Travelling lighter

I’m preparing for a trip to Canada and will be away for a just over a month on the road. This time I”m travelling a lot lighter than the almost 12kgs of laptop, charges and related computer gear I took to Norfolk Island. Believe it or not the photo shows my full compliment of HP spectre and miscellanies bit, and they have a combined weight just a fraction over 2kg. Importantly it is not as if I’m missing anything. I have my photo software mistresses (Picasa, Ligthroom, Aftershot Pro and OnOne Phot 10.5 and now Nik Software add ins and Polarr) all installed. I’ve cleared off the 256GB ssd drive to 191 GB free (hopefully more than plenty of a month of photos). The customized cloth travel wallets were made by my wife and are padded. They keep everything wonderfully tidy when travelling.

 

I also have two backup drives. The one in the orange wallet will be updated daily and live in my camera bag so it will always be with me. The one in the denim will be updated as I move from one location to the next and at least weekly. It will be stored in my checked luggage when travelling .

 

I also have a couple of highly desirable accessories. The Pen of course (it came with the computer), and a Blue Tooth Mouse. Unfortunately most photo software is not touch screen friendly and you really require a mouse and to a lesser extent a tablet like a wacom(pen performs these tasks). The big advantage of the blue tooth mouse (over a WiFi/USB mouse) is it doesn’t use up a USB C port (and thus require yet another adaptor) and has a better range. While on the USB C subject it is a fast interface and it can connect many sorts of devises,  it is the way of the future. However very few devices today come with the USB C connector so you must get an adaptor cable, more precisely cables. I have three. The white one is a simple USB C to USD A style (Ie conventional USB style But works with USB 1 USB 2 & USB 3 connections). The black connector is from USB C to HDMI, which lets me connect to a wide variety of screens and data projectors. I can also use a Big Screen TV as an extension Monitor. The small black rectangular block folds out to a USB HUB, connecting two further USB C and two USB A devices. I also have a chrome cast dongle (but now would prefer to use a direct HDMI cable).

 

Note I have two card readers with my computer stuff and another in my cameras bag, because  I’ve had a couple fail and they are not expensive (but remember to buy the fast ones).

Remember that Spare Battery

Battery life can be a real spoiler for a lot of digital cameras, specifically for those without a separate optical view finder, such as most compact cameras or the newer mirrorless cameras. The problem is you need a fair bit of power to light up the LCD screen on the back. Especially to get it bright enough to read in ambient light. A few mirrorless cameras offer a view finder with a tiny LCD screen. My experience was these has been mixed, the earlier versions of such systems where very “laggy” and not so clear but the technology has improved a lot and perhaps also the power consumption. However with one of these cameras it is pretty likely you battery will run out at a crucial stage. The solution is a spare battery in your camera case

Owners of the traditional DSLR, with the mirror that has to flip up, generally get much better battery life. I changed the battery today after 83 days and 2643 photos taken (but I have taken only a few flash photos). I always take a photo of the discharged battery when changing batteries as a easy way to keep track of my battery rotation (and likelihood of being low on stored energy). I must admit I probably only consult the LCD screen on the camera occasionally, usually on the first few shots in a new location/lighting. Evidently moving the mirror must take a lot less energy that lighting the screen.

It doesn’t matter which sort of camera you have

Buy yourself a second battery for your camera and keep it fully charged and in you camera bag.