[matthew]

I'm doing a short trip to New York this weekend, so I thought I'd write a quick what's-in-the-bag post.

The centrepiece, naturally, is the Hasselblad 500 and its 150mm lens, wearing its Hood Hat™. To support it are a dozen rolls of Portra 400 film, which is far more than I'm likely to need but I'd hate to be wrong; a Sekonic 308 light meter, and a little flat-head screwdriver that lets me reset its shutter should it get out of sync. More literally supportive is my Gitzo basalt tripod and Manfrotto three-way head, and a cable release for the camera.

The other camera is my shiny new Panasonic TS3, complete with a spare battery and two 8GB memory cards. (See my note on film, above.) Also included are the Zeiss lens wipes that Keith introduced me to and two cleaning cloths; I'll be visiting the beach and plan on introducing the Panasonic to the Atlantic. There's also my brand new flashlight, which I ordered a month ago and received yesterday, and it can tailor its output to anything from a subtle glow to lighting an entire room.

Then there's the support equipment for the photographer: passport, blackberry and a booster battery, iPod with noise-blocking earphones, earplugs, tickets and checklists, and that thing that looks remarkably like a New York subway map is actually my wallet. Also vital to the effort is a pack of dark chocolate peanut M&Ms.

I'll be spending about twenty-two hours on the bus, round trip, and another couple of hours on subways. That gives me about twelve useful hours in the city, most of which will be spent at Coney Island. I'll be back early Sunday morning.

I've done this sort of foolishness before, most recently with a trip to Chicago last spring. Almost nothing that I used on that trip will be coming with me this time: my keys, passport, phone, battery, the two memory cards, and my camera bag are the same. That's it. Chicago was digital and multimedia, this trip will be medium-format film. Even the things that are consistent from the last trip have different specifics: different Panasonic digital camera, different iPod, earphones, flashlight – even the M&M's, which is one of my staple photography supplies, are a different type. I learn from everything I do, but I rarely want to repeat myself.

[Zig]

Hey, good for you my man..delighted you're taking "Blad the Impaler".
Wondering if I've understood your post here: I had no idea Noo Yoick was that close to Canada so as to be within a bus-ride; really hope you have a grand time.

[nia]

Have a nice journey dear Matthew,

[Toad]

I always like these "what's in the bag" posts...

[NT73]

It does not look much like that, but I suppose you will have clothes, spare snow boots, kayak, folding bicycle, and

[wulinka]

Wow!! good stuff, hope you enjoy THE city! I will be waiting for your pictures.... Uli

[matthew]

That didn't take very long…

The total trip time, between leaving and returning to my front door, was about 40 hours. Total usable time in New York, which doesn't include my travel or time waiting for the bus, but does include time post-daylight which I spent shopping, was twelve hours. I went through nine and a half rolls of film, eight of those at Coney Island, and took about 180 digital photos as well – although most of those are record shots.

Here is a google map showing the outbound route – I suspect that the return trip was more direct, but I was sleeping and can't be sure. Actual time on the bus (including customs, not including pre-departure waiting) was 12h there, 11h back; each direction took an hour longer than scheduled.

I'm quite pleased to say that I used everything that I brought, including the screwdriver to reset the hasselblad's shutter, which I haven't needed in months. For the consumable items – film, battery power, cash, M&M's – I came home with a comfortable enough margin that I was never concerned with running out, but not with so much that I should have brought less in the first place.

I'm even more pleased to say that I never needed anything that I didn't have with me, with the exception of the items that I knew I'd need to buy once I arrived. I mildly missed a tiny safety cutter that would have made opening the film packs easier, but in my test run the previous week I found that it was more trouble than it was worth. The only last-minute addition that wasn't on my packing list was a tube of chapstick that I grabbed on my way out the door. Yes, this is my version of 'living on the edge'.

The only problem that came up was one of the leg pivots on my tripod started to loosen. By early afternoon it would flop open and closed, and by the end of the night there was some lateral play in it. I've never had a problem with it before, and naturally I couldn't fix it with what I had with me. (Seriously, who uses Torx screws?)

The total cost of the trip, including bus and subway fare, meals, beverages, and a travel pack of ibuprofen – most of which I brought home – was about $90. Total cost of the film and development will be about $150. I should see the negatives monday or tuesday, and could have most of the scanning done by the weekend.

