LuisFerFranco's Weblog

Two weeks ago I went on vacation with my family to Cancun, Mexico. As I was expecting, I had not many chances to do my hobby, photography, I had to use the small ammount of time when my two toddlers caught a nap, but anyway, I had some time, did some things right, but did some thing terrible, this is what I learned out of it:

• Plan ahead
• ALWAYS pack filters (at least a Circular Polarizer)
• Never leave something for tomorrow, or never waste a morning
• Research about the sunrise, sunset and tiwtlight wherever you go
• Wake up VERY early, leaving your equipment ready the night before
• Always check the weather wherever you go
• If you took your lenses out of A/C into a hot and humid weather, leave some time to warm them up
• Always take a plastic bag with you (for the protecting the camera from rain)
• If you want to learn on how to anticipate a moment (very useful for sports photography), get yourself a compact camera

Plan ahead
We all have already heard of this, but when you’re ready to be out of your house, without the ability to change lenses, or batteries, or more memory its when it becomes more important. In my case, I knew I was going to a beach, and I had a mental outline of the shots I wanted, so I thought I packed what I needed, but hey… read my next point.

ALWAYS pack filters (at least a Circular Polarizer)
A Circular Polarizer shouldn’t be planned, it should be ALWAYS in your bag. It should be so mechanical you shouldn’t think of it anymore. In my case, in a beach I forgot a CP (I used it the week before at my office) Duh!

Never leave something for tomorrow, or never waste a morning
The second day I was too tired after running with my kids, despite that, I managed to wake up at about 6:00 AM, just minutes before the sunrise, but I was too lazy and stayed in bed, I said… well there’s always a tomorrow. As you can see in my pics, yes there was a tomorrow but a stormy tomorrow. I didn’t catch the sunrise, I was in the caribean, it could have been spectacular.

Research about the sunrise, sunset and tiwtlight wherever you go
This is very important, in order to get most of the “golden hour”, if you haven’t experimented it yet, you must. I used the following URL to check for sunrise/sunset (I imagine there are lots of more, but this one worked great): http://sunrisesunset.com it produces a monthly calendar.

Wake up VERY early, leaving your equipment ready the night before
This has to do with the two above, one problem I had, is once I got earlier (the most difficult part for me) I started looking where I left the cable release. I never found it, so I had to use the 2 sec half-timer, while useful, not even close to a remote release.

If you took your lenses out of A/C into a hot and humid weather, leave some time to warm them up
This was frustrating! I don’t know how to fix it, how can I “warm up” the lenses if I’m leaving the room? Many shots were ruined by fog in the front lens.

Always check the weather wherever you go

Specially if its a bit rainy. You should take measures to protect your equipment

Always take a plastic bag with you (for the protecting the camera from rain)
My camera didn’t suffer any damage, fortunately, but it was close. First started a small rain, not big deal, but then it came a pouring rain! I had to run to the closest palapa I found while covering my camera with my body.

If you want to learn on how to anticipate a moment (very useful for sports photography), get yourself a compact camera
OK this one is great. I have done lots of american football photography, as a sport shooter you know you must anticipate to the action. Is not always too easy. I went with my wife and kids to an acuarium and there was the classical dolphin shows, but I only had a compact camera. You know how they are slow to grab focus, so I had to prefocus wherever I think the dolphins were going to be. I got pretty decent photos despite the camera I was using.