articles/Nature/ashtonsgambia-page3

Ashton's Gambia - part 3 of 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

by Jonathan Ashton Published 01/02/2011

Hand luggage allowance was only 5kg and hold luggage 20kg.

Officially there is no leeway on these allowances - in practice we found there was a little give and take. I took a holdall as opposed to a suitcase, I put my clothes and toiletries in there, along with my tripod and a small/medium camera rucksack which contained the wide-angle lenses and flash guns. I wore a photographer's vest and in it I carried the two camera bodies, all the batteries (NB none allowed in the hold!), all the CompactFlash cards along with the 100-400 zoom and 180mm macro. The 500mm lens was taken on as hand luggage; I have a purpose-made bag for this lens. I reasoned that if my holdall went missing I would still have the key equipment with me and could still take photographs.

For most of the time I set the ISO on the cameras to 400, partly out of necessity and partly for convenience knowing that for the most part it would provide fast shutter speeds and a choice of aperture values. I continually checked the histogram and adjusted the exposure accordingly - in general I shoot 'histogram to the right'. I would recommend that you do most of your photography in the morning and afternoon as the sun is directly overhead from about 12.00am to 2.00pm.

Whenever possible I tried to get the sun behind me so that my shadow pointed to the subject; this provides more even lighting. As soon as we got into the vehicle I made sure the camera and 500mm were ready - it's no good finding a bird and then having to unpack the camera and lens and then make sure it has got a battery and CompactFlash card, then check ISO and aperture shutter speed, etc, etc - the moment will be lost, forever!

• Ashton's Gambia page 1
  
• Ashton's Gambia page 2
  
• Ashton's Gambia page 3
  
• Ashton's Gambia page 4
  
• Ashton's Gambia page 5
  
• Ashton's Gambia page 6
  
• Ashton's Gambia page 7
  

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