Work Abroad

The saying ‘you get what you pay for’ is one to keep in mind while shopping for cameras and other photography equipment. Yet whilst a camera that is priced at 10 or 20 times the cheaper ones is sure to offer many more photographic options, by no means do you need anything fancy to take a good photo. Your eye is the most important bit of equipment that you have.

One must be professional http://www.flickr.com/photos/kratz/

The last few years have been marked by an explosion in the popularity of digital cameras. The advantages of this kind of camera to the traditional manual cameras are well-known: images can be viewed on the LCD screen as soon as they’re taken, only a very small memory card is needed to store images and audio and video clips can also be recorded with digital camera.

But though manual cameras are gradually becoming something of a novelty they are not without their advantages when compared to digicams. In general they only need batteries for the flash and so won’t die on you just as the perfect light comes along. Manual cameras have a better dynamic range and under certain circumstances create pictures with higher spatial resolution. Nighttime photography (especially the more specialized infrared images) and action images (e.g. of athletes during a game) tends to come off better when using a manual rather than a digicam.

More than meets the eye http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewfch/

Newer pocket digicams which have more than 6.0 megapixel resolution are ideal since they are quite easy to carry, less obvious to thieves than the chunkier cameras and take very crisp and clear images. In the near future mobiles that snap pictures may also measure up to these cameras, but currently they seem more suitable for those proverbial tourist snaps.

One of the best things about the digital cameras is that they help you adhere to one of the golden rules of travel photography – carry your camera with you at all times! Priceless situations and images can and often do pop out of nowhere – missing them because you left your camera at home might lead to a lifetime of regret.

Having some sort of tripod is also highly recommended for those committed to serious travel photography. No matter how firm you believe your grip to be, a slight tilt in many photos taken without tripods is inevitable. With most digicams this problem becomes more pronounced when trying to take a night time image. Tripods can be found in many sizes (some can literally fit into any pocket while others may reach a Yao Ming-like stature), but in general it’s a good idea to buy something in between. If it’s too small, it’s unlikely to hold up well under heavy wind, and if it’s too big it will be a hassle to carry around.

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