GREECE WORKSHOP - MAY 26 – June 10, 2005

News | Detailed Itinerary | Pre-Trip Itinerary
Instructional Tips | Camera Equipment to Bring

Newsletter to Group May 1, 2005 I've just converted from film to digital, and have only done one trip so far.  Also converted from Nikon to Canon, so lots to learn. Comment on filters from your notes.  You might want to remind people that while most filters can be applied later in Pshop, the action of a polarizer cannot, in most circumstances, be duplicated after the fact. Storage.  I bought a laptop with 80G drive, and two external drives (each 120G, although 80G might be just enough for this 3-week trip).  I download to the laptop, then back up to both external drives.  Only then will I reformat the flash card.  Backup, backup, backup.  These drives can fail, and laptops and bags can get lost or stolen.  Carry the external drive and laptop in separate bags if at all possible.  External drives can be put together by any computer shop; pick the drive you want (e.g. Western Digital or Maxtor, and suggest you go with a brand name, less than $1/GB) and a box ($55) that has the USB or firewire interface.  Easy and least expensive route.  You can now also get external 2.5" (i.e. laptop format) drives up to 80G, quite compact but these are quite a bit more expensive than the standard 3.5".  I may also bring some DVDs for burning info, just in case. Never edit in the field.  In fact I rarely edited anything while downloading, since laptop screens are not nearly as good as desktop ones.  Get rid of the obvious crap if you want to, but that's it. I decided to shoot RAW plus small JPEG, and will likely continue with this in Greece.  This allows you to edit using the smaller jpeg files, which have been converted in camera to a more contrasty, saturated look similar to film response.  So without any manipulation, you can get a good appreciation for the quality of the shot.  It's a frequent disappointment to digital shooters using RAW that the images lack punch, but that because they are capturing a larger tonal range, equivalent to print film, and hence the unaltered images look flat by comparison. The weak link in all of this is the laptop.  All info flows through it.  I have redundancy for everything else.  Not sure if there's an easy way around this. That's it; feel free to share any of this with the rest of the group if you think they'd be interested.  I have no idea of what anyone is shooting, nor their level of expertise or experience.  I know Michael was just getting into digital during the PEI trip, so I presume he's fairly well along the curve. Hotels you've picked look fantastic.  Really looking forward to this trip. cheers Bill Bill Young b.young100@sympatico.ca http://byoungphoto.tripod.com
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