Registered: Jun 24, 2002
Total Posts: 1140
Country: Singapore
I'm back from my two week trip in Europe covering Paris, Belgium and Amsterdam in that order. I would firstly like to thank everyone who helped me with equipment recommendations for the trip.
Final Kit:
1Dmk2
17-40 f4L
70-200 f4L
50mm f1.4
380EX speedlite
Gitzo tabletop tripod with ballhead
1x extra battery
Compactdrive HDD backup
2x Sandisk Ultra 2 (1Gb)
2x Kingston (1Gb)
1x Seagate Microdrive ST1 (5Gb)
Lowepro Rover AWII
This was the bare minimum kit I decided I could bring while still being comfortable physically with the load and mentally convinced I would not miss any shots. It was a great chance to field test several bits of gear which I will mention further down.
Paris
Starting for a quick two nights in Paris, we are greeted with beautiful weather during the stay and I was quite surprised to be wearing just a T-shirt considering the reports of rain in the afternoons. We did get a little soaking on the evening of the second day but it was a passing shower. My families second trip to Paris we basically covered what we had missed before, taking in the Arc de Triumph and and the nearby shopping.
For the duration of the vacation I had the 17-40mm firmly attached to the front of my camera as it would not fit in the Lowepro attached to the 70-200 f4. I did have a chance to switch to the 70-200 at the Arc in order to take a few photos of the sculptures on the sides of the arch but relied mainly on the 17-40 for wider shots. there was a interesting photography exhibition in the Arc featuring photos of the liberation of Paris during World War Two.
My 50mm 1.4 did make an appearance at the top of the arch for several shots that I will try to stitch into a panorama. Sadly this was one of the few times it appeared during the trip. On hindsight I should have tried to use it more often in the museums where an extra 2 stops of light off the 17-40 f4 would have made a huge difference.
I did get this interesting picture with a reflection off a cafe opposite the Arc, not sure if its any good. Comments?
During the visit to the Louve the 17-40 really shone proving to be an excellent lens for getting interesting angles on the pyramid and some of the internal spaces. This was really my first time seriously using such a wide lens having previously used the 28-135 IS on the 1.6x crop D60. One thing I didn't like with a wide angle was the barrel distortion and leaning verticals of buildings. I discovered that I didn't really like many of the building pictures I took during the trip without at least some correction in PS. This being a family trip I took several "snapshots" and now in post-processing realize that I really shouldn't have done some of them with the wide end of the 17-40.
Within the museum I found myself using 640 - 1250 ISO very often in conjunction with the 17-40 at f4. I was pleasantly pleased with how fast the 1Dmk2 focused, even under these low light situations. The focus seemed spot on and blur was mostly due to some of the slow shutter speeds I tried to get away with. I found the museum a great learning experience when it came to learning about the camera's light meter and I got to use spot metering for most of the shots. Shooting in Av mode I learned to judge the exposure compensation needed when photographing white marble and black marble with no middle tone to meter. Lots of trashed files from experimenting but a good learning experience.
There were few times I wished for a longer lens and so the 70-200 f4 stayed snug in the bag. I had purchased a memory card wallet and to keep track I would reverse the cards so they were back to front in the wallet when they had been used. I shot about 2Gb of files that day.
Musee Rodin on the last day was a good trip yielding less pictures but some good ones. It was a beautiful day but lighting was unavoidably harsh near noon and I got tons of flare despite being careful about positioning. Few good shots, too much dark bronze against that bright sun.
I am starting to feel real bad by this point but I found switching lenses to the 70-200 too time consuming especially with the rest of the family unwilling to spot every ten feet for me to take a photo.
Belgium - Brussels
A quick train ride away, Brussels was an interesting change and looked truely fresh in my eyes, a new country to explore. Unfortunately I got horribly sick on the second night and spent the next few days in or near the bed. It was maddening watching a truely beautiful sunset out of your window when you are sick as a dog. My photography teacher told me its when you feel like you are about to die and yet have the desire to take photos that you know you are truely passionate about photography
Feeling better on the third day but not up to full on, all day walking, we signed up for a city tour and a tour of burgse. Beautiful old 16-17th century buildings in various styles and I snapped happly away, but I was more bothered by the leaning verticals having taken alot of the pictures with the camera tilted upwards to "crop" out some of the street lvl crowd. An example below.
Other things I learned were that shooting buildings at an angle while facing out the side of a boat usually look bad, and you cannot get away with 1/60.
Once again, tight boat, limited time on a guided tour, no time to switch o a 70-200. Man I am really beginning to regret not bringing my 28-135 IS now. This thought was also compounded by that feeling that I would have the perfect framing if I just had a "bit" more zoom. The 17-40 f4 really feels much better on a 1.6x crop body. In addition I didn't find myself using the 17 mm end as much as I kept twisting towards the 40mm end in hopes that I would be able to "squeeze" out a bit more focal length
Using a mini-tripod
I with all the thoughts of what support to bring I had settled on a mini table top tripod. All in all I have to say this was a mistake. I didn't find any convenient places to place it except for the ground which is far too low especially when taking buildings lit at night. Try as I might I did not get a rock solid night shot. On hindsight I would have brought a proper tripod or as in this case of a family vacation, none at all.
