/backup and find it terrific. <a href="http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/818595-REG/Nexto_DI_ND2730750G_750_GB_Extreme_ND2730.html">http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/818595-REG/Nexto_DI_ND2730750G_750_GB_Extreme_ND2730.html</a>

March 22, 2013

I wonder if Really Right Stuff has the lens foot yet?

February 5, 2013

John - then in that case, jump on the deal. I own the lens and it is almost indescribable in terms of sharpness, color reproduction and bokeh. I noticed someone above mentioned that he felt that the lens was on the better side of ok. I find it is waaaay on the other side of ok, but of course concepts like out of focus backgrounds are highly subjective.

I use it for macro and portraits, so I don't miss the lack of AF. Never tried it for theater shooting, but I might agree that manually focusing in a darkened theater may be somewhat difficult. I use it on D-3's and there is no split image focusing screen available, so if I am shooting fast moving subjects (or those in dark places), I might choose one of my AF's.

Incidentally, for macro, I like the lenses mounted on a Nikon P-11 extension tube to get closer to 1:1. Prefer the PN-11 tube over generic because it has a tripod collar.

I have even used the lens on my NEX-7 with a Novoflex adapter, but while it does work well, the size of the lens and the adapter sort of mitigate the value of the tiny NEX-7.

February 5, 2013

Just a word of caution. I read your original post as if you were obtaining this lens from KEH directly and I suspect that some of the replies you received thought the same thing. I see that you later indicate that the lens you are planning to buy is coming from an individual - not directly from KEH.

So while the price for the lens is very attractive, I would be concerned that it is actually too good to be true. Unless you either know the seller or you obtain the lens in person and get to examine it and try it out, I would be very skeptical. I would not send $1k to a stranger to get this lens sight unseen.

If you were buying from KEH directly, it would be a steal as someone else mentioned. But from a stranger? Beware!

February 4, 2013

Saying you will be in Eastern Europe is a little vague. If, however, your trip will take you to Prague, I strongly recommend that you consider visiting 2 nearby towns that offer spectacular photo ops. First is Ceske Budejovice and the second is Cesky Krumlov. They are both easily accessible from downtown Prague by car, train or bus. If you have the chance, I recommend spending a night in each town. If your schedule permits only a visit to one, I would suggest Cesky Krumlov.

<a href="http://wikitravel.org/en/%C4%8Cesk%C3%BD_Krumlov">http://wikitravel.org/en/%C4%8Cesk%C3%BD_Krumlov</a>

and

<a href="http://wikitravel.org/en/%C4%8Cesk%C3%A9_Bud%C4%9Bjovice">http://wikitravel.org/en/%C4%8Cesk%C3%A9_Bud%C4%9Bjovice</a>

If you are a beer drinker, Ceske Budejovice is the home of Budweiser - not the crap that is produced by Anheuser Busch in America, but the REAL Budweiser which has been brewed in the Czech Republic since the 1600's or so. If you like beer (and even if you don't) vist the brewery and be sure to buy at least a pint or two at any cafe. Best beer in the world, to my taste.

Pivovar Budějovický Budvar is the brewery and look here:

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Budvar-mug.JPG">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Budvar-mug.JPG</a>

December 19, 2012

Correction to my earlier post. I just looked online and apparently in August there is a period of "night", especially toward the end of the month. I stand corrected, although the "night" is apparently not dark as we are used to it. Sort of twilighty. Best to check with someone from iceland. The site I looked at showed that there was a "sunset" officially listed for June, but I can tell you that it was completely light outdoors 24 hrs. I found Iceland Air telephone operators to be an excellent source of advice about such things. Great airline, by the way, Very comfy coach seating - nothing like the cattle cars most of us are used to.

