Camera…. CHECK!
As the epic overseas trip to America draws near, its time to start ticking off items – first and foremost – Cameras! Although I have a few DSLR’s to choose from, namely the D800 and D7000, I was lacking a point-and-shoot, ideal for the days where I didn’t necessarily want to lug around the larger, heavier SLR.
I’ve owned several point-and-shoots over time, including a Kodak, a few Fuji’s (I was a Fuji fan for a few years there) and a Nikon. The Nikon AW100 was my most recent point and shoot – waterproof and shockproof, the Nikon Coolpix AW100 series was a fantastic outdoor/adventurer companion. The layout of buttons and functions made perfect sense, and I especially liked how you could seamlessly record video or take a photo with a single button press. Out of the four colour options the original AW100 came in, I chose the camouflage – a tough look for a tough camera. It just makes it a pain to find.. and after 6 months of searching, I had to declare my camo-AW100 M.I.A.
With the advent of the America road-trip drawing ever so near, the search began for the next compact camera to accompany my DSLR. My requirements were pretty simple, there was only one thing I was really interested in, and for any DSLR owner, we all probably consider the same thing; QUALITY.
Sure there are other features, zoom, waterproof / weather proof, size, colour, megapixels, but for me quality was #1. Do not confuse quality with megapixel count, they are two separate things, and although megapixel is important to me (as I want the option of blowing my holiday snaps to canvas), more importantly I wanted the image to look its best.
Through all my trips (featured in this blog) through Vietnam, Russia and Europe, the one constant thing I have battled with whilst on holiday is determining, on any particular day, ‘do I take the DSLR today, or a small compact I can tuck away?‘. I don’t enjoy carrying my DSLR on holiday, especially in Asia; nothing says ‘tourist‘ more than a DSLR strapped around ones neck – to say nothing about the contrast of my Caucasian skin to that of the locals. The dilemma I then face is, ‘what if I see something incredible? I’d kick myself for not taking the DSLR‘.. it’s a repetitive cycle, which often leads to a sore shoulder as I will usually circum to taking the DSLR. This then leads to planned days where based on whether we are doing tours, I’d either take the DSLR or the smaller lower quality point and shoot. Sounds stressful doesn’t it? Not exactly what one wants on holiday!
To my absolute delight, Nikon had already thought up the solution, the Nikon Coolpix A (2013), currently the only one in its class (which baffles me Nikon?!), the artistic combination of compact camera that CoolPix is, and DSLR quality, featuring a DSLR sensor not too different from the Nikon D7000. Some call it revolutionary, one Nikon user i sighted on Nikon.com called it a ‘collectors item’ – which I’d also have to agree with. For me, it’s reassurance, on the day I choose not to go out and visit the Golden Gate Bridge, or sight see in Yosemite, for the ordinary day where anything or nothing can happen, I can now be assured, wherever I go, the heart of an DSLR will be with me. I do love Nikon’s CoolPix A for this.
Twins: similar-ish sensor – completely different size
So I have my imaging devices, now how about ensuring data retention? After all, I am going on a trip abroad, anything can happen, from faulty memory cards, damage or dare I say it, losing the camera altogether! Usually when I travel, I make a backup each night of the photos I’ve taken earlier that day onto a portable laptop or hard drive. Naturally, the best backup you can make is one where the backup device isn’t in the same vicinity as the original; Especially useful in the case of damage or theft, the same aliments are not likely to happen in two separate locations at the same time. So I plan on doing the following;
1. Purchase a sufficient number of SD cards to ensure that I don’t need to re-use any SD’s during the trip – this will be my primary copy.
2. Upgrade my googledrive or cloud storage service for the month I am away to cater for the number of images I intend to backup and make backups to cloud as frequently as possible. In most cases this will be in the evening using the hotel WiFi. That way I can take comfort in a remote-offsite backup of all my holiday memories.