Newbie: What camera accessories to take on a trip to India

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fitek

Member
Hi folks,

Wanted to get an opinion on what gear to take along with a GH2 on a trip to India. Trying to travel light and it looks like I won't get the camera until 2-3 days before I leave. I haven't owned an SLR in ages.

- I know I will need memory cards-- not sure how much space images and video need (my HV20 used 13gigs/hr)
- Not sure how long the battery lasts, either

- Lenses - I bought an MFT to M42 adapter hoping to use my existing M42 lenses, though I'm not sure they're worth the extra bulk
Tamron f/3.5-4.5 35-70mm
Helios 44M 58mm f/2
Vivitar f/2.8 135mm telephoto (very heavy)
Mimaya - f/2 50mm prime

- Some left overs from my dead HV20
0.45x wide angle adapter
Small 3 legged Sony tripod

Will have a netbook w/ SD card reader with me.

Thoughts?
 
I would get at least 2 extra batteries. I would also bring a 2.5" bus powered backup drive to supplement the netbook. Keep it in your pocket in case of theft of bag, etc.
 
I was arrested by the indian secret service last year for filming out of a rikshaw with the hvx.....claimed I provided footage for terrorists......got out of prison after 1 day....no fun!
 
Extra batteries are a must. I would consider dropping either the 50 or 58. Somewhat redundant. Are you sure you need the 135mm? That's 270mm on the GH2. You zoom will become about a 140mm at it's longest focal length and then when you factor in the GH2 crop mode you've got quite a range of telephoto-ness.
The 20mm F1.7 Panny is great if you need to keep a low profile on occasion. It's certainly not wide angle but it's wider than anything you've listed and you can fit the camera in a large pants pocket if an emergency arises.
I love monopods for traveling. Quick, light weight, inconspicuous.
You might consider getting a variable ND filter. I haven't been too happy with my LCW. I've heard the singh-ray's are the best though they are costly.
When I travel I bring a cheapo SD card in case a police officer wants to confiscate my footage. My plan is to make it look like I"m handing him the real card from the camera but palm the cheapo one off instead. In the past, I've done a trick sort of like this with the HVX. I was shooting on P2 and when a police officer wanted the footage I gave him the blank tape from the camera's deck.
I always bring a roll of gaffer tape for good luck.
 
Man, what are you guys doing to make the cops angry!?!? :)

I've been told many many times to stop taking pictures or filming but never had anything confiscated. But then I usually try to hide the camera when police or military are nearby. Although there was that one incident in high school when I was filming a movie and the whole crew except for me got detained...

How much life does the stock battery give? I see they're about $40 on amazon each.

The 20mm sounds nice (I was initially planning on buying a GF1 and TM700, but would rather have just one camera to do it all) but I'll wait on buying lenses till I get some experience with this thing.

Sounds like the 14-42 may be sufficient, though not sufficiently wide. I'll leave the telephoto and primes behind... I hardly ever need telephoto and it's not worth the bulk... Although I quite like the Helios and get a kick out of the idea that my father's 1970s lens will be on a 2011 camera.
 
They might be a bit more than that cause you need first party batteries with GH2...

Be sure to set up your Gh2 properly for video, see the sticky at the top of the GH1/2 forum.
 
I'm in Jaipur, India now to shoot stills of a wedding but brought my GH2 to take personal pix and video.

As mentioned by others, extra battery is a must; especially if you're shooting lots of video.

Along with a slew of Canon gear for work, here's my super simple GH2 gear...

GH2
extra battery
14-140 (most used lens)
ND8
20 f/1.7 (so far only used to make timelapses at night)
8mm fisheye (got it just before I left and glad I brought it. Used it a ton for walk thru shots of interior of the palace I'm staying in)
Slik travel tripod (wish I had brought my other tripod with vdo head, but better than nothing.)
Just one Transcend 32GB SD card.
 
14-140 and the 20 1.7 with about 4 batteries. Then a light tripod with a light fluid head and ball head that you can go between for motion and stills. the new Rode video mic pro. then a small 500 gig or so image data bank that you can dump the card into. all of this would fit into a hip bag and you will stick out a lot less....If you can throw in the 7-14 lumix, more the better...
 
I've found a gorillapod to be an extremely useful accessory. It's small enough that I take it places I can't or don't want to take a tripod, and it can serve as a makeshift shoulder brace which is a lot better than nothing for handheld shots.
 
dustylense said:
14-140 and the 20 1.7 with about 4 batteries. Then a light tripod with a light fluid head and ball head that you can go between for motion and stills. the new Rode video mic pro. then a small 500 gig or so image data bank that you can dump the card into. all of this would fit into a hip bag and you will stick out a lot less....If you can throw in the 7-14 lumix, more the better...
Click to expand...

