Micro Blog: 20th November 2011 (Travel)
A good part of October was spent in the highlands of southern China. Departing with a group of photography friends from NPSS, we headed to Kunming, Yunnan. Famed for it's natural beauty, Yunnan took up a larger chunk of the trip while Szechuan was where we spent the rest of our time.
As with every trip, one of the big issues to settle while getting all excited was what to pack. For this trip, I look through the itinerary and shook my head....I was going to have to leave a lot of gear out. The decision to pack light was with two reasons. The first being the exhausting journey we had to go through to get to some locations. It is never recommended to leave gear behind in the vehicle. Nothing against anyone in any country but car theft can happen anywhere and to anybody.The second being that we were changing hotels and reaching new towns practically every day. Getting a ton of gear in and out of the rooms will certainly increase the chances of leaving something behind one day. With that in mind, I packed and the gear consisted of 2 5d mark II bodies, a wide angle, a mid range zoom and a long telephoto zoom as well as a wide tilt shift into a lowepro optic series 200 (which I will write a review of shortly). Filters such as neutral density, polarizers and neutral density grads were stuffed in a Lowepro Street and Field pouch and attached to the belt loop of the main backpack. Remotes, extra batteries and chargers were packed into the front of the bag.
Some may wonder whether it really is necessary to be packing the chargers and batteries into the carry-on bags. My thoughts on this is if I ever lose my main checked in luggage, I must still have the capability to continue my shoots. Clothes and other daily essentials can be borrowed or purchased but finding a charger for a specific battery in the middle of an unknown land is as good as striking lottery 5 times in a row. Thus, my carry on bags (a backpack, a waist pouch and a tripod bag) are pretty much standard and is to me a good practice. For backing up of images, I usually depend on small external drives and a MacBook pro which allows me to view files when there is time on the road. It also allows me to make sure each drive has the exact same files as one another. However, given the daily hassle of shifting accommodation, I relied on two Nexto drives that had been outfitted with 750gb drives and tested before the trip. These little machines are fast and reliable enough. I however did miss the ability to preview the files and the new Hyperdrive which has the ability to get hooked up to an iPad may be on the purchase list. It has to be noted that despite the Nexto having some remarkable battery life, it was a practice to load the cards only at night when I have access to power points since a 32gb card transfer drains the battery really quickly. That is yet another reason to go with the smaller cards but being a DSLR video shooter, the 32gb cards are a great to have.
A four hour flight and we arrived at chilly Kunming, looking like any other big city in china, we were soon on our way. With us was our photographer guide, a professional photographer with vast experience and two female Taiwanese photography enthusiasts. We were forewarned of the arduous trip ahead of us. From the high altitudes to the long hours on the roads, we faced a challenge. Indeed, on the third day of the trip, a headache struck and the last two hours of the drive turned out to be a ultra bumpy ride, did nothing to alleviate the pain. A good nights' rest and a high altitude sickness tablet from a fellow photographer did wonders and I was raring to go the next morning. On the road, we would make impromptu stops if the light and subject matter was worth the effort. From trees in autumn colour with snow- capped mountains in the background to stupas and prayer flags fluttering in the wind, we were rarely disappointed. There was never once when I heard anyone complaining there was nothing to aim their lens at and proves that it really all boiled down to how each of us interpreted the scene. There was simply no right or wrong here and there were many an occasion when we told one another of the potential in each scene and that helped everyone to see things in a different way and opened up much more possibilities. Being a tight-knit group where we are familiar with one another definitely brought the camaraderie to a new level. Joking during mealtimes be it at a local restaurant with a ten course spread to a picnic in the wilderness with cup noodles, preserved eggs and smoked sausages became commonfare.
There were a few issues that I had to deal with while shooting. The first and foremost was getting comfortable in the cold weather. Temperatures do not really matter as it is the winds that is the killer and it is vital to have proper gloves, multi-layered clothing and a balaclava. I would rate the gloves and balaclava as 2 of the most important pieces of "clothing" I had on. Without them, I will really feel the full effect of the winds and definitely would not have lasted long out there. The cold of course shortens the battery life dramatically but I had a dozen with me and they more than lasted a whole day. The real test came when the backpackers hostel we were staying at for 2 nights had a blackout and all of a sudden, insecurity set in and everyone started to wonder whether their batteries will be sufficient for the whole of next day. On my side, I did have a couple of batteries unused but with the temperatures dropping, even I was unsure whether things will work out well for the next 24 hours. In such a situation, a car inverter would have been a life-saver and I recalled thinking whether I should pack one. Of course Murphy's Law played a good part and packing light being of priority, it was left back at home. Lesson learnt and it shall be part of the kit from now on!
In the low temperatures, all batteries will fail quickly. Camera batteries, torchlight batteries, remote batteries, etc. The last item listed; remote batteries, however seemed to be forgotten amongst the pile of shooting gear. I did have spare button cells for them but the trick was to simply get a heatpack and secure it to the remote with a rubber band. It did wonders to the batteries and I did not recall anyone having to switch out the button cells. This idea will however be tough to implement on the cameras and my suggestion is to pack all the unused batteries in a ziploc airtight bag and throw a few heatpacks in. The sealed warm air should keep the batteries fresh and to differentiate flat batteries from the fresh ones? Simple, what I do is to leave the yellow cover (for Canon LP-E6) on the battery until its used. Any batteries without the covers are flat and will need to be charged at night. Logical and works well for me all the time.
One minor issue I faced was dust and on the mountain roads where long stretches of it is still under construction, changing lenses is an invitation to having the sensor coated with dust. This is one of the main reasons why I brought 2 bodies along and the extra camera dramatically reduced the need to change lenses. Depending on the scene, I would either have the ultra wide and the telephoto or the mid-range zoom and the telephoto. There was however still a need to go through some dust-busting operation in Photoshop but it would definitely have been much worse with just a single camera body. Another reason for having a second camera body (other than the obvious backup) was to enable me to react to any situation for e.g when we stopped at the villages, I could easily be shooting the cheery kids with a long telephoto to compress the shot and isolate them from the background and the next moment, I would just move in really quickly with the wide angle on the second camera and grab some environmental portraits. There was no fumbling around with the lenses and that allowed me to capture images that I would have otherwise missed if I just had a single camera to work with.
For tripods, I would have to confess that a backup was one of the reasons why the friendly baggage handlers at almost all the hotels and hostels shouted out loud in Mandarin "Wow, what is inside this bag!". Guilt set in and more than once did I offer to carry the case up to the rooms myself. And yes, I agree with them! The backup tripod was used on only one occasion (fortunately) where we were waiting for a mountain range to be hit by first morning light. A 430am rise and with headlamps on, we dragged ourselves and gear to the rooftop where the splendid view was ahead in the darkness. A long lens was set up on the beefier Gitzo while the backup Sirui tripod had a mid-range zoom for panaromas. In situations of fleeting light, the need to change lenses is not a pleasant thought and thus my point of setting up 2 systems. The shots never materialized; with the thick cloud cover, the main peaks never made the appearance and 4 hours later, finding myself fighting the cold alone, I gave up. We had to rush off to the next location and the harsh light hastened the decision to get packed.
The highlights of the trip were indeed the strong autumn colours at Yading National Park. The hike up at that altitude was not an easy task but all was forgotten when the scene presented itself before me. The long cold night spent alone in the fields while exposing for the startrails was an amazing and surreal feeling too. A dose of enhancement came about when a huge cow walked by me, towards the kitchen, in a futile attempt to avoid the cold wind.
Right now, its time to plan for the next trip and hopefully 2012 will see my luggage being packed for Iceland, New Zealand and definitely China for at least once!