This past fall, my girlfriend and I took some time off work/school and traveled for 4 months in the southern hemisphere. Specifically, Australia and New Zealand. I won’t go in to where we went and what we did (if you’re curious, visit msquareddownunder.wordpress.com) but I will give some details about what I saw and how it affected me personally and professionally.

First off, my gear. If I am ever to do it again, and there is a high possibility of more traveling, I will, without a doubt, bring more gear. Regardless of what all of the travel books, offices, and the things people might say about traveling with stuff you don’t want stolen, forget it all. It may have applied 10 or even 5 years ago, but not anymore. We would be staying in hostels where people would leave their laptop, camera and mobile on their bed in a 6 person dorm and leave. For the night. Not saying that it’s very smart, but stuff doesn’t have a lot of theft appeal when there is so much around. It seems like everyone these days is backpacking with their laptop. And to think that I was worried about taking my iPhone. The camera that I did take down there was the Panasonic DMC-LX3. A decent “high-end-point-and-shoot” camera. It’s on par with the G11 variant from Canon. In my opinion, it performed admirably and to its credit, within its specifications. As soon as I tried to use the camera as I would my Nikon D3 (obviously a higher level than a point-and-shoot) I found that it lacked, immensely. I also, in my glorious spat of wisdom, didn’t bring a tripod. Why? Maybe you can answer that, I just don’t know. I did however bring a flash and a wireless transmitter for the hotshoe. I used it once. Okay, twice, but the second time was only to see if the thing was still working after three and a half months of shoving in to my backpack (it didn’t work). All said and done, there are reasons why I went with a push-here-dummy camera and why I didn’t bring my SLR and lenses: size, weight, insurance, theft-o-meter, and the massive files my camera produces would have caused me to go for broke on memory cards (they’re really expensive down-under). The camera worked for why I wanted it but there were times when I was kicking myself for not bringing a bigger camera. It would have let me take so many shots where I simply stated “I wish I had my…” but then held my tongue for fear of my girlfriend actually kicking me for bringing up that ‘issue’ one more time. Continue reading →