Our “USA Pacific Northwest” trip is getting pretty close now.
Our holiday travels give us as much enjoyment in the planning stages as the actual time away.
All our spare time – what there is of it – is spent pouring over prospective sights, possible routes, potential highlights, probable stops, plausible distances and then the practicable reality !
And, if you hadn’t already noticed, what new plethora of technology can be introduced for this time around ! Phew !
I’m probably encroaching on Adrienne’s territory here (Travel and Tech) (see link) but in a post before our 2012 USA trip (see link), I wrote about all the gadgets we took with us and posted a picture of someone else’s “gadgets”.
Well, we have worked hard in the intervening period and this is now OUR picture –
Yes – we take all this with us – cameras, lenses, tripods, GoPro’s, laptops, Ipads, phones and more !!
Adrienne says its just as well we like the USA as we get extra baggage allowance – we need it.
Maybe there is something to be said for the “pre-technology era” when all you took was a camera, a few rolls of film, a couple of pens and some paper to send letters or postcards home.
Then again – maybe not !
For us, that technology has provided hours and hours of memories, which we enjoy immediately, again and again, over and over and which will stay with us for a long, long time.
And the digital age has made it so easy to do this. No waiting to get home to get that roll of film developed and find it hadn’t actually wound on properly, or all the photos were blurry, or there was a smudge on the lens the whole trip, or ouch! – all those photos cost a packet to get developed.
(Yes, you “youngies” out there are all wondering “what’s he going on about ?! – what’s a roll of film?)
This trip we are taking the plunge with our photography and have new DSLR cameras – a step up from our past “point and shoot” cameras. As I said, we have thousands of great photo memories from our past trips already and I am sure we could go on and get thousands more – “point and shoot” cameras, as the name implies, make it so easy to do this.
But “point and shoot” is to cameras what “automatic transmission” is to cars – and so now we are moving to “manual transmission” with DSLR cameras and lenses and a whole new challenge and test for us !
For us it’s into the world of “exposure triangles” and “aperture priority” and “focal plane” and “cropped sensors” – geeeeze ! whose idea was this ??
Therefore, be warned – the blog may be very bare – there may be no photos this trip if it turns out that the ISO was too high or the depth of field was too shallow or the background blew out !
(Might have to sneak in the “point and shoot” just in case – I can loose it amongst all the other stuff !)
But hopefully not – we have been studying hard, having been really inspired to take up the challenge from watching a great photography course I got on dvds for Christmas last year.
It was a series of episodes, in very simple and practical terms, covering all the ins and outs of DSLR cameras and photography and it was presented by an American guy who has been a National Geographic photographer for many years.
We have had some great shots from our “point and shoot” efforts but with the scope a DSLR camera and lens has, we have been tempted to “give it a go !”
If all else fails we still have the “AUTO” setting on the DSLR to fall back on so we at least have some memories of our trip – but we are determined to see what we can come up with using all the other manual settings and options. One thing is for sure – we will have a great lot of subjects to test it all out on in the Pacific Northwest of the USA !
Only a few more weeks to practice now – and it will probably take that long to pack all the gadgets away ready for the trip !