salvatore.mele

Michael, if you are considering the moonlit mountain and the dark background, or whatever

other setting, I would try to avoid the high ISO settings for two reasons (you mention ISO 800

and ISO 1600 in one of your comments)

 

1) the first times you experiment you can go for longer exposure times and therefore longer

star trails before you overexpose the mountain

 

2) in general, you'll have less noise at a small ISO setting, what might preserve details in

some of the dimly lit areas you are interested in

Washing machine, 30C. Ordinary soap. No softener. No tumble dry.

 

It works routinely with other microfiber sports clothing I wash and it worked for my "pentax

magic cloth"

You might add a #25 Red filter to enhance skies, maybe? The effect will be slightly

different from the one you'll get with the polariser.

 

You might want also to bring some ziplocks to keep some of the sand away from the gear

(it's a lost war anyhow, but you can still win a battle or two).

 

Changing lenses in such a sandy environment might be an issue. I remember going all

lenght to shelter the camera with my body, trying to do the changing into a plastic bag

which was neatly folded in my pocket before we entered sandy places and so on, but with

little results. A search for ways to keep dust and sand out of your camera -a digital

obsession- will give you many results.

Some advise from my experience in addition to all the great points you just had.

<p>

If the boat is a keelboat with a rig of suitable dimensions I would advise you shot with the

18mm from the mast or the spreaders, either with a

<a href= http://www.photo.net/photo/4379632>single person </a>

in sight below you or with <a href=

http://www.photo.net/photo/2791195>more action</a>. Using the

long lens to single out actions from above also leads to interesting results. Vibrations are

a lesser problem than if you are on another boat, but I try to stay within 1/125 at wide

angle (I go up to 20mm).

<p>

As for vibrations, provided the boom is suitable, you can also remove most of them by

hanging below it like

<a href= http://www.photo.net/photo/3942740&size=lg>here</a>.

<p>

For either large or small boats,

I suggest to try and shot in the morning or afternoon, to get the

<a href=http://www.photo.net/photo/4379726&size=lg>sails

backlit</a>, in which case I usually centre-weight meter on the sail and dial a +1

compensation. Since you have hills around that lake it would be a good thing to try to

frame the boat when the sun is backlighting your sails but leaving some dark background,

in the shadow, so that the boat will "pop-out" of the picture.

<p>

A good perspective for light boats (but you need a good tender driver and possibly a

waterproof case for the camera) is to shot the people hiking out from very close, with a

wide angle, from below...

I would advise you bring your longer lens. I regretted bitterly not having a long lens at my

first visit to a local balloon festival: my logic was to go wide-angle as balloons were big

things and I did not want to change too many lenses in close and crowded quarters.

Eventually, there was too much crowd to get nice balloon pictures at launch with the 20mm

on film which I had and I was not able to go close enough at launch to single out details like

the flames or the pilots operating them. In some cases, I ended up cropping away 90% of the

surface of the shots to get the details which I wanted, like

<a href=http://www.photo.net/photo/2457142>here</a>.

I would imagine you will not experience any problems at all. In Italy, photo-taking is

usually just restricted around military installations and clear panels indicate that.

 

At any rate, you will most likely be caught and fined if you step on the tracks. That's a

nono even in Italy.

 

As for the Carabinieri, you will not see them in stations: you have Polizia in there, Polizia

Ferroviaria (railway police) or Polfer onto the trains, and recently some rent-a-cop just at

the entrance of the new high-speed trains, more to avoid people getting caught in the

doors than other. On a side note, I would advise big smiles, some broken italian and a

non-confrontational attitude with officialdom in Italy: this will bring you a looooong way

forward in any case.

 

Now, for the stations, I've done no station pictures as I'm not in the genre but used heavily

the system, so here some remarks.

 

Rome has been cleared up and you find a modern shopping centre in its basement and in

the entrance hall. You might be interested in the small piece of roman wall which is

preserved in the basement. It is the same patch of walls which you can see to your right

once exiting the station through the main door. The ceiling of the cafe at the last platform

is interesting, is the kind of things people did in the 20's and 30's in Italy to evocate past

Roman grandeur. For the way the roofs above the platforms are built, you can get

interesting light effects at rush hour, with the sun shining on the faces of the commuters

gorged out by the commuter trains while all the rest is in darkness. A good hour to see

this effect, accounting for the angle of the sun, but before daylight saving time kicks in, is

the 830-930 braket. The commuter trains from "Velletri" or "Frascati" are a good bet.

There is one every 10 minutes or so. The area inside the station is relatively safe and,

provided you have your camera strap around your neck, I would not worry too much for

security. Outside the station and in darkness it might get dodgy.

