Targets & Expectations

Gilles in Semliki National Park, West Uganda, Africa

You should certainly give photography a good thought about before going on a Trip Around The World or a Long Term Trip. Above all, ask yourself two important questions:

First and foremost, what kind of photos do you want to bring back from such a trip?

• Just a few snapshots of the places you were and the people you met? Aperture, Shutter Speed, Focal Length and ISO sound Chinese or boring to you? You cannot be bothered carrying a lot of equipment? We recommend then that you look at a very good Bridge or System camera. Those will at least partly meet your expectations and seriously reduce weight. Bridge cameras get their name because they bridge the gap between a DSLR (Digital Single-Lens Reflex camera) and a compact camera. They usually have mini-DSLR styling, but the lens is fixed like on a compact camera. But be aware that you will at some points meet (lots of) limitations. An alternative is one of the smaller DSLRs, like a Canon EOS D700, for instance with an EF-S 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6 IS lens.
• Or do you expect to have more than that? Do you plan on showing you photos to a wider audience or even sell them? Then an iPhone or a compact camera will not be sufficient. True, they enable nice snapshots. But as soon as the motif is a bit more complex or the light not perfect (no matter if too much or not enough), those can become pretty useless. That said, technology is just a tool. The most important part of the camera is actually… the person taking the picture. But technics and technology will immensely enhance your photo taking.

The second aspect is how will you manage your pictures. You might take thousands of pictures during a year (we took 45.000). You should create a system to organize those pictures so that you are able to:

• Find your pictures (key words, or at least a preset organization),
• Select the better ones (nobody will want to look at 1.254 pictures from let’s say Argentina),
• And last but not least enhance some of them (the really good ones), as a few clicks often immensely improve the end result – Don’t you worry, this is not rocket science…