GUYS and gals have different priorities when it comes to packing for a holiday and I’m not sure about your girlfriend or spouse, but mine puts high priority on packing above anything else as the departure date nears. I’m a last minute kinda guy.

What you may find amazing is just how much technology, gadgets and electronics stuff that will eventually make its way on the plane with you to your destination. You’ll also find out just how much extra weight that comes to as carry on. I wonder what the carry on weight limit is?

First, my destination is the already tech and gadget filled Japan. (See Akihabara)

First up is the digital still and video camera hardware.

1. Sony Digital Video Camera (MiniDV Standard Definition)
2. 2pcs Kingston 16GB CFCards, 1pc Transcend 4GB CFCard, 1pc SanDisk 2GB CFCard
3. Canon EOS 5DMarkII Camera Body
4. Canon EF 24-70 f2.8/L USM Lens
5. Flash Diffuser
6. Canon Speedlite 430EX Flash
7. Samsung ES10 Compact Digital Camera
8. Velbon P-Max Tripod
9. UK Mains to Japan Mains Adapter
10. Power Cord
11. Power Cord
12. SanDisk UltraII 8GB SDHC
13. 4pcs Eneloop and 4pcs Sony Blue CycleEnergy NiMH Rechargable AA Batteries
14. Canon Li-Ion Charger
15. AA Battery Charger
16. AC-DC Charger for Sony Video Camera

WEIGHT: 5.4KG

Notebook hardware

1. Lenovo Y300 Notebook
2. Multi-Card Reader
3. LAN Cable
4. AC-DC Adapter for Notebook
5. 160GB External USB Hard Disk

WEIGHT: 3.2KG

Packing Bags

1. Notebook and Support Accessories (No-name Backpack)
2. Digital Camera Bag (Tamrac Velocity 5x)
3. Tripod Carrier

TOTAL WEIGHT: ~10 Kilograms

Digital Camera

I’ve been taking pictures for reviews, my personal archives and blogging using a Canon EOS350D. It has been an ongoing learning experience learning all the controls and nuances of the camera. I still haven’t learned all the ins and outs but I know my way around to get what I want done in full manual or semi-automatic. I have never recorded digital video for reviews, with the exception of a video clip on the last IT Show of the Sony Rolly in action. That was recorded with the Canon E1 digital camera in VGA mode.

For my holiday I packed a digital video camera and thrown in for good measure a handy point and shoot Samsung ES10. You’d probably pack something similar if you just wanted simple point and shoot holiday pics. These two are to be handled by my wife as I was planning to have a handful with a 5DMkII requested from Canon. The 5DMkII would shoot my stills while the FullHD video capability would also record video. The question was how would handling a professional grade digital camera handle a holiday or maybe that should be how would a prosumer handle the holiday and camera together.

I was hoping to write two posts but since I didn’t have a chance to write the before packing before I jetted off and have since returned this ended up being a combination of packing and using in a single long post.

Read on to see how I fared and my observations using the camera as a vacation shooter. Note, I did not read the manual unless I die-die had to. The most I read up on the camera is the ’Pocket Guide’.

I also wanted to carry my own DSLR (EOS350D) and the 5DMkII but my wife was dead set against it. Luckily I didn’t pack two because overall equipment weight and suitcases was quite a load and on top of that my 18KG son wanting to be carried when he was tired or just plain lazy.

I wasn’t carrying the full load all the time as I only needed to carry the notebook and support accessories between hotel destinations and to/from the airport. Otherwise, I’d be toting around just the Tamrac camera bag, the 5DMkII body and lens, flash, CFCards and tripod. That is a lighter load weighing in at approximately 4KG.

Getting Acquainted with the 5DMkII Controls

The interface is a lot different to the 350D as the 350D does not use the rear-lcd display to display camera setting details…well it does and it doesn’t. There is a small dedicated LCD that provides the metering, focus, shooting mode, etcetera. On the 5DMkII all that is translated onto the larger 3-inch VGA LCD at the rear but also duplicated on a dedicated LCD on the top right of the camera body.

I wasn’t difficult to learn how the how thing worked with the joystick and secondary wheel at the rear. I must highlight that I loved the VGA resolution LCD for reviewing the shots. Beats my 350D’s incy wincy display any day or night.

The camera body alone is a work out for your forearms and since my loan unit came with the super duper 24-70mm f2.8 lense the total combination weighed about 2KG. That’s quite a load compared to my 350D fitted with a Tamron 24-50mm 2.8 lense at approximately 1KG. The physical bulk and lense when extended made the camera some serious business. See the photo comparisons below of the 5DMkII versus the 350D.

I question why the power switch is located on the rear and why does it need to have the two ‘ON’ modes. Wouldn’t you just have and use the ‘Quick Control Dial’ function all the time anyway? This is a bugbear for me because at the beginning I was wanting to change my aperture and couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to do so. On my 350D it was a simple toggle for the front wheel grip by pressing the rear AV+/- button. So I struggled a while pressing a lot of buttons and eventually had to read the manual (the print manual however was left at home so luckily I had Internet access to read the online PDF version). The Pocket Guide does not mention the different ‘On’ modes. I felt that the location of the power ‘On’ switch is better located near the shutter button near the index finger, this is the location for other brands. Even on my 350D it is located next to the Mode Dial on the right hand side of the camera.

