Egypt in December

[bakubo]

I haven't posted any others because I assumed everyone was sick of them.

Sure, post some more.

The place has been photographed to death.

Hmm, that is a very strange comment. I bet the places you go regularly have also been "photographed to death", maybe even by you, so why not just give up photography?

Anyway, *I* am looking forward to going because *I* have never been there before. I'll try not to get discouraged thinking about the fact that you and many others have already taken photos there.

[bakubo]

Thanks again for all the great info and the interesting anecdotes. Last night I booked the first 3 nights at a small hotel/hostel in the Islamic Cairo, the old medieval part of Cairo. The area looks like it will be good for photography and after such a long flight I wanted to have someplace to just go crash at when I arrive without having to search for something. The internet is really making things so much easier than in the past. Websites like hostel.com, hostelworld.com, etc. give lots of info, user reviews, etc. and you can book a room easily and quickly. Also, I am finding that most places have free wifi these days so I think I will take my netbook with me. Somehow I will find room for it in my backpack. I had it with me while we were travelling around in Japan for a few weeks and it worked great to find a place to stay the next night and make a reservation. Also, could use Skype to call the hotel/hostel up since phone calls are expensive in Japan.

It's easy to assume that some offers of hospitality are false - that you may be expected to pay. One guide invited us to his family home and served us mint tea. He was most certainly not looking for money (beyond the customary tip later on) but was very proud indeed of the house they had built, or the furnishings and decor, and he simply wanted to show it off. Our appreciation and half an hour of conversation in English was all he expected.

Yes, I know what you mean. Everywhere I have gone I have met very friendly strangers, seemingly too friendly, and it is always difficult to discern in the beginning whether they are genuine or if it is just the lead up for a sales pitch or scam. Unfortunately, there are many of the latter also so whether this particular individual is genuinely friendly and helpful or if it is leading to something else means you always have to keep your eyes and ears open. I try to always respond to a friendly demeanor with a friendly demeanor. I carefully watch how things move along though to see if it is heading in the direction I don't want to go.

I recall in Chefchaoen, Morocco one time I was walking along a small alley and a man who was standing in front of a carpet shop greeted me. I, of course, greeted him back but continued walking along with my camera. He followed me and was quite friendly and wanted to talk so I stopped and talked a bit with him. He then invited me inside his shop for tea. Of course, I knew where this was leading. I tried to beg off so he told me not to worry, he was not trying to sell me anything. Just come inside for some tea and conversation. True enough, we talked and he didn't try to sell me anything. I spent probably 20 minutes there and he showed me photos of his family. It was pleasant.

In Nairobi in 1991 a young guy approached me on the street and he also was very friendly and wanting to talk. I walked with him awhile and after a bit he asked me for some money, but the guy had such a good personality, rather than walking away or turning him down, I told him let's stop to get something to drink on this hot afternoon. I bought a couple of Cokes and he never asked me for anything else. We just had a long, friendly conversation. I turned that one around.

[bakubo]

I am starting to get my stuff together. My typical travel kit since I got the A700 has been:

A700
18-250mm
11-18mm
50mm f1.7
HVL-F36AM flash
Canon A590IS digicam
memory cards, batteries, chargers, etc.

Not counting the 2 month road trip in the spring I have taken this kit with me to Mexico and currently Japan. It has worked out pretty well, except I have never used the flash and each time I start thinking that I should leave it behind. The flash and 4 AA nimh batteries add a fair amount of weight and bulk. Since I also carry the digicam that uses 2 AA nimh batteries I need to also carry a very small charger so I have it even if I don't carry the flash. Hmm, what to do, what to do? Back in my film days I usually would carry a small flash just in case. With the Minolta AF SLRs the one I would carry was the 3200i. No tilt, but I used it from time to time. When I travel I generally like to get by with natural light and now with the ability to change the ISO at the spin of a wheel and SSS I don't need to use flash much. The built-in flash is pretty good when I need just a bit of fill flash -- although the A700 (and especially the A100) don't work nearly as well with this as my old Canon DSLRs (30D, 300D) unless I switch to manual mode and carefully meter, etc. The Canon's would do fill flash usually very well while I was still in aperture priority mode.

The other thing I am thinking about right now is leaving the 50mm f1.7 behind and instead taking the Sigma 24mm f2.8. I always take the 50mm because it is so small and it is fast, but with APS-C the 75mm fov means I almost never use it. The 24mm gives a 36mm fov and that is much more useful if I want just a small lens on the camera when I am walking around. I recall that one night in Marrakech I used it on the KM 7D when I was walking around the Djemaa el-Fna and it worked out well. Fast enough and a much more useful fov. The size is almost identical to the 50mm and weight seems just about the same too. Maybe I will take it this time instead.