I actually find it refreshing to be able to come home and relax instead of feeling like I should be charging batteries, downloading gigs of data, and trying to turn out some 'finished' photographs.

But here are a couple of photos that show a bit of what I was up to:

[Toad]

Fascinating mini trip. It must be really nice to just pick up and go to NYC like that. I'm desperately putting my travel rig together for Italy in May, so its nice to see how much (or little) you can get away with. Note to self: do a thread like this re Italy...

[matthew]

I'd love to see a thread like this for an Italian trip. I've been wondering to myself if a short sprint is harder or easier to plan for than an extended trip, but it's just been idle musing so far.

This is my third day trip, and I've steadily gotten better. The biggest thing that I've learned is that I won't do anything different when I'm away – if anything, I'll retreat into my core competence and won't experiment they way I can close to home. And no matter how good an intention is, travel isn't the time to start a new habit or try something different. That makes it easy (easier) to pare down the gear. I've been wanting to start a shot log, and have a nice Moleskine journal and pen set aside, but this just wasn't the time to bring it.

New York is an amazing city, but it's too big to handle without a strong theme to narrow down the subject. Coney Island was an easy choice for me, since it's colourful, a little run down, and has a strong character. Without something like that I literally don't know where I'd begin.

[Wedding Shooter]

Thanks Mat - enjoyed your post and looking forward to seeing the end result. I couldn't help but notice your colour co-ordinated iPod and camera

[Toad]

I'd love to see a thread like this for an Italian trip. I've been wondering to myself if a short sprint is harder or easier to plan for than an extended trip, but it's just been idle musing so far.

Consider it a plan. I'll be publishing a thread on this soon...

The biggest thing that I've learned is that I won't do anything different when I'm away – if anything, I'll retreat into my core competence and won't experiment they way I can close to home.

I'm pretty sure that you are correct about this. That's why I'm trying to field test gear as much as possible before the Double-Is (Italy and Iceland) this year. The only piece of gear that I am unsure about is a tripod - I know I won't be hauling a full size tripod with me - so I'm still looking at smaller alternatives.

Great thread - as I say, I am always interested in what people take with them when they travel. That's where the rubber hits the road. At home you can own any old thing - even if you use it only once per year, but when you are carrying it with you all the time, you need to *think* a bit.

[matthew]

Chris, did you spot the screwdriver?
I wouldn't say that orange is my favourite colour – that would be grey – but it's one that I like when it's done right, and it's extremely functional. The orange iPod and camera are easy to spot in a camera bag or on my black desk. And any time I fly, mine is the only orange suitcase on the carousel. (… and completely not kidding.)

Robert, the tripod is a tough one. I brought my favourite tabletop one to Chicago with me, and could have easily done without the three or four photos it let me take. I was using my GH1 for that outing. When I was in New York last fall with the GH1 and Ikon, I didn't bring it and didn't miss it – I never use a tripod when I'm out with a small camera at home, either. With this most recent trip, I never considered not bringing my four-pound Gitzo – I lie, I briefly considered buying one of the darling little "traveller" series – because that's how I always use my medium-format cameras.

Field tests are incredibly important. I did one the Sunday previous to my trip, carrying everything except for my travel cash and passport. I wore the same clothing, carried my toothbrush in my camera bag, had everything arranged where I would want it for the real excursion. I went to somewhere where I would have to walk for several kilometers along a spit of land projecting into Lake Ontario, rode transit the long way around to get to the jumping-off point, and went for lunch at a fast-food place that was pretty much what I would be eating in New York. And when I got to the Atlantic coast I knew that I'd be okay in the wind and the cold, because I'd done the exact same thing just last weekend.

(A nice bonus: the photos from my trial run turned out pretty well. I exposed three rolls of film over roughly four hours, which is remarkably close to the rate that I used film in Coney Island. That test run is why I carried twelve rolls instead of either the ten that I had written down or the fifteen that I had in the fridge. Yes, I only ended up using ten rolls, but having that extra margin stopped me from second-guessing every photo I took.)

I should have the negatives back tomorrow. My plan is to go old-school and print out contact sheets first, and my eventual goal is to have a strong portfolio of 8-10 photos from Coney Island. If I can pull that off I'll consider it an exceptional success for one days' work and three months' worth of planning.