Compactdrive and backups
Up to this point I had been using the above mentioned compactflash cards for all my photos, backing them up with the Compactdrive in the evenings. I found the Compactdrive convinent and the fact that it used 4 AA batteries was a lifesaver when I could not find an adapter for my battery charger. Thankfully the 1Dmk2's batteries seemed to last next to forever. The construction of the HDD casing was not as solid as I would like with a flimsy and very tight spring loaded battery door and flimsy power switch. However it did do a fast job, about 4-5 mins to empty a 1 Gb compactflash card. It did once fail, but it was a simple matter of changing the weak batteries and trying it again in a clean folder (which it automatically makes). The battery indicator is rather odd with not just the full, half and low icons but a small voltage read out which alarmingly varies as the unit is being used. In addition after a few transfers, the unit would switch on indicating a full batt, but as the transfer began, it would indicate 1/2 batt and then full batt again after the files were copied over.
Back at home transfering the files it took a speedy 18 mins to transfer about 11 Gb of files to the harddisk using a USB 2.0 connection. Interestingly, you must connect the drive directly to the USB port. Using a hub or even extension cables will not allow the drive to be recognized in windows xp. This is not a power issue however as the drive does require its own power to run.
Amsterdam
Another train ride and the final stop on this trip, Amsterdam. By far my favorite country of the three we visited and not in any small part because of the how much more common English is found, both in menus, spoken and best of all in the museums. More old buildings in the city but it is balanced by more modern structures lacking in the other two cities.
There was plenty of time to walk the streets and take in a city tour and a canal cruise. By this point it was nice to do less walking as the damage from the vacation was really starting to pile up. At this point I gave up on taking the 70-200 f4 with me and left it with the 50 1.4 back in the hotel just carrying the 1Dmk2 with the 17-40mm mounted. I know am in bad shape and by this point the bulk of the 1 series body is beginning to get noticable.
I think the highlight of the trip was the day trip to Zaanse Schans and the seaside town of Marken. Zaanse did feel tourist but careful composition did allow for some decent shots.
Seagate 5Gb Microdrive
I also decided that this last portion of the trip was a good chance to test the 5Gb microdrive I had bought. I am sure most of you are familar with the 4Gb Microdrive that was removable from the Creative Muvo 2 for a steal when it first came out. Then this was stopped by a design correction on the part of Hitachi which was supplying the drives. The newest version of the Muvo 2 sports the new Seagate 5 Gb drive and despite the warning on the back of the box is usable in the Canon 1Dmk2 and the D70 as well. It is noticably slower than the compact flash cards, especially noticable during image playback where it takes a few seconds for the RAW thumbnail to appear. With the large buffer of the 1Dmk2 read speed was not as noticable. With the size of RAW files increasing, this was a cheap way to get extra space. While I would stick with compact flash cards for assignments or where speed is crucial, the microdrive seems like a good everyday solution where there is little chance of running out of space. I have considered switching to SD cards as primary storage using the slower microdrive as a backup. that way i could couple 5 1Gb SD cards with 1 microdrive backup that would usually never leave the camera.
Lowepro Rover AWII
I bought this bag just as I was about to leave after failing to find an existing bag that would take my 1Dmk2 and the 3 lens I chose. I had gone to the shop with the intention of getting a Krumpler Shrinkle but found that it was really not designed to fit a 1 series body. I tried several other bags but most of them had trouble acommodating the 1Dmk2 body or the length of the 70-200 f4 (yes the hood was reversed). The Rover AW II was the only bag in the store that could hold everything I needed. It turnned out to be a great choice although being of wide girth (read very fat), the waist straps although practical would look rediculous on me. So back at home a couple of snips took care of them, in the process destroying the resale value. My only gripe is that with its design, with the camera in the lower sealed off portion of the bag, it was impossible to squeeze a magazine other reading material into the bag despite the fact that it looked like a full length backpack. This design, while storing the camera in a top loader style position, does not allow the camera to be removed while on your back.
Final thoughts
I think for me it was a mixed trip but on the whole a good experience. I did not get as much shooting or as many keepers as I would like but at the same time learned alot about my equipment in a trial by fire enviroment. If I could do it all again I think I would have gone even lighter, ideally with something like a 20D and the 17-85mm EFS and maybe a flash. I felt that weight and worry about my equipment did detract from my trip, something I would not want to deal with in the future.
I know this was longer than I intended and I hope some of it was useful to someone planning a similar trip. Thank you for looking.
Now look at me on the waiting list for a mk2
