USA/HK Trip, what did and didn’t work

What worked and didn’t work photographically of course…

Everytime a trip is over and I’m back home unpacking or rather leaving a mess of stuff all over my room, copying and backing up the thousands of images captured and other stuff, I tend to look at what I’ve brought and how much of it I used (or didn’t use).

At Bridal Veil Falls, Yosemite

This time round, I brought my EOS-20D (no backup), EF16-35mm lens, EF25-105 f/4 IS and EF70-200mm lens. For storage, I had my Dell Latitude notebook PC. With the Powershot A540 and Ixus 40 doing video, disk space became critical at the end of the trip. Of course in terms of backup, I had a external USB disk but 48 Gigabytes of images and video is no laughing matter. In terms of photo equipment, generally, I walked around all day with just a single camera and single lens. My EF16-35mm saw primary service alternating with the EF24-105, 99% of the time. The EF16-35 with the 1.6 crop factor roughly gives me a 25-56mm lens which is useful for most cases but was a bit short at times. 24mm on the other hand, isn’t as wide with the crop factor and I’m really thinking that I need a full-frame camera soon! The tripod was another issue. Although it saw service frequently, I had tremendous problems sorting out the stability and leveling the camera on it. I suppose a sturdy tripod with a good head will help but that usually comes at the expense of portability.

So, if I had to do it all again, nothing much will be changed (of course if you have more $$ then a 5D is an option) other than probably bringing a better tripod and lugging my long lens more often… it’s always the case that not having it and needing it. Oh well.