December 19, 2012

Couple of points to add. First, regarding this portion of an earlier reply - "arranged for right as the sun was dropping. So I missed the best light at both ends of the day" - Be advised that the sun does NOT set in Iceland in the summer. It is daylight 24 hrs. This photo was taken in early June of this year at midnight - handheld ISO 400. <img src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-QtKuN0ioOek/UCE9xeEHhBI/AAAAAAAACOc/Crjh0VZl3B0/s720/_DSC0648-2.jpg" alt="" /> I agree with the idea of hiring a car rather than committing to a formal photo tour since you are planning to be there for 2 or 3 weeks. Iceland is a very driveable country and I am not sure that you need offroad capability, although I cannot speak definitively about that. It is not difficult to get around and many of the memorable sites are accessible in an ordinary car. I actually found Iceland to be expensive, both for lodging and food, especially in Reykjavik. Hotel rooms are quite comfortable in the $250 -300 range. Keep in mind that rooms are tiny by European/US standards, but very confortable. You do NOT need air conditioning. I recommend that you bring eyeshades for sleeping. It is difficult to go to sleep when it is broad daylight outside. Combine the lack of darkness with the fact that Icelanders make full use of the very short season of good weather and simply do not go to sleep. In downtown Reykjavik, we had the windows open for some ventilation and people were "partying" outdoors at 2 am. Iceland is like a cross between Yellowstone Park in US (vast geothermal action including geysers, which is actually an Icelandic word) and the moon with rocky craters. Iceland sits atop two tetonic plates which give rise both to the geothermal and the "moonlike" landscapes. One of the major sites you will visit a short drive from the capital is where 2 of the earth's major plates abut each other and the crevices, ravines, etc are quite unique. I don't recall the name of the park, but it is listed on every to do list. People are marvelous and everyone speaks English, since as the fellow above mentioned, the Icelandic language cannot be spoken by anyone other than a native. The alphabet is different and the pronunciations are NOT in any way phonetic. Forget trying to ask for a particular street by trying to pronounce it. It sounds nothing like it is written. Just take a photo of the name or keep a map in your hand and point to a spot. The inability to pronounce anything other than the name of the capital was one of the enduring memories of the country. You might as well be in an Asian or Cyrillic speaking country. For example, I was fond of the local beer which is written Gull. It is pronounced something like Glickkkkkk, with a gutterl sound that cannot be typed. I kept asking for a Gull (like the bird) which always got a laugh from the locals. Always a polite chuckle tough - truly nice people. I suggest bringing wide to moderate focal length lenses for most of the trip. Long glass would be useful primarily for birding (be sure to see the puffins), but humping a long lens is just not practical unless you live for birding. A polarizer is a must since there is much time to be spent along the sea and along rivers, streams and small streams. Waterfalls are a big (very big) attraction in Iceland and you must have ND filters if you are going to get the shots. Remember, there is no golden hour in Iceland during the summer. Not sure what part of August you are planning to visit and I have not been there in that month, but I would check to see the number of hours of daylight you can expect when you go. Food is interesting. Obviously a lot of fish. Big on lamb if you prefer meat. But be aware, horse and puffin are quite popular foods in Iceland. I did not enjoy horse, although I suspect that had a lot more to do with my head than my stomach. Speaking of horses, Iceland is known for its special breed of horse (not for food source) that is endemic to the island . The Iceland government fiercely protects the species; no horses from elsewhere are permitted into the country to keep the strain pure. They are comparatively small and quite pretty. You will see them throughout. Bring warm clothes that you can layer. "Good" clothing is unncessary. Hiking clothes are really what you need. Incidentally, if you do a lot of travel to cold climates, there is a local clothing line called 66 North (which refers to the latitude of Iceland) that is terrific. Sort of like the Northface line in the US. Apparently very effective. <a href="http://www.66north.com/">http://www.66north.com/</a> Stores are all over the big towns and cities. Great woolen sweaters also are everywhere. One specific Icelandic style knitted by everyone. If you enjoy "different" locales, Iceland is the place to go. It is not like "regular" touring locales.

October 31, 2012

I have found that best light to shoot White Sands is in late day, rather than at first light. Therefore, if you choose to pay a fee for after hours, I would consider late rather than early.

The sand is indeed snow white; in fact, in many of my shots (especially those with drifts surrounding split rail fences), the scene looks as though it was shot during a winter snow storm. As a matter of fact, to continue the analogy, the place is filled with young and old using snow saucers to "sled" down the dunes. Only difference is seeing the people in shorts and sandals rather than in winter clothes. another thing that seems incongruous is that the park service using regular snow plows mounted on trucks to keep the loop road clear of the drifting "snow". It just seems weird to view an landscape that "feels" like you are watching a winter wonderland when the temperature is pushing 100 degrees F.

I find that black and white processing is quite effective in shooting at White Sands. Here is a shot both color and b+w. The B+W one is the one that sells.

September 30, 2012

Mine broke at the 4 year mark. At the screw. I doubt the tension from the screw had a lot to do with it. More likely the band itself is too thin to have had the screw hole drilled through it. Design flaw for sure. After the hole for the screw was drilled, there is almost nothing left of the actual band. Pretty obvious why the bands break.

September 15, 2012

"so if you take your eye away from the finder you need to close the eyepiece blind if you want to get an accurate meter reading."

I have an easy low tech solution to lack of shutter blind. I just hold my hand over the eyepiece. I shoot with D3's and D700's and never use the shutter blind when I am on a tripod. Easier and faster to put my hand over the eyepiece than it is to work the tiny shutter blind release.

Only time I use the blind is when I am shooting multiple images and do not need to sight though the finder to recompose or refocus.

August 14, 2012

If you are in the Asheville area, be sure to visit Great Smoky Nat'l Park.

August 9, 2012

Best piece of advice that I can give you is to stay out of Times Square area. Your meals will be generally mediocre and very overpriced.

When I entertain out of towners and want to show them an interesting place to chow down (especially with kids), I take them to Dinosaur Barbeque. It is under the west side highway at around 126th street and is a giant road house type joint with exceptional bbq at very reasonable prices.

Google it.

July 30, 2012

Well, this is not carbon fiber, but it weighs next to nothing.

<a href="http://reallyrightstuff.com/ProductDesc.aspx?code=TP-243&type=0&eq=&desc=TP-243-Ground-Level-Tripod&key=it">http://reallyrightstuff.com/ProductDesc.aspx?code=TP-243&type=0&eq=&desc=TP-243-Ground-Level-Tripod&key=it</a>

July 13, 2012

I have owned the 105 Nikon in question for years and find it a pretty decent lens, but not spectacular. It is the only lens I own that I would swap out for a non-Nikon version if it were lost or stolen. I have used the Tamron on numerous occasions and have always found it to be every bit as good as the Nikon version and often sharper with better contrast and color.

Therefore, if the choice is a used Nikon (with unknown pedigree) or a brand new Tamron, I would opt for the new one.

April 6, 2012

I have owned the 28-105 for many years dating back to my F5's. Took it down one time for a trip to Israel mounted on a D700. Idea was I wanted a compact lightweight kit rather than haul my D3 and 24-70.

I forgot how much I loved that lens. I think it is simply terrific little lens that is easy to carry and produced exceptional images. Is it as good as my 24-70? Of course not, but when hiking in 100+ degree desert climate, I sure did love it.

and here is the little devil in action....

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Posts posted by Rick Waller