Yeah, there's solid ground on this Amazon archipelago. It's just 50 feet underwater right now. Mind that first step with your $5000 worth of camera gear.
Almost all of my photography is urban or indoors - these are a few tips gleaned from my recent vacation down to the Rio Negro in Brazil, in the Amazon rain forest. You may find them useful if you're a semi-serious photographer planning a trip to a tropical, non-beach destination.
On my recent trip to Brazil to visit the rain forest and Rio de Janiero, I carried a lot of photo gear by some standards, and very little by others. It'll sound like a lot when I list it out; in comparison to previous extended overseas trips, it was actually less than usual.
Just a quick thought this morning - if you combine the new Verizon MiFi portable access point with an Eye-Fi Explore memory card with its built-in wifi, you can have your digital camera upload photos from the field (anywhere there is 3G signal) as you're shooting, without any computer on-site. Could make for a very interesting setup, especially if traveling within the US. The added bonus, of course, is that having the MeFi means that you, and everyone you're traveling with, has access to the Internet (and, via Skype, voice calls) from their laptop in the car, hotel or wherever you are.
I've carried the Timbuk2 Commute laptop bag for at least 5 or 6 years, since it was given to me by my buddy Stef. About the only complaint I could have is that the ballistic nylon exterior just never gets that "broken-in" look, because it's so tough. Maybe if I was a bike messenger and exposing to sun and rain every day, but for an desk-job guy like me, the bag still looks pretty much like it did when it came out of the box.
I guess I'm not the only one who occasionally wishes they could "break in" these bags, because Timbuk2 has come out with a limited edition run of "lived-in" messenger bags, that have been treated for a more worn look. I'm usually a huge skeptic of "distressed" products when it comes to things like blue jeans that would wear-in naturally anyway, but these bags are so tough that I can understand the need.
These are their medium-sized bags, which are plenty big for non-messengers. With summer coming, these seem like a great all-purpose "beach/weekend/picnic/camera" bag. And there's no doubt they'll last for years, unlike a lot of lesser bags
I'm in Vegas this week doing some meetings around CTIA. Had a chance to walk around Fremont Street this morning - despite having been in Vegas a half-dozen times, I've never made my way down there. Interesting, and more pedestrian-friendly than the 4-mile-long Strip.
This is a rendering, via Google Earth, of the track I drove up Mt. Haleakala in Maui earlier this year. So far, I've been absolutely impressed with the Garmin GPSMAP 60csx, and having the ability to export the data from a drive or hike out to Google Earth is a great bonus when you get home. I've just added the new road and city data to the Garmin (I was able to fit about 90% of the data for the entire United States onto the 1 GB mini-SD card installed in the unit -- sorry, Idaho and Iowa -- and being able to carry all of the US and Canada would only require the puchase of another $40 memory card.) There's a few more renderings up on Flickr -- I also intend to post the drive to Hana some time soon.