Anyway, just thinking it all over. I am concerned that I am not going to be able to fit all of what I need (and I am a very careful packer who really does take almost the minimum) into my usual travel backpack (photo of it in Ecuador):



My camera gear is half of the volume and about 2/3 of the weight. Now that I also take the netbook, tiny 500gb external drive, electric cord, plug adaptor, etc. the volume and weight goes up even more. Without all of this stuff I could get by with a daypack for even a long trip. Of course, I also take a daypack to carry around all the time that has camera gear, travel book, water bottle, etc. It is really tough stuffing the daypack inside of the backpack for travel days!

Also trying to decide if I will try to squeeze my wife's A100 in somehow. She won't need it while I am gone and I would like having a backup just in case. With film I always carried 2 SLR bodies, but with DSLRs I usually just keep my fingers crossed and only carry one.

[David Kilpatrick]

Photography in pyramids and tombs is officially forbidden, and flash is a total no-no - but the guards will let you take pictures without flash, for a small tip (in some tombs they will try to get you to do this - despite big notices banning photography). A fast semi-wide like the 24mm would be ideal. I used the 11-18mm but got several badly blurred images (people moving, SSS dealt with the long hand held exposures perfectly).

Many historic sites have evening floodlighting, and a mini tripod will be MUCH more use than a flash.

David

[Winston]

Hmm, that is a very strange comment. I bet the places you go regularly have also been "photographed to death", maybe even by you, so why not just give up photography?

Cuz I like it.

Anyway, *I* am looking forward to going because *I* have never been there before. I'll try not to get discouraged thinking about the fact that you and many others have already taken photos there.

*I* also looked forward to going because *I* had never been there before. It didn't discourage me either.

I came back with about 1,700 images. What follows was my lens usage:
17-35 36%
28-75 28%
11-18 18%
100-400 18%

The long zoom was used only for birds and river shots. If didn't have it, I wouldn't have missed it much, if at all.
The 11-18 was very nice to have in small/crowded interiors.
17-35 was the best walk-about lens.
Two A700 bodies.
No flash and didn't miss it.

Some place charge a fee for tripod use.
I didn't have one...didn't miss it.

Coptic Cairo is near Old Islamic Cairo if you have time.

[bakubo]

Photography in pyramids and tombs is officially forbidden, and flash is a total no-no - but the guards will let you take pictures without flash, for a small tip (in some tombs they will try to get you to do this - despite big notices banning photography). A fast semi-wide like the 24mm would be ideal. I used the 11-18mm but got several badly blurred images (people moving, SSS dealt with the long hand held exposures perfectly).

Many historic sites have evening floodlighting, and a mini tripod will be MUCH more use than a flash.

Thanks again for some very good info. Okay, I have made the command decision that the 24mm goes and the 50mm stays behind. Also, the flash stays behind. I am still debating whether to take the A100. It's size and weight is not much different than the flash and batteries so it wouldn't add much, but I also wouldn't benefit from the savings from leaving the flash behind. If there is anyway to swing it though it is going.

[bakubo]

*I* also looked forward to going because *I* had never been there before. It didn't discourage me either.

Your earlier post seemed to sound discouraging and meant to put a damper on my enthusiasm for going. Sorry, I am sure I misunderstood.

I came back with about 1,700 images. What follows was my lens usage:
17-35 36%
28-75 28%
11-18 18%
100-400 18%

The long zoom was used only for birds and river shots. If didn't have it, I wouldn't have missed it much, if at all.
The 11-18 was very nice to have in small/crowded interiors.
17-35 was the best walk-about lens.
Two A700 bodies.
No flash and didn't miss it.

Thanks for the good info. I have decided to leave the flash behind and if at all possible I will take the A100 as a backup. I have gone on several trips since I started using digital a few years ago and have done without a backup body. I have always been lucky, but luck runs out eventually.

Some place charge a fee for tripod use.
I didn't have one...didn't miss it.

Yeah, no tripod for me either.

Coptic Cairo is near Old Islamic Cairo if you have time.

I have 4 weeks so there will probably be time. I don't know how long I will be in Cairo, but I booked 3 nights at a hotel initially. That is enough to get rested and a bit over the jet lag and get a feel for the place. Also, if the place I am staying is no good then I can hack it for 3 nights and then move to another place.

[Winston]

Another piece of gear I forgot to mention...I always carry a GPS data logger.

[David Kilpatrick]

The tripod I carry is very small - Gitzo Traveller 6 (small carbon fibre). But I don't take this where tripods are not allowed. Instead, I have a couple of very small alternatives - an old Minolta table-top tripod (identical to the Leica model, both were made at the same time) and a very small generic Japanese mini tripod which was branded as Minolta - you can also see them as Hama, Fuji, and countless other makes. They work well enough to provide a secure support for long exposures, and I have never been challenged about using one of these as they only lift the camera up about four inches.

