If you ever concidered to do any low light photography, you have to have a tripod.

My first one was a $30 tripod, which was slowly but surely creeping and I got blurrier shots than had I handheld the camera.
I decided the next time I would get something to last for a lifetime. And thus I bought a Gitzo tripod.

They are by far the best tripods out there, carbon-fibre made and pretty light.

Although if you want to use a ballhead, which pretty much is a must if you use a sturdy tripod, the weight reduction is quickly made up by the heavy iron ballheads

I will talk about ballheads another time. Today is purely about tripods.

I bought the one you can see on the left. The Gitzo Traveller 2540.
It is a steep investment, but it is the last tripod you will need in your whole life.
You will more than make up for it by never having to replace your tripod again. Eventually it will save you more money in the long run, so do it like me and buy once, not every 2 years.

There are different version and it is a little bit up to you which one to get, I for example prefer the ones that have 3 joints over the ones with 2, because you can collapse them a little bit more, which is valuable if you want to fit it in your luggage. However it is a trade off, because it adds time to set it up.

I usually have to take off the ballhead to make it fit in my luggage but that is ok. The 2 joint version adds a few inches and would have been hard to get into my suitcase, I calculated before purchase. This is an important factor if you ever think about taking your tripod with you overseas.

Here in Paris I see lots of ppl running around with a tripod during the day – in bright daylight. Some ppl swear by shooting every single shot on their tripods. However if you shoot during daylight, you really don’t need it and you will probably regret it. Only take a tripod when you need it, that is my advice. But if you need it, make sure you ALWAYS have it with you. Otherwise just use an R-Strap and enjoy the flexibility you have without having to lug a tripod when you can shoot handheld (i.e. above about 1/60 sec – even slower when you have calm hands).

There is one lens you just do not want to miss when you travel. A lens that covers 95% of your needs in any situation while overseas.
The Nikon 18-200. Some love it, some hate it. I was always somewhere in the middle, I was annoyed about the unsharpness but delighted about the huge zoom range (11x !).
However I have come to love this lens, although it may be considered an amateur lens…a superzoom.
I don’t care. I love the versatility it gives me. No other lens can do that. Full stop.

Have you ever been in one of those situations when all the elements just come together, you know you will get an amazing shot in the next few seconds, but what the… wrong lens. Stress comes up, quickly trying to change lenses, or even worse – not having brought the right lens.
And there the moment passes, and you were only able to watch – having the mental picture, but nothing to permanently save this little piece of memory.
I have been in that situation – a lot of times. This is when I decided to buy a 18-200.
Now don’t get me wrong – I love sharp lenses. My Zeiss 35mm is one of the sharpest lenses ever built and I thoroughly enjoy the results.
However for travel photography there are a lot of additional issues you have to fight with – weight restrictions on aircrafts are a big problem. Also I do not want to take my whole kit to a country where it may attract more attention than I like. You need to make compromises, retaining max. flexibility. The 18-200 gives me exactly this flexibility. That’s why I love it.
Now many will say: Hang on Kajo, the 18-200 does not give you the sharpest images.
Well that’s true, but I will come home with more keepers from my holiday than any eager lens-changer.
Bottom line, I will miss less of those great opportunities – 18mm is wide enough for a landscape shot (although admittedly, I sometimes have to shoot a 2 shot pano to get to my beloved 10-12mm range) and 200mm is more than enough to isolate objects, with nice bokeh et al (aperture is f/5.6 at 200mm, but 200mm creates such a compression of 3rd dimension that backgrounds are reasonably out of focus anyway).
Also if you shoot the lens at it’s sweet spot, that is around f/8-f/11, I doubt you will see sharpness differences between it and the higher quality glass in the Nikon lineup.

Let me show you two example shots taken just a few minutes apart from one another – with this lens.
It shows you some decent shots, one at the wide end (18mm) and one at the telephoto end (170mm):

Invalide Canons

Golden Angels

Sorry for the long wait for an update. Internet in Italy is rather slow and I was not around the computer much.
Lots of exploring to do here.
I have now arrived in Paris to spend some time and shoot it extensively.
Today was the famous French Bastille day. The military parade was amazing. Photos to come soon.

Having the right camera strap is – for us photographers – like the search for the holy grail. Most of them truly suck.
However I believe I have found it so read on.

I have had it for a while, but usually I do not do street photography, and my camera is mounted on my Gitzo tripod most of the time.
So I never really used it much. A guy on my Antarctica trip had one, and told me about it and I have to tell you, after using it for a day I have come to love it!

You wear it diagonally across and the camera sort of hangs to your side…attached to a screw and some sort of hook. Sounds flimsy, but works perfectly. No chance of losing the camera or having it ripped off your shoulder.
When you then pull it up to your face, it sort of runs along the cord it is attached to, which is so cool.
It is the quickest way to draw your camera, promised. When you are done, just let it hang down at your side again and this is where it stays.
The mechanism is so simple, it is hard to imagine, that no one thought of it a long time ago.
Price is rather high (and I believe the increased it recently). You have to fork up $54 for it plus shipping, however I really believe it is worth it. If you are still looking for the right camera strap – and I know you do -  look no further.

Will post a few shots from here soon.

It was time again for a point and shoot camera. Which one? I was going forth and back between the Canon G10 and the Panasonic Lumix LX3.
They are similar in many ways and I would consider them both top of their class.
Here are my reasons for choosing the Panasonic LX3 over the G10. The most important feature to me was the capability to shoot raw as well as a full manual mode. Both can do that, same with video, however the LX3 offers a few additional features that – to me – mattered a lot:

• The LX3 can shoot HD Video – important to me for this blog
• a max. exposure time of 60 seconds – the G10 just offers 15 secs. Not enough for long exposure nocturnal photography, such as city shots at night
• a full stop faster lens (f/2) which is amazing for such a little camera – in low light situations it will make the difference between shooting ISO 200 and ISO 400 for example (and noise is a big problem with those little sensors)
• 24mm wide angle. Does not sound much different to a 28mm lens. But in the world of a landscape or architecture photographer this is a huge difference
• High quality Leica lens – as good as it gets

Initially I was really missing a viewfinder. However it seems the the viewfinder of the G10 is pretty much unusable.
So there you have it. On a trip to Italy I will test this little camera extensively and I am quite happy to leave my big guns at home for a change.

Will write about my experiences once I am back.