And I'm already thinking about where to go next, and what camera to bring.

[nia]

This is an enjoyable and exciting thread, I keep reading and watching dear Matthew, I am glad you had a nice trip, and seems that it is unbelievable the cost, $ 90!!!! If I make this trip from here, just $1500 for an airplane...

Is that you there, the shadow Nice composition you captured. I loved it,

Have a nice journey,
Thank you,
with my love,
nia

[wulinka]

sounds like a totally wonderful trip matthew, great thread and I cannot wait to see your pictures!

Uli

[matthew]

Nia, that's my shadow and the shadow of the camera beside me. It was 8:41am when I took it, and I had already taken six photos just on my short walk to the beach. (Each roll only holds twelve photos; each photo costs over one dollar in film and processing, and once I've scanned it the files are anywhere from 50MB to 140MB, depending on the quality settings I use.) The wind was quite cold, so I had my hood up and gloves on, and stayed bundled up that way for most of the day.

Uli, it really was a great trip, but I've created a problem for myself. I really enjoy planning and all of the decisions and compromises that go into it; this way I get months of entertainment and anticipation out of a single weekend. But now if I want to go back I'd just carry exactly what I did last time, and could be out the door with just a couple of hours notice. Now I need to create complexity for myself, and I'll need to carry a different camera and go somewhere else. (I never did make it to Staten Island…)

Just to avoid being accused of creating undue anticipation, here's the second photo that I took, fresh from the scanner:



(I would have posted the very first photo, but it was even more boring and has already been erased from my consciousness.)

[Zig]

I too am really enjoying this. The penny has just dropped now as to why you do the things I thought I didn't...and I remember too well I also do them: namely, the honing of one's anticipation by the planning. I don't know what I must have been thinking of, but I remember my own steps from my Italy jaunts: googling away, checking out every bit of googlemap that I could, almost "walking the walk" via other's snaps from the Piazza Michelangelo to San Miniato di Monte. I pre-visulaised what lens..and what order I'd put the lenses on, then how many walks and passes I'd make first with the 21mm then the tele. For my 2009 trip to Florence, only having 3 days, I actually got the maps out to check where the sun would be in relation to my approach.
All in all, I never once planned "kit" beforehand, but did actually timetable my bus-rides and visits to minimise the amount of contre-jour shots I'd have to do: getting completely anal about whether to go to Fiesole in the morning, making sure I was at San Miniato so that the sun was coming from the left of shot, etc;
All this is not to hijack your thread but rather to notice that the very brevity of my trip became an exquisite challenge and a pleasure all of its own..making sure I timetabled my moves and visits to coincide with where the sun was, and getting hideously huge satisfaction from charging to the next "shoot"...
....so I wonder, Matthew, did you also find that the enforced brevity of "contact time" injected a buzz at the planning stages?
With a longer stay, I found I made a really liberating "rule" for myself: to NOT snap anything that involved queueing, like inside the Vatican, or Yet Another Priceless Masterpiee or Pisano pulpit: in short, if I could buy a postcard of it taken with poncier kit than mine, then what point was there to my reproducing it?
Consequently, doing an "anti-tour" became a very Camus-eque release whilst in Rome, Venice and Siena...scuttling away to deliberately get myself lost and soaking up the feel as a precursor to clicking the shutter.
As I was saying to Rufus the other day, my next trip(which I'm sure will be Italy yet again) will be minus my Manfrotto..and I keep promising I'll use the sound-record capability on the 1Ds2 to record exactly where I am.
Matthew, if you did a return visit, do you think you'd change anything in terms of the way you do the "boots on the ground" stuff? I'm taking it as read that you might conceivably have exactly the same kit.

[Toad]

I am actually pretty anal about planning and tend to over-plan. This year I am doing 2 very different long trips, and that involves some unique complicating factors. Part of the Iceland trip involves a 5 day backpacking trek, and so portability becomes an even greater-than-normal concern. The clothes, boots, outer wear, etc for each trip will be completely different but I hope that the "boy gear" such as cameras, computers, power, stabilization, and navigation setup will be very similar if not identical.

