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.