| Gear up then leave it | Posted: March 28, 2003 |
Can you imagine putting everything you need to exist for a year into one bag? Kind of a daunting thought, isn't it. However, that is exactly what we're doing, and there are hundreds of testimonials on the Internet by people who have done it before. Being the digital freaks we are however, the nature of what we're carrying is perhaps a little more technical than most tourists. Of course, we've got the standard three shirts, two pairs of pants, one pair of shorts, one fleece, and one GoreTex jacket. Jen has a few more accessories. Everything seems to be CoolMax or some similar fast-drying type fabric. However, it's the electronic stuff that's causing the dilemma. "Electronic stuff?" you ask. Yes, we are going to be reasonably wired on this trip... we are joining the increasing ranks of people who are bringing along their digital gear on their travels. The impetus was two-fold; we want to shoot digital instead of film, and we want to maintain our website as we tavel along. The film vs. digital debate seems to be leaning heavily towards the digital side these days. Not having to carry rolls of film or envelopes full of prints was an attractive thought, although we know we could ship those back home while traveling. Lately, most of the pictures we have been viewing are on our computers anyway; there are hundreds of loose prints that we have lying around the house in boxes. We have seen that there are Internet Cafes almost everywhere, even in the less-developed countries we've visited. While we'd be able to access our e-mail and possibly update text on HTML pages using computers at an internet cafe, uploading, resizing, and editing photos would be difficult, and our ability to be reasonably creative with our web development would be quite hampered. Additionally, the storage of digital pictures would be a significant issue. So, for now, the list of gadgets that we're bringing to address these items includes: mini laptop computer plus charger, CD burner, digital SLR plus AC and DC charger, digital point and shoot camera plus charger, plus all the accessories like lenses, extra batteries, cases, etc. For those who don't care about technical stuff, then skip the next few paragraphs. We already had a Sony PC100 digital camcorder, which took 1MP still images as well as digital video on miniDV tapes. We once considered buying the Sony 717 because it used the same batteries and chargers as the PC100, but that camera was just too big. We'll come back to this in a bit. We also considered the Dimage 7i and the Nikon 5700. |
After doing several months of research, we came to the conclusion that the Canon G3 was the best camera for our purposes, and we purchased it. After taking over 900 pictures in a few weeks, the G3 demonstrated that it was a very capable camera, and could produce some very satisfactory results. However, the announcement of the Canon 10D and the new price-point for D-SLR's proved to be too tempting an option, and we ordered that to try out (being shipped by UPS today actually). The advantages here are of course faster focus, less shutter lag, ability to use our Canon SLR lenses, and much more room to develop skills as an amateur photographer. Of course, this completely negates the whole concept of bringing a smaller and lighter camera... a definite downside, but one that I'm willing to live with, considering the opportunity for taking great pictures on this trip. Jen's laptop is a small Vaio, the SR7K, which is surprisingly quite light. After upgrading it to Windows XP, we purchased an Archos CD-RW to go along with it. The battery on it sucks; we'll probably mostly be using it plugged into an outlet in our rooms, which is just as well, 'cause we'd prefer to not let people know that we are carrying a laptop with us. Hopefully we'll be able to hook up to various internet cafes to be able to upload to our web server. That's the plan, anyway. Ok, end of technical stuff. For now. Some friends have asked us if we're concerned about theft, and of course that is a pretty big deal. We'd rather have our gear stolen though, than our pictures, which is why we will be burning two copies of our photos as we move along; we'll carry one and mail the other one home. As for the rest of our gear, well, it's pretty much standard stuff. There are people online who have whole sites dedicated to packing light. (Check out www.onebag.com). One big thing that we are hoping to do is to never have to check any bags in. This means less hassle at the airport, less risk of losing our bags, and less incentive to carry around a ton of stuff! The travel packs that we got are the typical carry-on sized main bag with a zip-on daypack on the back. So, while we know we're going to be hauling a few pounds of digital gear, hopefully it will pay off in terms of the quality of pictures that we take, and the One Year, One World website that we will develop. Check back with us when we're on the road to see if we've got too much stuff or too little! |
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