Lived for decades in India, great place but not a place for tripods. For that type of video work you need a special permit or expensive site entry fees. You are much better off shooting with IS lenses and no shoulder brace or tripod. A Gorillapod might work, just do not look professional. They are very very nice to tourists but if it seems like you are there on business without a special visa and permission then they get upset. So be a tourist.
 
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in addition to what everyone recommended i would suggest a 7-14 mm or similar UW..if you plan on exploring the old conjusted cities.
 
LOL... take LOTS of cleaning stuff (for the camera, lenses and sensor)...particularly if you are going up north to Rajasthan! And lollies/trinkets for the kids/folks who might "pose"for you.

By the way...the cops just wanted some Baksheesh. If you don't cough-up of course they'll throw you in jail! Lollies don't work with Indian cops...

The great thing about using a VidDSLR is that it makes you look like a harmless "happy-snapper"...I covered the closing stage of the war in northern Sri Lanka with a Canon 5D2. With a bit of common sense and politeness (and making it very clear I wasn't from the loathed BBC) most of the ordinary soldiers enjoyed having their "photo" taken.
 
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Well I'm back and here's what I went with, and my thoughts:
- 14-42mm: sufficient for stills, but too slow once the sun started to go down (or come up). If you don't fiddle with the zoom, works fine for video. Otherwise, zooming has all the smoothness of a gearbox filled with sand. Also I would have preferred something wider.
- Cheapo wide angle screwed onto the end of the 14-42mm: on the 14-42mm this lens got really gnarly & nasty, but it was actually a lot of fun in specific situations, giving a funhouse sort of effect. The edges of the lens are actually visible at full wide, so I used it with 1:1 aspect ratio.
- Circular Polarizer: hmm, it's quite bright in India and this came in real handy a bunch of times, especially since I was shooting through car windows a lot.
- UV filter & lens cap on a rubber chord: camera kept getting tossed into various bags, I'm sure I would have lost the stock lens cap on the first day.
- Mini tripod. Used it maybe twice. My white daryo skin and the obviously expensive camera were like a beacon to all sorts of beggers and shadey types, so I rarely had time to sit around and get out a tripod out and work with a shot. Also, there were hardly any truly flat surfaces to be found outside.

The 2x crop made all the Pentax lenses useless, so I left them behind.

I only ran out of juice once on the trip, but I charged each day. The 32gb card was quite sufficient.

I took about 1100 pictures and an unknown amount of video. I wasn't too pleased with the video interface. Mostly I shot stills in the 'A' mode, and the 24p video mode means spinning the mode dial a full 180 degrees, which is quite slow. I couldn't figure out when the damn thing was ready to record video. I would just mash the shutter button until the camera stopped saying "Please Wait", and even then, sometimes the red recording circle would appear, but no red 24H or 24L. At first I thought I was recording video but I learned better later, both of these need to appear. Missed lots of cool stuff this way. This was my main beef with my HV20; it took about 10 seconds from flipping it on to actually start recording, the only other thing I could do was run the camera all the time in case something interested happened, and then my wife would glare at me for fiddling with the camera so much :)

As mentioned in the prior post, the DSLR was actually handy in that no one suspected it was taking video, especially with some acting to make it look like I was adjusting the settings. I wasn't taking pictures of soldiers or anything, but some places didn't allow video or serious photography. The micro 4/3s form factor seemed to be close enough to a consumer cam.
 
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philiplipetz said:
Lived for decades in India, great place but not a place for tripods. For that type of video work you need a special permit or expensive site entry fees. You are much better off shooting with IS lenses and no shoulder brace or tripod. A Gorillapod might work, just do not look professional. They are very very nice to tourists but if it seems like you are there on business without a special visa and permission then they get upset. So be a tourist.
Click to expand...

+1

I was shooting with HVX out of a rikshaw in tourist heavy small village in andhra pradesh, no police, just street....a beggar looking guy stuck his face in the rikshaw and asked for a permit, my driver told him to get lost...he was secret service...go figure....
 
Glad it worked out. Just to add a few other points. I bought a hand strap thing that's more like a video camera support and I like that a lot. Doesn't make it look more pro, just some support to handholding. The other things I like are the zoom handles. I use one on both the zoom and the focus and works pretty well. An ND fader is also a nice choice for super run and gun productions.... Other thing I always take on these kinds of things are wet wipes, and plastic bags to cover the camera and bag in case of rain....

A nice LED camera light would also be a good adition and not take up too much space...
 
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