 

Napoli station is pretty ugly a place, and you should be conscious of your surroundings if

you have an expensive looking camera. This is particularly true just outside the building

(which anyhow, together with the square, is undergoing some renovation of sorts). More

interesting is the Mergellina station of Napoli. Several trains from Rome stop there, or you

can get there by subway. The platforms are not impressive, but the whole building has

been recently renovated and it might interest you. It has some of this neo-classical

features which were en-vogue at the turn of the century. If you are interested in platform

paraphernalia, you can find some ironwork in the pillars and roofs of another Napoli

station, Campi Flegrei, also reachable from some trains from Rome and by subway. These

places are not so dodgy (in daylight) but you must keep your wits with you.

 

I cannot recall anything particular about Orvieto nor Florence at the moment.

 

Italy has recently introduced its high-speed trains (AV="Alta Velocita"). They have a sleek

and stylish design and if you like this kind of things they could make for a nice picture.

 

Enjoy!

I vaguely remember that the LP had a suggested walk in the old quarter which took this in... It

was the edition with the salt-carrier on the front page.

Zane, while walking in Hanoi you might find photographically interesting to give a look to

the couple of streets where iron workers go on with their businesses. I do not have enough

data with me now to point you out where this is, but it is usually mentioned in many

guidebooks about the town, you will for sure find it.

 

With appropriate smiling and kindness you might easily be let in one of the courtyards

where most of the hammering, soldering etc takes place: a good photographic opportunity

for sure.

I would suggest you take 1/2 of your time in Hanoi and go visit Halong Bay. I would like to

repeat you a golden advice I got: if you get a cheap tour you will remember being packed

with other people, if you get a less-crowded experience you will remember Halong Bay. We

were there off-season in chilly early January and managed to rent a no-comfort but

seemingly authentic fishermen junk for two-days-one-night for just the two of us at an

amazingly reasonable price, almost comparable with some of the larger tours peddled in

Hanoi. Mind, this was from Cat Ba and not from "Halong City". Cat Ba is easy to reach by

hydrofoil from Halong City, which in turn is very easy to reach by train from Hanoi.

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You will have already heard about the alm run in the streets of Luang Prabang, by now. Surely fascinating. How correct is to shoot that as it was a safari, that's another story.

 

The karstic landscape around Vang Vieng is interesting, and so it is the hilly one in the Golden Triangle accessed from the Laotian side in Muang Sing.

 

I greatly enjoyed the two-day slow boat trip up the Mekong from Luang Prabang to Huai Xai and the following day-long 4WD ride into Luang Nam Tha. A great taste of Asia, both from the fluvial landscape and the people point of view.

Another vote for irfanview, free, fast and light on memory.

Another vote for thinking not in DPI but in number of pixels.

As this was not mentioned so far, do consider "sharpening" after resizing... resizing tends to give you murky borders between otherwise more clearly distinct colour areas.

Not that this is the case of this lens, but if you use to read the DOF scale to selectively focus objects in your scene, mind that they refer to the circle-of-confusion on film format. That is, if you think things are going to be in focus on your digital sensor, they will not be... more than a stop (1 1/3) difference to be expected.

Your budget does not stretch so far for the new version, but I find the 20mm/2.8 a wonderful tool. My single most-used lens... but that depends on what you like to shot. Thought I would mention it since it is seldom referred to in the "what-prime-to-buy" threads...

I would answer FM2N...but than I think of the fortune I wasted in printing while trying to learn and I'm with Shun.

 

I still shoot both film and digital, and I fear the learning curve of your son will be faster and ways cheaper with digital. I recently learnt a couple of things I would not have tried on film to contain costs...

 

I understand you want to focus him on the basics and not the gadgetry, so let me provoke thoughts: what if you used superglue to stick a D50 in M mode, with a prime lens with an aperture ring to use manually (I guess the D50 menus will let you do that, or at least hope so, have none myself) and leaving the command dial for the shutter speed?

I would be curious to see where this information comes from!

<p>

Should you need to purchase film in Italy, I guess

there must be some professional shops in the towns you will visit to cater to your needs...of course, they will not sit on prime estate in the main tourist squares, where you will be sold old film exposed to sun and who-knows-what, like in many similar places 'round this planet. I would profit of the wide Italian audience on Photo.Net to ask them advices on where to buy films in the places you will visit.

<p>

Incidentally, unless you have an Italian passport and are bringing in the country cameras supposedly purchased abroad for which custom officers might suspect you tried to avoid paying taxes, I doubt anyone will bother with what you'll be carrying in in matter of photographic equipment.

