nikon

In a few weeks we’ll be in Paris, struggling with the language and feeling the cold but still I am excited to be heading back to Europe. It has been a few years since our last holiday and I have nick named this trip ‘Scrappy Adventure II’. This trip we’ll be taking more technology, which worries me because I like travelling without a phone and a video camera however Hubby wants to shoot video and as yet I cannot convince him to make use of the video feature on the phone and the Panasonic Lumix. The smart phone will come in handy because we can make use of offline maps, guidebooks and messenger for keeping in touch with people however I’m hoping that once hubby sees all the cables and power packs then he’ll forego the video camera. My DSLR and laptop go everywhere with me, as good as the iPhone and Lumix are for photography, they don’t completely satisfy my photographic urges 🙂

When it comes to sharing photographs of our trip I will be making use of instagram, Facebook (to some extent), this blog and my Smug Mug account. Having an iPhone with us will make some of that quite easy, I am keen to see how much free wifi we can access and whether the iPhone will take the place of the Lumix even though it doesn’t have the benefit of a 30x optical zoom. My sister in-law and her husband will be on our tour of Europe soon and they’re only taking their smart phones to use as cameras, we’ll meet up with them in Paris so I’ll be curious to see how the phone photography went.

The list of gadgets so far includes:

Nikon D750 and 24-70mm lens
11 inch Macbook Air
iPhone 5s
Panasonic Lumix TZ70
JVC HD video camera
Numerous SD cards ranging from 8GB to 32GB
SD card reader
500GB portable external hard drive

When it comes to photography and gadgets, what do you prefer to travel with and what sort of challenges have you been faced with?

These photos are from our last trip, they were taken with an earlier model of the Panasonic Lumix and it doesn’t matter how old they are, looking at them always makes me smile.

Hubby has the window seat

Hotel window and view

Common sight in Paris, a homeless man and his dog

The Madeleine

Window display

On the hop on, hop off bus tour of Paris

Parisian signage

Hotel des Invalides

Champs Elysee

Parisian graffiti

Eiffel Tower

View from Eiffel Tower

Path to Versailles

Me at Versailles

Garden at Versailles

Bistro food on Rue Mouffetard

For a while I have wanted to get a new lens, to be more specific I wanted the Nikon 24-70mm f/2.8 lens loved by Nikon photographers (amateur and professional) and perfect for low light photography. After many months of saving my dream was obtained and I picked up the lens a couple of days ago. We’ve had some spectacular sunsets here of late, but sadly they’ve been pretty ordinary since getting the lens so I’ve been testing it out in the backyard and at a nearby lake. Technically I cannot tell you much, what I can tell you is that I love that I can take photographs in low light without having to ramp up the ISO to a ridiculous number or drag out the tripod. Wish it had image stabilisation, my hands can be a little shaky at times however that could be minimised by drinking less coffee 🙂

These few shots aren’t fantastic and the one of the pelicans could be sharper, it was taken from across a body of water so I had to crop the image dramatically to see them properly. Getting closer is going to be essential with this lens, especially when comparing it to the 28-300mm lens I’ve been using.