My Digital Accessories on the Road

I am often asked what digital gear I carry while away on a photo shoot, so I here is a quick list of the essential workflow tools that I take on the road with me.

Computer

I use a MacBook notebook computer (updated 04/2008: Macbook Air) for most of my computing needs, both at home and away. I use a dedicated desktop computer (currently a Dell PC, but will be moving to a Mac desktop when they are announced and shipping) for my critical color management applications, but all of my email, word processing, etc happens on my MacBook. I have the 2ghz MacBook with 2GB of RAM, and I have upgraded the internal hard drive to 120GB. Since my typical safari trip has me leading back-to-back safaris, I needed the ability to store between 40GB and 60GB of digital images from my current camera setup, which is sure to change in the future.

Storage

I use a Epson P-2000 storage device as my backup hard drive, as well as a method to offload my images in case my MacBook craters on me. I never know. It could happen at any moment.

I also have an external 100GB USB hard drive as my second backup device, and I keep this hard drive with me at all times when traveling overseas. I also carry my original MacBook's 80GB hard drive in a padded case, and this will allow me to have a bootable computer in the event of a hard drive failure. I create a fresh backup of my internal hard drive to this 80GB drive at least once every few weeks.

Compact Flash Cards

Ok. My name is Andy Biggs and I am addicted to compact flash cards. I have to admit that I have a boneyard of compact flash cards dating from 2002. Only 11 more steps to go towards my full recovery.

My 'collection' of cards that I actually use are the following: (1) 8GB Sandisk Extreme III, (2) 4GB Sandisk Etreme III, (1) Sandisk 2GB Extreme III, (2) Lexar 80x 2GB, various 1GB and 4GB Microdrives to be used as loaners.

I use Lexar USB CF readers, but I am evaluating other options to make sure that I am using the latest and fastest readers available on the market today.

Electrical Plugs

A few months back, while out on safari, Thomas Knoll (one of the original authors of Photoshop), introduced me to the Road Warrior universal electrical plug. I have seen devices like this in the past, but nothing so compact and, well, universal. What a wonderful product. It seems that I only see great innovations like this from the Japanese market, and I was glad to finally find a source for such a product here in the US. The Road Warrior allows me to carry a small and lightweight adapter that will work in any country around the world. Time to put away my multiple sets of plugs. I usually take 3 or 4 adapters on each trip, per country. Sometimes I might need 3 totally different sets of adapters for a single trip. Not any longer, since I found this product.

You can purchase the Road Warrior from Madsonline for US$28 each.

Software

I seem to test and use many different software applications on a daily basis, so this is just a quick list of applications that I am using at this very moment. This list will most certainly change as I get more acquainted to the Mac environment.

• Photo Mechanic - for downloading, renaming, viewing and culling of images.

• Adobe Camera Raw - for digital raw conversions

• Adobe Photoshop CS2 - for final image cleanup

• Adobe Lightroom - I am evaluating the application, and I suspect this will be my future all-in-one application for downloading, renaming, viewing, sorting, culling, rating, raw converting, and outputting of images.

Comments

[joshli]

IP: 66.108.94.137EMAIL: joshliphoto@gmail.comURL: http://www.joshli.comThis is very helpful, especially for those preparing to travel with you.

But...

... here I am sitting at home going through my images after our Alaska outing, and I am wondering if there are insights you can give me in selecting and adding the final touches to my images.

For example:

Do you use the "number of stars" system in reviewing and picking out images that you end up posting on your galleries?

What gadgets do you have at home that you find are helpful? Wacom Tablet? Special laser mouse? Special monitor / LCD?

[Andy]

IP: 70.114.232.79EMAIL: andybiggs@gmail.comURL: http://www.andybiggs.comYeah, I just use stars from 1 to 5 to rate my images. Then I sort by ratings, and all of the 5 stars are easily viewed together.

Gadgets at home? No Wacom tablets or anything esoteric. A Dell 24" LCD (profiled, of course) and an Epson 4000 printer.

I will try and write up my whole workflow, including equipment, in the coming days.....