Travel Technology – This is how I roll…

Gary has written about his travel tech. As a paid up member of The IT Crowd (and yes, I have said “Have you tried switching it off and on” more than I care in my career so far), this is my travel kit when I haul anchor.

Minor disclaimer – as well as an IT Person, I am a Photographer. The kit is therefore tailored to that need too.

Computer

• Yes, I’m a Mac (and for me it suits me). Rather an ageing MacBook Pro 13″ Mid 2009 model. I’m of the opinion of running technology almost into the ground then replacing rather than replacing every few months for no other reason than it’s shiny. I’ve gone down the line of the MacBook Pro 13″ rather than Air for some very simple reasons:
• It’s not that heavy compared to a Mac 15 or 17″ laptop (or costly for that matter)
• It has a CD Writer which I need for various purposes.
• It’s expandable – this Macbook Pro has gone from the basic set up that Apple sold  to a 1TB laptop hard disk and 8GB RAM

Smartphones

• Can you tell I use Apple iPhones? ;). Whist there maybe religious wars between Apple vs Android vs Window Phone vs Blackberry, I like the Apple Interface, and how it works. And at the end of the day, to me – technology is an end to a means.
• The iPhone4 is my main phone (SIM locked to my current provider) It’s also my secondary or ambush photogrpahy camera.
• I keep my unlocked iPhone 3G as a Travel phone/Local SIM cards/UK Modem. It’s also come into play when the principle phone has been stolen by someone…
• Both make excellent GhettoIFE devices as well. 😉

Photography Kit 

• My baseline camera is a Canon 50D. We can do the Canon vs Nikon vs Everyone else argument… but I’m happy with the kit. And besides – I have buy-in already with the lenses I own.
• In terms of Lenses:
• A Tamron 28-75 f2.8 – It’s a reasonable lens (although I question the colour rendition that comes out of it some days compared with some Canon Lenses), and it’s good for night photography
• A Canon 17-40L f4 – A lovely daytime lens. Nice and Wide, and sharp as heck.
• A Canon 70-200L f4 – Telephoto lens? That covers it.
• I could use a superzoom all-in-one lens (for example a 24-250mmm lens, but that 1) would be cheating and 2) I’m not a fan of the image quality of a superzoom lens.
• I also carry a Holga 120N around for some of my more Artistic photography. I was doing Lomography long before it was “cool” to do Lomography.

Headphones

• I’m saving that for another day. It’s more annoying than anything else when I’ve lost yet another pair of the smegging things. Suffice to say I prefer the noise isolation headphones as opposed to noise cancelling.

Cables and Stuff

• 2 x retractable iPhone/iPod Dock cables. Nifty things from Poundland. Pull the two ends of the cable to extend it, tug so they wind up together. Clever stuff.
• 1 x Dedicated CompactFlash Reader – I still use CompactFlash as my memory card format for the Canon 50D.
• A motley collection of memory cards – Mostly 16GBand 4GB. Because lets face it, working in Digital RAW is a way to kill hard disk capacity without blinking…
• 1 x Power Adaptor for the Macbook
• 1 x Charger for the camera
• 3 x Power Adaptors for whatever country I’m winding up in, along with a traditional 3 way 1.8 metre extension lead so I can run anything else that needs a “normal” plug

Bag

• And this lot fits in with space to spare in  my Etienes Transport Bag (£21 or so) when I’m doing long haul travelling or short haul travelling. Well spaced, and organised for me to carry my trash in. If I have the chance to take two bags with me… the Pan Am bag comes out too 😉
• I tend to avoid roller cases a lot – I like to blend in as much as possible when travelling, and having a roller case behind you is a sure-fire way of shouting “TOURIST” loudly. Rucksacks are my preferred method of luggage normally.
• I also use a cheap laptop sleeve sometimes too.

And that’s how I roll.