So I'm going to be leaving in September to study in Tours, France for a semester. Obviously, this is both a great academic opportunity and a great travel/photo opportunity. As a French and European History double major, I'm beyond excited for this semester.

I come to you all with a few questions. About gear for the trip. Being on a college budget, buying new gear hasn't been in the cards for the last couple years, so to be honest I haven't been paying as much attention as I usually do to new options. Any and all suggestions for things to have are welcome, but here's what I'm looking at/for

I want to rent an 18-200mm lens..borrowlenses.com only lets people rent for 4 weeks at a time, so does anyone know a place that allows for longer rentals?

Geotagging. The Nikon GP-1 is $265. As I said, college budget. Does anyone know of an off brand of any other way I could get that for cheaper?

That's all for now...I'm headed over with a 16gb memory card, so I'm fine in that department. Filters, etc I'm all set with, and I've got an awesome lowepro backpack for lugging everything around.

Thanks in advance
hank

Originally Posted by hschlessphoto ... I want to rent an 18-200mm lens..borrowlenses.com only lets people rent for 4 weeks at a time, so does anyone know a place that allows for longer rentals? Geotagging. The Nikon GP-1 is $265. As I said, college budget. Does anyone know of an off brand of any other way I could get that for cheaper? ...

For a semester term of use you will be much better off just purchasing a used version of the Nikkor 18-200mm, f3.5-5.6G ED-IF AF-S VR DX. KEH.com has quite a few to choose from. You can always sell it after you get back for very little loss of investment.

If cash is really that strapped, just mark a map with your shots and look up the coordinates after the shoot. You don't have to be perfect in the coordinates to be useful.

You may also have access to a cell phone with a GPS capability. (You'll want to verify European operation in advance.) Just take a snap of the cell phone GPS display at each location you shoot. If the GPS function sucks down the cell phone battery too quickly, just log the most important sites and shut off the GPS function when you're not using it.

Thats a good advice, I used to shoot my little Garmin GPS showing the coordinates where I took that pic. Turned out I never tagged the photos with the data, but it was fun anyways :)

You got a good set of lenses, maybe part with one to temporarily fund your desired ultra zoom? I'd also recommend get another inexpensive 16GB or 32GB SD card for backup.
Of course if you got internet you can upload all your stuff to smugmug and/or show it off here

thank you both for your advice. I'm probably going to try to sell my 55-200..unfortunately I can't get much for it, but every dollar counts. I might as well sell the 18-55, as well if I'm going to be getting the 18-200. Good call with the extra memory card, and as for GPS I unfortunately won't have my smartphone over there, but I can probably figure out some way to fenagle things like that. I think I'm going to use KEH for a lens.

Thank again to both..anyone else have anything to offer?

While the 18-200 would be convenient, the quality from you 18-55 and 55-200 will be better than the single lens. Also, in that area of France, a superwide might be really nice to have. The chateaux in the Loire valley will need either a superwide or pano stitching to get the full impact. When I was in that region with only a D60, 18-55, 55-200, and 35 1.8, the 55-200 saw little use, and the 35 was used for quite a few panos.

I have a 3rd party gps, (for D200, not D90, different connector) and it has not been all that great, so it's not a solution I can recommend. Take photos of signs/brochures to place where you are.

There are also a number of geotrackers that come with software so that you can use their log to geotag on your computer after the fact. They are cheaper, but I don't know how hard they are to use, and you need to keep your camera clock synced up for it to work.

James

Originally Posted by hschlessphoto thank you both for your advice. I'm probably going to try to sell my 55-200..unfortunately I can't get much for it, but every dollar counts. I might as well sell the 18-55, as well if I'm going to be getting the 18-200. Good call with the extra memory card, and as for GPS I unfortunately won't have my smartphone over there, but I can probably figure out some way to fenagle things like that. I think I'm going to use KEH for a lens. Thank again to both..anyone else have anything to offer?

I'm going to guess you're wanting the 18-200 to just boil things down to one lens to drag around?

That may well work, but based on my experiences, AND getting rid of those two lenses, I'd go for the Nikon 18-70mm. Between that and the 70-300mm you have you'd have a lot of range covered with one of nikon's older "kit" lenses to boot. KEH often has them for around $150.00 and they of course will take your other two lenses. On the D90, the 18-70 will cover you quite well.

Originally Posted by angevin1 I'm going to guess you're wanting the 18-200 to just boil things down to one lens to drag around? That may well work, but based on my experiences, AND getting rid of those two lenses, I'd go for the Nikon 18-70mm. Between that and the 70-300mm you have you'd have a lot of range covered with one of nikon's older "kit" lenses to boot. KEH often has them for around $150.00 and they of course will take your other two lenses. On the D90, the 18-70 will cover you quite well.

If you go this route, the 18-105 might be a consideration as well. Slightly more range and VR, should be around 250-300 used.

Thanks for the heads up on the thrid party GPS. I guess the little extra work is worth it in terms of just tagging on my own.

As for lenses, I feel sort of dumb for not thinking of the 18-70 or 18-105. Angevin was right..the point is to lighten the load in a convenient fashion. However, given that I have the 70-300, it sounds like the 18-105 might be the way to go, just in case i need a tiny but of extra reach.

Thanks again for all the advice. I can't wait to show y'all my photos. I plan on traveling all around..France, Italy, Switzerland, Netherlands, Spain and England are already in the books.

One other thing to consider: keep your existing lenses and invest in a good point and shoot, eg the S series from Canon.

On our trip to Scotland last year, I found myself using the pns ALL THE TIME. I did take the dSLR (and did use it a couple of times), but for the most part, the greater ease of carrying the s95 - and the stupendous quality it delivers (including in low light) - won out most of the time; 95% of my shots were taken with the s95.

Also, it uses SD cards which makes finding extra media both cheaper and easier.... If you can't afford the current model (I think it's now the s100), then perhaps a used s95 or s90? Just a thought....

Shooting into the sun


ISO 1600


Fill flash


Bright contrasty light

I've certainly considered the point-and-shoot option. However, I'm the kind of person where if I didn't have my DSLR for a shot i needed it for, I would hold it over myself for months. Beautiful photos, though.

Thanks all for your input. If anyone else has any brilliant ideas, it's appreciated as always.

Hank