Good day! I was out and about at 7:00 o’clock this morning, a more reasonable hour than yesterday. Another cloud and wind-free day awaited my arrival. I gulped down a quick cup of coffee, then grabbed the camera, and headed down the beach for a walk. There were only a few EB guests on the beach, along with a time-share guy, some shore birds, and a year-round property owner from Canada, who lives in one of the homes further down the sand. Very peaceful. I took a few photos of the landscape, as well as people, and beach detritus. The beach is pretty clean, but suffers from the occasional winds and rough seas that tend to bring in mostly discarded plastics and fishing stuff. EB grooms the beach directly in front of the property and cabanas, but not further down the sand. As far as I know, all beaches in Mexico are public domain, so you can walk where you want with courteous regard for the private estates above the high tide line.
I took my Nikon D300 with me this morning. It’s a full-size digital with lots of cool features. The lens I attached this morning was an AF-S Nikkor 18-300 VR DX. The 18-300 is a nice travel lens that works well in situations where you have adequate light and want to shoot photos at a variety if distances from wide and close, to narrow and relatively far away. The other lens’ in my kit this trip include a Nikon 24-70 f2.8, a Nikkor 10.5 f2.8 fisheye, and a Tokina 100 f2.8 macro. For some of my walks, or just sitting at the pool or beach, I throw my Canon Power Shot SD850IS Digital Elph in my pack, and leave the “big stuff” in the safe in the room. It probably goes without saying, that Angel, and most of you, probably think I’m cracked packing all this camera stuff!
So why do it? Because I enjoy photography and I’m hoping that this blog will reach a variety of readers, who may or may not share all of my values or interests, but may have at least one thing in common, and that this one common factor might be photography. And if I can achieve this “commonness” with just one of you, it will eventually lead is to world peace and tranquility…hehheh. Anyway, someone was bound to ask me sooner or later, what type of camera equipment I use, so I may as well get this out of the way now.
Point and shoot digitals are great for most folks when traveling. I love my Elph. You will have no trouble bringing it, or other photography equipment and a laptop computer through customs, and into Mexico. Also, bring plenty of memory cards for your camera. I carry two SanDisk Extreme III CompactFlash disks (8GB and 16GB) for the D300, as well as a pocket-sized portable hard-drive, if I’m shooting RAW files. RAW files take up a lot of space on my laptop hard drive, so I like to move them to the portable HD once in awhile. For this trip, I’m shooting mostly fine, large JPEG that take up about half the space of RAW, so my CompactFlashes seem to be holding up well.
For your full-size camera, I recommend a good UV, or circular polarizing filter for lens protection and better picture quality when shooting in bright sunlight. For all of my daylight, outside shots, I have a circular polarizer on my lens. For inside shooting, the lens is either naked, or has a UV filter. My settings on the Nikon vary, but generally I shoot aperture priority or shutter priority mode, with white balance set on auto. If I have a VR lens on the camera, the settings are auto, on, and active when shooting handheld. I generally set my ISO manually. The Nikon D300 offers a good range of ISO settings. This feature really helps when shooting in rapidly changing light conditions.
Now, for most folks, there is no sane reason to go out and buy a bunch of expensive photography equipment if you just want some great shots. A moderately priced point and shoot digital from Costco, or any other reputable on-line dealer, will take wonderful photos, if the photos are shot at the correct settings for the light conditions. One of my good buddies who spends his working life on the North Slope, and his “normal life” at home in Livingston, Montana, takes beautiful photos with a little Canon digital. He has turned his shots into a successful, mildly profitable, cottage business, where he sells wonderful photos and cards. We have several of his photos from his days on the Kuskokwim Delta, framed and featured prominently in our home. I’m hoping to get him to post a few photos on this blog, or give my readers a link to a place on the web where they may view or purchase these items.
So today, I’m encouraging you to get out there, take some photos, and share them with others. There are tons of sites on the web where you can upload and catalog your photos for friends, family, and the world. I will give you more info on that later.