I am being *very* ambitious about what I want onboard for the trips. I want a full still camera rig plus video capabilities. I want to have the ability to record both trips on GPS and to navigate in unfamiliar areas (both on and off road). I want to have access to the internet and have enough storage capacity for as many photos / videos as I decide that I want to take...and of course power solutions for everything. I would ideally like to be able to do light processing of photos and editing of videos in the field. I intend to keep a journal of my thoughts. In a perfect world, I would be able to backup my captures on-the-fly via VPN or FTP to my website.

My planning is almost complete - which is good because the time is almost upon me. More info soon.

[matthew]

I'm also really enjoying this thread, both the specifics as well as the broader discussions. I never thought it would have the life that it has enjoyed, and have to thank everyone for that.

I too am really enjoying this. The penny has just dropped now as to why you do the things I thought I didn't...and I remember too well I also do them: namely, the honing of one's anticipation by the planning. I don't know what I must have been thinking of, but I remember my own steps from my Italy jaunts: googling away, checking out every bit of googlemap that I could, almost "walking the walk" via other's snaps from the Piazza Michelangelo to San Miniato di Monte. I pre-visulaised what lens..and what order I'd put the lenses on, then how many walks and passes I'd make first with the 21mm then the tele. For my 2009 trip to Florence, only having 3 days, I actually got the maps out to check where the sun would be in relation to my approach.

You've hit it exactly. While I am a bit of a gear-head (I think I hide it well) and presented this as a packing list, I also do and enjoy a huge amount of the planning. I research possible towns, look at maps, and check travel options for weeks or months before actually choosing a destination. Once I picked Coney Island, I researched a bit of the area's history so that I would know what was important when I got there, spent a lot of time with Google Maps to learn my way around, and looked at a few photos. I also learned the sunrise and sunset times, checked the tides, and knew which trains – F and Q – would get me there the fastest. (Coney Island essentially faces south, so the beach always has the sun.) Where are the restrooms, are there coffee shops – all sorts of things need to be learned before I leave. Even doing things like making sure that I had the emergency assistance phone number for the consulate was part of the fun.

But then there's the eternal question: What if it rains?

So in reality I planned one trip, and half-planned a handful of other contingencies. If it's threatening rain showers, Coney Island was still on. If it was hard rain for only part of the day, then it was Grand Central Station and street photography, so I leave behind the tripod and take a beanbag instead. And if it was going to be continuous hard rain, then I bring the Ikon and spend some time walking the streets and ducking into buildings, as well as some quality time in the Whitney. The catch is that I need to commit to my gear the afternoon before I arrive, and the gear determines what I can do. (Try getting into an art gallery with a tripod.) At the same time, how much do I trust the weather forecast, and what's the point where I change my plan?

It's all loads of fun.
(And I had blue skies with just a wisp of cloud in the morning.)

....so I wonder, Matthew, did you also find that the enforced brevity of "contact time" injected a buzz at the planning stages?

Absolutely. Part of that is the contingency plans that I mentioned, but there's also the pressure to start making smart decisions and compromises right from the very beginning. Carrying the right stuff, but not too much of it, is hugely important because I did a trip to Ottawa with way too much stuff and it sucked. (It was still rewarding, but I was limping at the end because I hadn't learned to manage my gear.) So I need to know that I have what I need to get the results that I want with no possibility of a reshoot, while also having the flexibility to completely change my plans if I something doesn't work out. Having to make decisions based on how long things take (Photographing Coney Island instead of Times Square added two hours of travel time to the trip) also had a huge influence because of the short time frame.

Photographing New York City is terrifying. It's so incomprehensibly vast that narrowing it down is a herculean task; even picking a single neighbourhood (or couple of kilometers of beach) isn't enough to make it manageable. It needs additional themes or specialties to further focus the mind and produce a usable project. And with the time pressure there's the ever-present concern that something fascinating might be happening just one street over, and if I stay and photograph this really good subject then I might miss a better one. Somewhere as big as New York, it's a statistical certainty that you're not in the best spot, but there's no way of knowing until I move, and there's no time to come back if/when I'm wrong.

Twice a year the grid of Manhattan's streets line up with the sun. Can you imagine the pressure of being in the wrong spot when that happens? Or the right spot, when a garbage truck parks in the way with no other appealing subject? And do you photograph the buildings, whose facades won't see light like that again for months, or do you look to the people for their reactions to this event? You only have a few minutes, and the peak time is even shorter than that. And what if it rains?