Speaking of buttons, the SET button on the rear in the centre of the Quick Control Dial is used to start/stop video recording and felt awkward in that location. A person’s thumb does not naturally get placed there when holding the grip (at least for me it didn’t maybe my hand stance is different), and you really need to grip the 5DMkII if you don’t want to drop your SG$5,000 camera and god knows expensive lense. With about 1KG of weight, without a lense, to balance out front on your forearms you’ll get quite a workout. The other problem I found was shifting my hand usually resulted in a lot of camera shake. In fact, shooting video without a stable mount and smooth action of a tripod ballhead will inevitably result in camera shake. If you decide you want to walk with the camera you’ll also introduce more shake (bobbing) and if you recall the handheld camera shots of the movie The Bourne Identity you know just how vomit inducing this can be (for some viewers).

My eyesight isn’t what it used to be and I know I am developing farsightedness. So, focusing on the 3-inch VGA LCD at the rear of the 5DMkII always meant outstretching my arms a little more to see if the camera was in focus. The reason I didn’t depend on the AF-ON button to perform most of my focusing because it always meant backfocusing before eventually hitting its mark. A little distracting with the blur out/in effect but could be used to good effect for the initial focus. So, I tended to use the manual focusing ring and with my not so good eyesight shot some unfocused video. How I wish there was a powerzoom so I could afford to manually focus and with my other hand perform the zoom in/out. Now all this could work for me if I had a through the lense view of the recording mode and the shutter button was set to do the start/stop recording. In fact, I would have preferred it to be there in the first place or like Canon has done with the 500D on the back right shoulder of the body. Canon could also consider a feature/function to swap the button operation when set to LiveView recording. Snapping off a pic while doing video recording is an interesting idea but I found it to always introduce a burble (interruption) in my video recordings.

Day-to-Day Use

It doesn’t make much sense to be lugging around the professional grade camera and not be shooting in manual mode and the thing with manual mode is that if you aren’t fast enough you’ll miss the shot. The reason for missing the shot is this is not a studio setting. So, there is little time to setup and it is a spontaneous shoot. Therefore, it becomes most useful to use the Tv or Av modes or even P. I learned this the hardway with missed opportunities or sometimes way over or way under-exposed shots because I payed more attention to shooting the developing scene that I did to the aperture or shutter speed.

The availability of a smaller pop-up flash would help for those situation where you just need a little fill-in flash. Sadly missed and since my bag was starting to wear me down I eventually left out the flash unit. So, luckily the 5DMkII’s ability to shoot at higher ISO’s without much noise and the fact that the lense went down to f2.8 helped save me in low light situations. In fact, you’ll do well to get the best lens you can afford with a constant large aperture setting. This is important for vacation shooting because most if not all the museums and even other attractions like zoos and aquariums do not permit the use of flash photography. So, I shot many inside at 1/30 second or slower and at ISO400, 640 or 800. I didn’t dare to go any higher and even then wasn’t comfortable with ISO800, but that’s just me. Having said that and looking at some of the shots I think ISO800 is fine as they are just vacation shots anyway. The likelihood of me wanting to blow up and print an A1, A0 or larger banner or poster size prints is slim.

As I didn’t have time or make time to review my shots on a decent display I didn’t know how the shots were turning out. They looked decent enough on the VGA LCD but I wasn’t too sure about the saturation. Things looked quite punchy on the LCD but I think that is just how the LCD renders the images. I don’t know but I looked at the shots and you can look for yourself and they aren’t really bursting with colour and I know the scenes were pretty colourful at the time. I haven’t gone in to make any adjustments to the images. Note, I did configure my files to be save on the highest JPEG resolution plus the SRAW2 setting. The picture style was set to STANDARD. Maybe that is why the colours look at little washed out.

I got a few stares from I guess camera aficionados and wondered if it was because of the large bulky camera I was carrying, the fact I looked like a tourist or because of my lack of fashion sense. I look back and reasoned that it was camera aficionados because they could easily identify the fact that the camera strap read 5DMkII. Duh!? So, it occured to me that if you are traveling to a foreign land where you could be easily targeted for a theif make sure you don’t go brandishing names and brands like I did. It could be bad enough carrying around a DSLR but to carry one around and tell everyone how much it is worth hanging around your neck is like a neon sign asking for trouble.

Snapshot

• Great camera but it is really overkill to take as a family vacation shooter
• Do you really need 21.1 Megapixel vacation snaps
• HD Video shooting with a still format camera is cumbersome and unless you use a tripod or other stabilising gear you may produce vomit inducing footage (check out some great stuff created solely with the 5DMkII here)
• With the right lense you can do a lot without a flash but ideally you will still need to have a flash (The new Canon Speedlite 270EX looks good)
• Make sure you got lots of storage available especially when traveling because the 5DMkII gobbles up gigabytes real fast – especially so if you record video whereby you record many many takes
• Shooting stills is easy in Full-Auto, Semi-Auto and even Manual once you get to know where all the controls are and how to get at them – the Quick Controller joystick is great for quick setting changes
• The right shot needs the right lense and at this level you’ll be dropping a wad-o-dough for serious lenses…serious camera = badass lenses = $$

 
I enjoyed my time with the 5DMkII and it would be way too much for my amateur level of digital still photography and much less for my videography capability. I think I’ll stick to something like the new 500D or if I really need more pixels, better sensor, sturdier product I’d go with the 50D and one of Canon’s Legria HD Camcorders.

Thanks to Canon Singapore Pte Ltd for loaning the Canon EOS 5DMkII and to Ogilvy for making the arrangements on such short notice.

Enjoy the pics and I’ll be linking to some video uploaded to YouTube shortly.