Examples made possible by mini tripod:






One here from the Gitzo - normal working height essential for this shot. Reason for needing a tripod - this is two exposures on the A900 for HDR manual merging of the inside and outside light levels.



I only carried a mini tripod for the son-et-lumiere night time at Luxor, and only took my 28mm f/2 lens. Big mistake. It needed a much longer lens, an 85mm or 100mm would have been better; the bench seats were continuous, meaning that if the tripod was on any part of the seating, and someone moved (which they did all the time) the shot was wrecked. I ended up moving to an empty part of the seating which offered a worse view but no vibrations from the crowd. None of the pix were worth having due to the wrong decision about focal length, and the mediocre lightshow (not worth a tenth of the asking price).

Having said this, AS/SSS/SS has been far more use to me than any other feature of the KM/Sony DSLRs (and the A2 before that). We fund our travel via Alamy sales - that's pretty much all Alamy does for us, but it's a three-pronged thing - shooting stock gives every trip a purpose, they become tax deductible, and the sales fully cover the annual travel budget. Looking at over 300 sales, 10% of all shots sold are ones taken in low light, hand held, tripods not allowed, photography otherwise impossible.

In doing so I notice that two pictures - one of Edinburgh, one of Gatwick - just showing the overall departure lounge/concourse managed to sell for considerably more than the flights involved; and that one quick photo of empty Chateauneuf du Pape bottles in a cellar there sold for roughly double what it cost us to order a half-case of six bottles. No flash, no tripod, and not at all unsteady (Shirley had to do the wine tasting, I was driving).

David

[bakubo]

The tripod I carry is very small - Gitzo Traveller 6 (small carbon fibre). But I don't take this where tripods are not allowed. Instead, I have a couple of very small alternatives - an old Minolta table-top tripod (identical to the Leica model, both were made at the same time) and a very small generic Japanese mini tripod which was branded as Minolta - you can also see them as Hama, Fuji, and countless other makes. They work well enough to provide a secure support for long exposures, and I have never been challenged about using one of these as they only lift the camera up about four inches.

Very nice photos!

I don't have a tripod here with me. I have one of those mini-tripods -- the kind where the 3 legs are offset and rotate around when not in use so that they fit together and make one thick leg on one side. I don't have it with me either. I have found that usually if I can find a place to put it (top of a wall, table, chair, etc.) then I can usually just put my camera in the same place without the mini-tripod so that is one reason I stopped carrying it. I just pull out my bandanna in my pocket, fold it to the right size, and place the camera on top of it. The mini-tripod would be a bit better sometimes, but the one I have is actually pretty heavy with solid metal legs. As you say, SSS has made night photography possible when it pretty much wasn't before (except with a tripod).

[David Kilpatrick]

The palm tree and pool (last shot) is the Movenpick Jolie Ville hotel Luxor - an interesting island with a hotel plus an entire production community. The Minolta tripod is the same as the item you mention - gets mistaken for a pistol when X-rayed by customs.

David

[Greg Beetham]

Anyway, *I* am looking forward to going because *I* have never been there before. I'll try not to get discouraged thinking about the fact that you and many others have already taken photos there.

I have never been there myself Henry, my reference to taking photos of the sailing boats was me rembering a grainy b&w photo I saw in a book when I was a kid, probably by some intrepid photographer with a view camera travelling by camel train to far flung exotic places...So don't get discouraged whatsoever, I look forward too some Egyptian photos various in due course...
Greg

[bakubo]

I have never been there myself Henry, my reference to taking photos of the sailing boats was me rembering a grainy b&w photo I saw in a book when I was a kid, probably by some intrepid photographer with a view camera travelling by camel train to far flung exotic places...So don't get discouraged whatsoever, I look forward too some Egyptian photos various in due course...

I arrived last night and I am not discouraged. I was just kidding around.

[aster]

Ahlan vah sahlan, Bakubo!

( the spelling probably is wrong but I think that's how they welcomed the guests...my Arabic is limited to numericals and basics of shopping language I'm afraid )

Now that you're there, a couple of reminders:

* Try not to get food-poisoning.
* Keep your gear where you can see them always.
* Sleep right
* Don't let mosquitoes sting.
* And take lots of memorable photos for us and the world to see.


Yildiz

[Dusty]

I hope you get to Luxor, it has great photo opportunities. Now that digital gives good results (it was lousy in 1999 when I was there) you ought to be able to get great shots in the tombs w/o flash.

I never had any problem taking pics inside the tombs as long as I didn't use flash. One of the tombs has a kangaroo hieroglyphic on the wall (left side, not too far from the entrance) that I got an okay shot at back then, using Konica 1600 ISO film. I'd like to do that again, especially with a a550!

Good shooting!

Dusty