I'm vaguely tempted to time a trip for "Manhattanhenge", but I don't think I could handle the stress.

There's always pressure with travel photography to get the shot and move on. Having just a 10-to-14-hour day both requires and enables a pace that can't be sustained over the course of a multi-day trip. I decided at 5pm that I'd done as much as I could, and headed back into Manhattan, which is fifty minutes on the subway through Queens. I found that I was nodding off on the way, which was ridiculous: I'm not coming back, so I did my best to jolt myself awake and pay attention. If I was staying the night, I probably would have retired to my hotel room and flicked on the TV, and gotten back out again around 9am. But instead I hit Times' Square while there was still enough daylight to hand-hold the camera, and caught another roll of film.

Matthew, if you did a return visit, do you think you'd change anything in terms of the way you do the "boots on the ground" stuff? I'm taking it as read that you might conceivably have exactly the same kit.

The biggest difference that I would look for is a bus that would get me in earlier, especially if I needed to travel to another spot in the city like Coney or Staten Island. The bus I was on ran an hour late, and I had to cut out some 'warm up' time on the early-morning Manhattan streets and hustle to get out there. I'm not the most functional in the early morning, and it means trading away some sleep, but it would be better.

As I was using film I didn't waste a lot of time over-shooting my subjects, and even less reviewing what I had taken. But I am still guilty of taking many variations of the same photo, and lost a handful of frames (and about half an hour) to novice mistakes in loading and unloading the camera. The combination of anticipation, pressure, and sleep depravation are my excuses, but the fact is that I messed up winding the film, which I had never gotten wrong before. Practice, practice, and pay attention.

The gear that I take is part of a very convoluted thought process. I went where I did and when I did because the weather would be good enough for me to be out without having to deal with crowds, and there would be plenty of room for the tripod. If I went again this weekend, or the next, I would pack identically. If I went to the exact same place three weekends from now, then the rides are open and the opportunities to take photos change. For that I'd take my Zeiss Ikon with all three of its lenses, using the 50/1.5 in the morning and evening and the 35+85 combination in the middle half of the day. If I had gone a few weeks earlier, then it would have been colder, meaning that I'd need to spend more time recovering inside where there aren't any photos, and there would be less daylight to work with.

But essentially: the basic kit, the non-camera stuff, all worked. After that it's just a matter of picking the camera(s) and lens(es) for the subject and time, which also depends on my current gear fascination and the results that I'm looking for. My time management also worked, with surprisingly few breaks and good pacing, so I wouldn't really change that either. Looking at many of the scans now, the one thing I would try very hard to do is start each roll with a white balance reference somewhere in a croppable area of the first photo.

I am actually pretty anal about planning and tend to over-plan.

We should form a club.

This year I am doing 2 very different long trips, and that involves some unique complicating factors. Part of the Iceland trip involves a 5 day backpacking trek, and so portability becomes an even greater-than-normal concern. The clothes, boots, outer wear, etc for each trip will be completely different but I hope that the "boy gear" such as cameras, computers, power, stabilization, and navigation setup will be very similar if not identical.

That sounds like a fascinating challenge. Thom Hogan has a couple of essays that touch on planning for hiking photography (photographying hikes) on his site, which were interesting reading that sound about right for what you're looking at. His site is a bit of a mess, but they're under the "travel" as well as "essays" section if my memory serves me correctly.

I am being *very* ambitious about what I want onboard for the trips. I want a full still camera rig plus video capabilities. I want to have the ability to record both trips on GPS and to navigate in unfamiliar areas (both on and off road). I want to have access to the internet and have enough storage capacity for as many photos / videos as I decide that I want to take...and of course power solutions for everything. I would ideally like to be able to do light processing of photos and editing of videos in the field. I intend to keep a journal of my thoughts. In a perfect world, I would be able to backup my captures on-the-fly via VPN or FTP to my website.

I have to say that your gear lists and goal lists both scare me, but I can understand the desire to get it all in on such huge trips, and would probably do the same. (My only question is: "how much does this resemble what you do when you're at home?") What we need is Adrian's insight – but I can't blame the guy for being too busy doing it to be here talking about it. (Yes, I'm jealous, but no, I still wouldn't be up to doing what he can no matter how much I wish I could. I'm the short-jaunt type.)