I really do need to get some sun, so I’ll be leaving you now. Take care, and have a wonderful day. Oh yeah, the photos…at first glance, the bottle appears to be a discarded drink. It’s not. The local fishermen tend to be somewhat creative when modestly relieving themselves aboard ship with paying passengers. This is the result. It’d be nice if they would follow a “pack it in, pack it out” policy.
I took my Nikon D300 with me this morning. It’s a full-size digital with lots of cool features. The lens I attached this morning was an AF-S Nikkor 18-300 VR DX. The 18-300 is a nice travel lens that works well in situations where you have adequate light and want to shoot photos at a variety if distances from wide and close, to narrow and relatively far away. The other lens’ in my kit this trip include a Nikon 24-70 f2.8, a Nikkor 10.5 f2.8 fisheye, and a Tokina 100 f2.8 macro. For some of my walks, or just sitting at the pool or beach, I throw my Canon Power Shot SD850IS Digital Elph in my pack, and leave the “big stuff” in the safe in the room. It probably goes without saying, that Angel, and most of you, probably think I’m cracked packing all this camera stuff!
So why do it? Because I enjoy photography and I’m hoping that this blog will reach a variety of readers, who may or may not share all of my values or interests, but may have at least one thing in common, and that this one common factor might be photography. And if I can achieve this “commonness” with just one of you, it will eventually lead is to world peace and tranquility…hehheh. Anyway, someone was bound to ask me sooner or later, what type of camera equipment I use, so I may as well get this out of the way now.
Point and shoot digitals are great for most folks when traveling. I love my Elph. You will have no trouble bringing it, or other photography equipment and a laptop computer through customs, and into Mexico. Also, bring plenty of memory cards for your camera. I carry two SanDisk Extreme III CompactFlash disks (8GB and 16GB) for the D300, as well as a pocket-sized portable hard-drive, if I’m shooting RAW files. RAW files take up a lot of space on my laptop hard drive, so I like to move them to the portable HD once in awhile. For this trip, I’m shooting mostly fine, large JPEG that take up about half the space of RAW, so my CompactFlashes seem to be holding up well.
For your full-size camera, I recommend a good UV, or circular polarizing filter for lens protection and better picture quality when shooting in bright sunlight. For all of my daylight, outside shots, I have a circular polarizer on my lens. For inside shooting, the lens is either naked, or has a UV filter. My settings on the Nikon vary, but generally I shoot aperture priority or shutter priority mode, with white balance set on auto. If I have a VR lens on the camera, the settings are auto, on, and active when shooting handheld. I generally set my ISO manually. The Nikon D300 offers a good range of ISO settings. This feature really helps when shooting in rapidly changing light conditions.
Now, for most folks, there is no sane reason to go out and buy a bunch of expensive photography equipment if you just want some great shots. A moderately priced point and shoot digital from Costco, or any other reputable on-line dealer, will take wonderful photos, if the photos are shot at the correct settings for the light conditions. One of my good buddies who spends his working life on the North Slope, and his “normal life” at home in Livingston, Montana, takes beautiful photos with a little Canon digital. He has turned his shots into a successful, mildly profitable, cottage business, where he sells wonderful photos and cards. We have several of his photos from his days on the Kuskokwim Delta, framed and featured prominently in our home. I’m hoping to get him to post a few photos on this blog, or give my readers a link to a place on the web where they may view or purchase these items.
So today, I’m encouraging you to get out there, take some photos, and share them with others. There are tons of sites on the web where you can upload and catalog your photos for friends, family, and the world. I will give you more info on that later.
I really do need to get some sun, so I’ll be leaving you now. Take care, and have a wonderful day. Oh yeah, the photos…at first glance, the bottle appears to be a discarded drink. It’s not. The local fishermen tend to be somewhat creative when modestly relieving themselves aboard ship with paying passengers. This is the result. It’d be nice if they would follow a “pack it in, pack it out” policy.
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