Road Trip Starts Today! (HCODRT)

My latest road trip starts today!  Over the next three days, I will be meeting up with three of my lifelong buddies for a terrific trip across the country.  The only plan we have at this point is to loosely follow the westerly route of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, along with their Corps of Discovery.  Basically, in 1804, they began their trip on the Mississippi River in St. Louis, Missouri and traveled west following the Missouri River, finally reaching the Pacific Ocean via the Columbia River in the area of  Astoria, Oregon.  They returned in 1806.  No, we won't be gone that long!

I have taken the liberty to name our trip the H.A.G. Corps of Discovery II Road Trip (HCODRT).  What is H.A.G. mean? The four of us grew up on Hall Avenue in a small town in western Pennsylvania.  For years we have called ourselves the Hall Avenue Gang, or H.A.G.  As we all love history, travel, exploration and discovery, we do intend to explore and discover parts of this great country on this journey.  Four lifelong friends hitting the road.  Simple as that.

Day 1 Today, I will drive to the home of one of my friends who lives near Charlottesville, Virginia.  I will spend the night, enjoying a nice dinner and some wonderful conversation with my friend and his wife.  Tomorrow, he and I will drive as far west as we feel comfortable, then spend the night somewhere east of St. Louis, Missouri.  Then, on Thursday, our two other friends will meet us in St. Louis for the "official" start of the trip.

Lewis and Clark
Courtesy of National Park Service; in the public domain

What gear am I taking?  I had waffled back and forth over that decision until last night.  Initially, I had decided to take only my M4/3 outfit.  That would consist of the E-M1 and three lenses. There was no plan to bring a backup camera as I have full faith and confidence in the Olympus.

But, as I thought about how I used my gear on last year's extended road trip, I changed my mind.  What happened last year, when one of these guys and I spent three weeks traveling Route 66, was that I used my E-M5 for carrying around as a camera I would just grab and for record shots (the kind that say "I was here.").  It was light, easy to hang around my neck and served me well as a small, one lens outfit to utilize when I wasn't out to specifically photograph.  I used the D800E for those times when I found things that I wanted to specifically photograph for stock.  Not that the Olympus can't produce serious and professional level images.  It can.  I have proved that over and over.  I submitted images from both cameras to my stock agency and they all proved to be professional quality.  In the end, I found myself using each camera about 50% of the time.  That tells you that I had full confidence in the quality if images from each.

So, this year, I have decided to do the same thing.  I will take my Nikon gear for those times when I see something I want to specifically photograph or those times when I think I need all 36mp.  All other times, I will use the E-M1.

Here is what I will be taking:

Nikon D800E
Nikon 16-36mm f/4 VR
Nikon 24-120 f/4 VR
Nikon 70-200 f/4 VR
Nikon 50mm f/1.4 
Nikon TC14E-II 1.4X converter
2 spare batteries and charger
A Polarizing and Variable ND filter
Lens and sensor cleaning items

Olympus E-M1
Panasonic 14-140 f/3.5-5.6 lens
3 spare batteries and charger
Polarizing filter

I will also have about 100gb of memory cards with me as I don't like to reformat my cards while traveling if I don't have to.  I am bringing a laptop with 2 USB powered 500gb hard drives.  I have Lightroom 5 and Photoshop CC loaded on the laptop.  Each evening I will import my images into a Lightroom travel catalog, which will be housed on one of the portable drives (the other will serve as a backup for my images).  I will create a folder structure based upon geographic location, assign keywords, etc., when importing  When back home, all I have to do is merge the travel catalog with my primary catalog.  I don't have to do anything twice.  Perfect!

Additionally, I will have a carbon fiber monopod and a carbon fiber travel tripod.  There are also other miscellaneous items to keep the equipment clean and dry that will come along.  

The Nikon gear and tripod will go in the back of the van and the Olympus will be kept in the console so I can quickly grab it if necessary.

This gear gives me the range of 16mm on the wide end and 280mm on the long end.  Also, with the 50mm prime, I have the option of using an aperture as fast as f/1.4 if necessary.  This gear should be plenty to handle 99% of everything I encounter.  And what happens if I don't have a long enough lens?  Well, then I just enjoy what is before me and not worry about not getting the image.

And so the adventure begins!


Thanks for looking. Enjoy!

Dennis Mook

Many of my images can be found at www.dennismook.com.  Please pay it a visit.  I add new images regularly.  Thank you.

All content on this blog is © 2014 Dennis A. Mook.  All Rights Reserved.  Feel free to point to this blog from your website with full attribution.  Permission may be granted for commercial use.  Please contact Mr. Mook to discuss permission to reproduce the blog posts and/or images.