My planning is almost complete - which is good because the time is almost upon me. More info soon.

Looking forward to it - I do find this fascinating.

[Toad]

I am being *very* ambitious about what I want onboard for the trips. I want a full still camera rig plus video capabilities. I want to have the ability to record both trips on GPS and to navigate in unfamiliar areas (both on and off road). I want to have access to the internet and have enough storage capacity for as many photos / videos as I decide that I want to take...and of course power solutions for everything. I would ideally like to be able to do light processing of photos and editing of videos in the field. I intend to keep a journal of my thoughts. In a perfect world, I would be able to backup my captures on-the-fly via VPN or FTP to my website.

I have to say that your gear lists and goal lists both scare me, but I can understand the desire to get it all in on such huge trips, and would probably do the same. (My only question is: "how much does this resemble what you do when you're at home?")

Strangely enough, fairly closely. My still camera rig won't change that much. I track all of the hikes that I do in the mountains and about town on GPS and regularly use GPS as well for navigating when I travel. Not much real choice about taking power solutions, I already have a netbook that I use for photo storage when on the road and of course I stay in internet contact via the same medium.

The things that may be a stretch for me are the stabilization (tripod) solutions and the video recording. I am not taking a large tripod, but I know for long exposures at night, I will need something so I am working on a couple of ideas for that - as I won't be taking a *real* tripod.

The other thing is video. This is a new interest, and the gear that I will take for it is not going to add anything much in the way of bulk - so if I abandon the concept, no loss. Even if I take only a couple of short videos, I am hoping that it adds a new dimension to my captures.

I already keep a journal.

[Zig]

Absolutely fascinating. Matthew, thank you for all the detail here; it renders this subject in a terrifically engaging way and is a pleasant window into your mind(!)
Toad: OMgawsh...Iceland. Flippin' 'eck, are you deliberately doing 2011 in a way designed to get my feet beating a tattoo on the carpet? I can imagine a whole paradigm-shiftingly different set of everything, from how one's neurons are wired, throughout everything.
Thing is, chaps, the most liberating thing I've learned was also one of the hardest lessons, that of when to do the photographer's equivalent of throwing one's hands up and going, "insha'allah". Variables like weather, reliability of transport, even finding I was wearing uncomfy clothing that I'd thought would be beneficial...all threw curved balls that necessitated dealing with the unaccounted-for. Having fewer or finite kit and lenses well before I went anywhere, ensured I couldn't get into the trap of having to use gadgetry that would have helped. Not having a mobile phone seemed to exasperate my companions but liberate me, for instance. I'm sure if I had a HD caddy, had sorted out uploading to the ether, I would have to use them, thus abrading away some key things like a kind of quickly-responsive mobility.
I swear that one day I'd have the courage to take just one lens(er, or 2)....easier on the back and a joy to swan about quickly. Mind you, if I were that courageous, I'd trade all my kit in, forego the tele end and get an M9. I keep holding off from solving my 35mm coverage dilemma..and i wonder if this is partly due to the fact that I'll then have to carry it!
(Haven't written this very welll, as am in a huge rush...)

[Toad]

Toad: OMgawsh...Iceland. Flippin' 'eck, are you deliberately doing 2011 in a way designed to get my feet beating a tattoo on the carpet? I can imagine a whole paradigm-shiftingly different set of everything, from how one's neurons are wired, throughout everything.

I haven't taken a proper vacation since Morocco in February '09 - so its time. Italy is a time in the sun for my wife and I - and Iceland is something that has been on my bucket list for 25 years. This year, the time, money, and someone to travel with lined up - so I'm off to do that as well. I'm hoping 2011 is one of the unforgettable (in a good way) years for me.

I swear that one day I'd have the courage to take just one lens(er, or 2)....easier on the back and a joy to swan about quickly. Mind you, if I were that courageous, I'd trade all my kit in, forego the tele end and get an M9.

You've identified the linchpin in my plan to minimize gear right there. My M9 and 3 small primes are the core and all that fits in a *very* small camera bag. Everything else is *nice to have* and subject to change right up until the minute that I leave the house for the airport. I'm also making heavy use of the capabilities of my iPhone and netbook (both of which are also very small).

