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Travel shots Anonymous
Hey /p/,
I'm going on a 20-day backpacking / Interrail trip through Europe.

My gear options are:
(1) Canon PowerShot A590 + adapter + telephoto & wide angle lenses
(2) Go buy a midsize DSLR (Digital Rebel, perhaps) and a few lenses, and take that instead.

Factoring in that Europe is full of thieves and villans, and that extra weight sucks, do you think the DSLR is worth it?

Also, any advice on getting a lightweight tripod / monopod would be handy.
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>> Anonymous
I did a 5-week trip last year and my PowerShot, charger, lenses, and all that were heavy enough. I totally skipped the DSLR.
>> Anonymous
Europe is great for architecture and countrysides. You will end up taking lots of wide-angle shots. Bring a Digital Rebel and a wide-angle lens. Since you want to travel light and look as poor as possible (to avoid RAEP), get the 18-55mm kit lens. Perfect. Bring lots of memory cards.
>> Anonymous
>>235694
This is generally good advice, but get the 28/2.8 and use it as your main lens. Small, versatile, cheap. Keep the 18-55 in the pack for if you need a medium tele or wide.
>> beethy !vW/UaE6zYU
buy the 350D or 400D with the kit lens (18-55mm non IS version)
It's nice enough for what you pay and versatile also.

I say this because that combo will look pretty budget to thieves. They won't bother.
They usually target people who carry around tripods and have several huge long L series lenses.
What they then do is find out where this person's car is.. wait for him to leave his gear there. Break the glass and take off with it.
This is a common strategy in Europe.
>> Anonymous
Draw a vertical line through the Czech Republic. Once you go east of that line, you will be in (obviously) Eastern Europe. You will no longer be in civilised territory. Hang out where the tourists hang out, and only during the day. If you stay in a hostel, keep your shit close to you at all times. Don't drink the water. Be mentally prepared to pay for using public bathrooms, and tip the poor ladies in these bathrooms, because they have th scrub down the filthiest bathrooms in the world.
>> Anonymous
with the money you would spend on a dslr and a couple of lenses, just buy a lomo lca, , a fed 5, a zenit, or some other soviet 35mm camera for 50 to 200 bucks, and then just shoot film. use one hour processing along the way, and just bring back the negs which you can then scan in. if hooligans see you shooting what looks like some old dimestore camera, they arent going to rob you, but if they see you with 2000 dollars worth of kit, you might get hit.
>> Anonymous
>>236439
Except that he might want to actually have good pictures, thought of that?

>>235729
True, but be prepared that almost ANY public toilet will cost you, in every part of europe.
>> Anonymous
>>236453

thought of the possibility that the type of shots produced by soviet cameras might be highly appropriate to his journey and stylistically much more interesting than the shots of every other idiot tourist with more money than talent?
>> Lynx !!KY+lVSl0s2m
>>236455
Nope. Shit cameras are shitttttt.
Goto a camera store and get a K1000 and a 50mm and order this. http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/396064-GREY/Fujifilm_15473678_Pro_400H_135_36_Professional.htm
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>> Anonymous
>>236461
expand your horizons. there is much more out there in the world of photography than you seem to be able to grasp. the simple fact of the matter is that some of the most interesting images come from old cameras, or plastic cameras, or foreign cameras, or even from homemade cameras. while a dslr may be a perfectly appropriate tool for editorial work, it is not an appropriate tool for wandering around strange eastern european cities where crime rates are high and you don't want your images to look like every other shmuck's images. now that the barrier of entry to capturing a good image has been lowered from the days of film, it is more important than ever for the photographer to rely on a good eye, a solid knowledge of the fundamentals (as well as a solid knowledge of when to break rules), and a way to make one's images rise to the top in a massive sea of machine gunned stereotypical dslr images.

another place buying something like a smena or a fed outweighs a dslr is in the ability to choose different films for different times of day, moods, and locales. some good ones to consider are a good color negative film, some expired slide film for cross processing, b/w infrared film (great for wilderness shots, and cant be done with a dslr), and b/w negative film in high and low isos.

the cost of a couple of soviet rangefinders and all the film and processing you could handle would still come out less than a good dslr and a couple of lenses, and the old film cameras are a lot more fun, to boot.
>> Anonymous
>>236473
Oh come on.

>ou don't want your images to look like every other shmuck's images.

Funny, I thought personal vision, composition, and creativity did that, not the gear you use, whether a $5000 Leica M8 with another few thousand 35 Summilux or with a Lomo.

>now that the barrier of entry to capturing a good image has been lowered from the days of film,

It is just as easy to get a good picture with a film Rebel as a digital one. Come on and stop jerking off the Velvia as its running through your local drugstore's C41 machine.

>it is more important than ever for the photographer to rely on a good eye, a solid knowledge of the fundamentals (as well as a solid knowledge of when to break rules), and a way to make one's images rise to the top in a massive sea of machine gunned stereotypical dslr images.

Ugh. Let me fix that for you:

>it is just as important now as it was for NiƩpce, Nadar, Weston, Cartier-Bresson, Karsh, or Winogrand, for the photographer to rely on a good eye, a solid knowledge of the fundamentals (as well as a solid knowledge of when to break rules), and a way to make one's images rise to the top in a massive sea of machine gunned stereotypical images.

