Tips for carrying your Camera & Electronics for a Himalayan trip:
- Purchase as many datacards (SD / microSD) as you’d be requiring. If you are shooting RAW and on an average 1000 pics per day (At Ladakh you do!), you’d require a 32Gigs card per day!
- Invest in fast SD / MicroSD cards. When shooting in RAW, you’d find issues while in burst/continuous mode if your card’s speed is slow.
- DO NOT rely on laptops/external hard disks for storage, unless you have Solid State Disk. Spindles of a hard disk drive in rarefied atmosphere tend to come closer thereby damaging the disk head and eventually rendering it totally useless and irrecoverable.
- For the above reason, it is not advised to use your laptop / disks anywhere which is 4000+ meters.
- Laptops are not required on a Trip to Ladakh / Spiti, unless you plan to work from there. Then too, you’d not get a network at most of the places. Weigh your options and opt out of weight! 🙂
- Batteries die down fast in cold conditions. Keep at least two spares and fully charged.
- Keep a Car DC to AC inverter so that you can charge your batteries while on go. Many a places in Himalayan region get very limited period of electricity and you may not be able to charge all your equipments. This is especially true for Ladakh region.
The right advice and ABSOLUTELY agree to your point #1.
“Purchase as many datacards (SD / microSD) as you’d be requiring.”
Thanks Rajiv. For me, after every long travel, I end up distributing the data cards to my friends for free! 🙂