Thursday, January 12, 2006

Preparing for Egypt

Oh... Did I mention that I'm going to Egypt? Yep, in just under 2 weeks I'm headed off to Egypt for the Popular Photography Mentor Series Photography workshop. The workshop includes three photography instructors from National Geographic and a couple of world renown Egyptologists. We'll be headed to Cairo, Luxor, Sharm El Sheik, a number of places between along the Nile and finishing up with a hike up Mount Sinai. What an fantastic chance to see one of the most amazing parts of the world and learn a ton more about photography and Egypt all at once.

I've spent the past few weeks starting to get ready for it. Figuring out which camera gear to bring has been the toughest part. I'll certainly have my Canon 20D but which lenses? Don't want to carry too much, but I don't want to get all the way to Cairo and then realize that I really wish I had the thus-n-such lens, or that I need just 2 more 4 Gig memory cards. Then there are the medical preparations - I got both Hepatitus A and Typhoid shots ("Hey -- I've got typhoid in this arm and Hep A in this one! Who wants to touch me?") and now I've got to figure out which meds to bring along just in case. I could fill half the suitcase with imodium and the other half with lenses and CF cards but then what would I wear?

I wasn't going to bring a point and shoot camera because it felt like it would just be that much more weight to deal with until I got a Kodak EasyShare V570 at CES. This camera is really slick and does a good job with wide shots and while it doesn't do so great in low light, it does shoot 640x480 video and it is really small so it looks like it will be in the bag for this trip.

Of course I'll have my laptop too so if I get a chance and a good net connection, I'll be blogging as well.

Coolio!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I know I just got back from Africa, but I'm still insanely jealous! You'll have a great time!

And for lenses... I really only used 2 my whole trip... the 14-70 and the 200 (with the 2x extender). You should just take your favorites and remember that the Poo will bring everything else ;-)