<p>

At any rate, the official advice is <a href=http://www.agenziadogane.it/italiano/comunicare/pubblicazioni/carta_doganale_uk.pdf >here</a>... since it does not mention cameras, should you be very worried, you can try to call in advance the telephone number marked at the back, of the airport of the town you will be flying in. Hope someone will speak enough english. Write down the name of the person you eventually talk with. Be assured you can bring your stuff in. Once you fly in, if asked questions, which is unlikely, just mention you had this person at the phone. This has no legal binding of course, but they might remember about you, if you do it shortly before going.

<p>

Another option is to ask a question to their advice forum <a href=http://www.agenziadogane.it/italiano/servizi/urp_mail/scheda.htm>here</a> and hope someone will answer.

<p>

An advise to clear the officialdom a tourist is likely to encounter is to have big smiles, few kind words in broken italian, and a non-confrontational attitude. This will bring you very far. A confrontational attitude might create you problems even when there should be none.

Brian, Carl, there is lots of truth in both your points... However, I guess we should not underestimate the size of a specific fraction of the photo.net membership: "amateurs with access". This can be due to geographic location, professional activity, disposable income and so on. Given the large amount of pictures of the US SW, which look original from the other side of the oceans, or in general of the "travel" category, which look original to any less-travelled fraction of the membership, I guess "amateurs with access" might actually make for a sizeable slice of photo.net.

 

I just thought about stressing this point since, as far as I am concerned, I just started taking pictures realising I actually "had access" for some Nature locations, and wanted to record and share it, somehow. Definitely I sit in that category!

 

On a separate note, I find it curious that, once it boils down to geographic location, this category of "amateurs with access" might then reside outside the US, and therefore look original to a 50% US-based audience. We are then dealing with the category of people referred to by many answers to John Falkenstine's recent provocative thread about POW geography.

Shun, I have been tempted by the D50's smaller size and reduced weight for outdoor shooting. I know that's a special need, but the D50 could be a good tool of the trade.

 

After all, I just stick a 20mm in front, shot in aperture priority, centre-weight expose, need to dial in aperture compensation, and do not disdain some bracketing around that. I understand I can well get all this as easily as with my D70. Apart from carrying convenience, the size/weight is more interesting than my D70 for possible single-handed shooting.

 

From handling a D50 in a shop, I guess it is not so much worse than a D70 when it come to taking a beating [that is, neither compares to a FM2N...]

 

I have been held back since I do not want to buy another camera right now and also by the problem of a different card format: I got spoiled by the ease of filling 2GB, if not 4GB, in an intense day out. In SD format this would imply handling tiny cards in the wild, what I am not keen in doing.

 

If money were infinite, I guess I would have tried the D50 out.

If "getting there" is going to gain us a good score in Originality I guess that the small community of photo.netters who take pictures atop mountains, in deep caves, close to volcanic eruptions, in the high seas, or amidst icebergs will take even more risks from now on...

 

...it will be very fun to see the results!

...and could we also link the travel forum in the travel drop-down menu?

The .6 is a good one to start with, but let me offer you another piece of advice: the thing will get terribly scratched in close to no time...storing it in its hard plastic case might delay the problem.

Brian, do I read correctly between the lines that the day is close when we might search photos in the whole gallery using the tags the authors cared attaching to them?

 

THAT would be great!

Catching breath.<div></div>

<a href=http://www.photo-hall.ch/service_labo.htm>Photo Hall</a> downtown Geneva has a Fuji Frontier which used to be manned by a reasonable guy. I would give them a call to see if they can act as your back-up solution or can advise some smaller pro lab: they used to outsource the B&W work to another smaller place.

<p>

Steer well clear of the consumer mini-labs at FNAC and the prosumer one at photoservice (few hundredths meters from Photo Hall). You are assured scratches on the film and dust on the scan.

<p>

I would imagine, however, that the staff at the press office of the palexpo, where the convention takes place, will point you in the good direction if need be.

<p>

As for your other questions, the motor show is outside Geneva, but the town is so small that it takes 6 minutes by train and a bit more by bus to make it to town and back. You're well advised not to get a car since access to the convention centre is pure hell in those days.

<p>

For your shooting day after the show, I might advise the small villages along the swiss coast of lake Geneva (you might want a car, even though train+bus hopping is possible and fun). You might take a <a href=http://www.cgn.ch/Horaires/>steam boat</a> around, even though the service might be scarce in winter, something does run. If you are sure that weather is fine at high altitude (and the weather forecast will be very precise about that), consider going to Chamonix and taking the <a href=http://www.compagniedumontblanc.fr/en/aiguille/aiguille_telepherique.htm>cable car</a> to the Aiguille du Midi for breathtaking views on the Mt.Blanc massif. Dress warm.