Travel Photo Suggestions

Here are some suggestions regarding photos when traveling.  I picked these up primarily in a travel writing class and then added a few tips of my own.

1. Use a camera with at least 5 megapixels.  Mine has 4.  I thought that it was a good thing not to have pictures that are too big since I was always concerned about reducing the storage size for internet use on things like this blog.  But what you can’t do without all the pixels is crop a photo and have it look good.  The better approach is to have the pixels in case you need them.  You can always reduce, but you can’t create.  You definitely need the pixels in case you want to crop a picture.
2. Use the least “compression” when you save pictures.  Every time you save a picture, it can be compressed.  This means that “short hand” is used to describe the picture (i.e., the big blue are is recorded as “put big blue area here”).  If you save a pic a few times with a lot of compression, it is toast.  It will look grainy after a few saves.
3. Regardless of the above, use some compression.  Uncompressed is called “raw”.  It’s too big.  Use the “least” compression setting.  (It’s never simple!)
4. Pack your manual.  You may need it.
5. Bring a spare battery.  If your camera dies for lack of power in the middle of something that is “picture worthy”, well, that’s bad.
6. Use a lot of smaller size flash cards for storage rather than one jumbo one.  If it fails, all is not lost.
7. Bring a spare battery charger and adapters for the foreign electrical current.

Some other stuff:

1. Need 1/500 exposure speed to capture falling water
2. For less than 1/130 exposure speed, you need a tripod (if you have had some “low Lao” the night before, better make this 1/250).
3. It is OK to photoshop images to improve contrast, brightness etc etc.  For use with a written article though, it is not acceptable to crop out powerlines etc etc.   You can’t try to make a place look better than it really is for a published article (Jim N:  are you reading this?)
4. There is no need to worry about releases from anyone you shoot a picture of unless you are using the shot for commercial purposes (I’m glad I have all those signed releases!).
5. We didn’t talk about this at the class, but there are certain places you should ask permission before taking photos of people.  It can capture their spirit…not good, especially for babies.

Oh yeah, one more thing…back pictures up multiple times…..stuff happens!  I had a suggestion of my own:  DO NOT plug your flash card or camera into any foreign computers!   There are good odds that your card will come away with a virus.  From there it goes to your computer.  This is BAD, really BAD.  I know!  If you see any executable files on your card or in any folders on your computer that you might have downloaded your pictures into, just delete them.