[matthew]

I don't know if it's possible to hijack a thread that I started, but I think I've decided on my next trip. It's still tentative, but the plan is to return to New York for May 28th – two days before Manhattanhenge – and limit my scope to Manhattan's 42nd street. (map) (wiki) It a road that has an aircraft carrier at one end and the United Nations at the other, and passes by Times Square and Grand Central Station. It's also where the Port Authority Bus Terminal is, which is going to be my arrival and departure point, making it a very efficient trip.







Now the planning starts again. I've actually spent a lot of time on 42nd, probably more than anywhere else in Manhattan. It's crowded, busy, and fast, meaning I need small cameras and not a lot of stuff. My Ikon with the 35/85 combination is one possibility, but right now I'm leaning toward my D700 with the 50/1.4 AF-S. (A plan that's slightly complicated by the fact that I don't own a 50/1.4 AF-S.) The other Nikon options would be the F100 for film, and/or the 105VR for my main lens. (I do own that one.) I used the D700+105VR for a trip to Ottawa, and love it, but it's one heck of a rig to be using on a crowded street.

The digital camera is tempting for its speed and low cost (the bus fare is going to be higher this time) as well as its ability to EV bracket for capturing the sunset. And I already know just how low the keeper rate is as cars are speeding past while pedestrians weave through.As much as I like film, and as great as the Ikon is for its image quality and small footprint, I think the electron army might win on this one. Time will tell – and there's lots of planning to do between here and there.

[Toad]

Interesting. Don't worry about hijacking your own thread - I have already done that to a certain extent...

42nd St is a fascinating venue and I totally approve of your fast trips with tight subjects. Its the best of both worlds. I get my best photos when one of the following conditions are met:

1. Tight subject focus
2. Unusual or unfamiliar enovironment

Sounds like these mini-tours are the best of both worlds to me.

Take the Icon. Mix it up. Live a little...

[matthew]

These trips do provide exactly the mix you suggest. The fact that the travel is somewhat absurd, and slightly expensive, makes the outing into something that can't be repeated and really does drive me forward. (At the same time, thinking that I can perform at my best after unfolding myself from twelve hours in an uncomfortable seat, with bad food and little sleep, is also somewhat absurd.) Between the expense, the time commitments, and the availability of good weather and daylight, I figure there are really only four chances to do this each year. I really don't want to waste them or just keep repeating myself.

When I was in school I always enjoyed the tests and exams: fixed time frame, known rules, I do my best and then I stop. This is the same sort of thing: I prepare myself as well as I can to handle circumstances that I can only partially predict, but know that they're within my capabilities; once I get there I work as hard as I can sustain across the time that I have, balancing immediate and overall objectives, while remembering that my goal is to do well and also enjoy myself. And then I get to stop.


I used the Ikon with B&W film alongside my GH1 when I was there in October, and was pretty happy with the results. (I have nine different photos as the wallpaper on my new laptop, for example.) Adding to that would be good.

Film choice is a bit difficult, though. I'm not so sure about keeping with B&W for the whole day; while some places suit it (Grand Central specifically, some architecture in general) others really will benefit from colour (times square, taxis). Juggling film types is possible, but like with lenses, I always feel like I want the other one. Consistency also leads to a better series, and I can't imagine taking sunset photos in B&W. (It's something to look into, though.)

But the Ikon with the 35 is perfect, and the 85 makes an ideal companion. It's small, light, and easy to use in a crowd.

The D700 with a normal lens is also tempting. I haven't used a digital camera for "fun" photos since… well, since I had the GH1 in New York last fall. And even then, it was touristy while I used the Ikon for more personal stuff. It might be fun to break out the heavy iron again and blow though some 5fps bursts. Plus, I have the little 35 shift lens that would be easy to throw in the bag.

While it's nice to have all of my extras ready to go – the only thing I won't be carrying from last time is my toque and gloves – I've been thinking a bit about the camera bag. While my Billingham has been great for my two previous trips, in a crowd I like to carry it in front and it's not the best for that. And if I'm carrying just one camera and two small lenses, then I don't need anything as big, either. So that also gives me something to think about over the next four to six weeks.

[Toad]

Great post. I agree with everything you say except:

When I was in school I always enjoyed the tests and exams...

Jaysus....