Nothing has changed.

>another place buying something like a smena or a fed outweighs a dslr is in the ability to choose different films for different times of day, moods, and locales. some good ones to consider are a good color negative film, some expired slide film for cross processing, b/w infrared film (great for wilderness shots, and cant be done with a dslr), and b/w negative film in high and low isos.

Now this is just bullshit. I was wrong when I said nothing had changed- with digital, you can make it look however you want after the shot. Not just changing it for mood, time of day, or locale, but for every single shot. You can even run it entirely differently.
>> Anonymous
>>236473
Oh, and:

>old cameras
You mean like an 11x14 view camera with a top-quality lens, delivering insane resolution and a perfectly clear image?

>or plastic cameras
You mean like a Digital Rebel?

>or foreign cameras

Assuming you don't live in Japan, like a Digital Rebel?

Or if you do, like the aforementioned M8? Or any M? Or a Hasselblad? Or a Rolleiflex? Or an Argus?
>> Anonymous
panasonic lumix lx2 :]
>> Anonymous
>>236483
You miss my point, and you are incorrect. Something has changed, and that something is the sheer number of images competing for the eye. In this day and age, you will find a camera in almost every pocket, purse, or backpack, anything from a camera phone to a point and shoot to something larger. it makes it that much harder for any given image or imagemaker to rise out of the flooded seas of images we are surrounded with on a minute by minute basis.

you also apparently failed to consider the meaning of the phrase "barrier of entry," which refers to costs and other factors which prevent someone in engaging in a particular activity. the barrier of entry for photography has dropped considerably in recent years, both in the cost of equipment as well as in the elimination of the psychological barrier of being unable to instantly check the quality of your work. i don't think anyone would disagree that there are more cameras in more hands today than ever in the history of photography, and it is therefore more difficult and more important to be able to stand out today than it was in the days of weston, or man ray, or capa.
>> Anonymous
>>236484

Oh, and:
>old cameras
You mean like an 11x14 view camera with a top-quality lens, delivering insane resolution and a perfectly clear image?

You mean a view camera that would be completely impractical to carry on a trip like this guy is planning? I agree though, it would be brilliant to have.

>or plastic cameras
You mean like a Digital Rebel?

No, i don't mean 'like a digital rebel.' i mean plastic cameras where the numerous faults are endearing and stylistically pleasing, not where the numerous faults leave you kicking yourself for spending 700 bucks on such a piece of garbage.

>or foreign cameras
Assuming you don't live in Japan, like a Digital Rebel?
Or if you do, like the aforementioned M8? Or any M? Or a Hasselblad? Or a Rolleiflex? Or an Argus?

or foreign in the sense of not commonly seen in the US market, foreign to the user.
>> Anonymous
>>236492
>and it is therefore more difficult and more important to be able to stand out today than it was in the days of weston, or man ray, or capa.

Not if you're actually worth a shit. I'm by no means excellent and all my friends clamor for the pictures I take of them/us doing stuff/concerts we've been to/etc.

And they've all got camera phones, etc. They have pictures. But they want good ones. As do most people, as amazing as my friends are, they're not alone in wanting good pictures.

Now, if you're trying to get the Blue Ribbon Award on Flickr, yeah, throwing on gimmicks galore will help. Being a hot girl and being willing to show T&A and getting creeped out when people put notes all over them helps a lot, too.

But if you're just trying to make good pictures, you don't need gimmicks. And if you're trying to be an artist, you can trust no one's going to pay any more or less attention to your stuff. People interested in art have always been interested in art and always will be. Hopefully their number will increase, but if anything, the democratization of art has increased their numbers.

If you're a photojournalist, you're competing against a flood of images, but in a different way. It's not you versus kids with rich parents buying them a DSLR on Flickr like you're talking. It's you and your starving African pictures versus, as Nachtwey always puts it, a rolex ad on the next page. Also fashion photos, porn, and pictures of Miley Cyrus.

Good stuff rises to the top. Gimmicky stuff gets a quick notice and then gets forgotten. And besides, who said Getting Noticed (TM) is the primary goal of any of this? A guy screaming about whatever in the middle of a downtown business district will "get noticed," but if he got the fuck inside and sat quietly writing a book at the computer his ideas will get over much, much better.
>> Anonymous
>>235555Factoring in that Europe is full of thieves and villans

Where do you guys get those ideas?

Anyway, I'd be more worried about charging the electrical equipment rather than getting it stolen/weight. When I was thinking about doing the interrail this year, I had no doubt I would take my camera with me, plus the 18-200.
>> Anonymous
>>236524
>worried about charging the electrical equipment
battery grip that takes AAs?
>> Anonymous
>>236543
Hum, never thought of that :O

Probably because there's no way to find the grip for my D70 nowadays. But OP won't have this problem if he gets a new camera.
>> Anonymous
>>236455
Personally I think it's better to be different then the tourists by making better compositions, instead of just using a gimmicky camera. A shitty shot on a dSLR is pretty shitty, the same shitty shot shot with a russian fed, lomo, or any other 'foreign' camera as you put it, is still pretty shitty, no exceptions.