Revisiting Australia

[Jan Anne]

In my early twenties I went backpacking for a year in Australia which turned out to be an adventure of a lifetime which I will always cherish.

As luck would have it the opportunity arose at work for a revisit when country leads where assigned to the branches across the globe to help them reorganise their way of working. Of course I claimed my stake with the intend to extend my stay with another week to revisit some of the places in Sydney I used to live, to visit parts of the east coast I skipped last time, do some whale watching, etc.

While booking and preparing for the trip I realised that a lot has changed over the years, luckily most for the better. Back then I flew economy class where I now fly business class, back then I slept in a dorm room with 7+ other backpackers and now I booked a nice room with an ocean view, the 20 year old Holden Commodore 202 (3.3L 6 in line) will now probably be replaced by a modern camper with an onboard BBQ 

Another big change is of course mobile phones, 19 years ago I had one of the first Ericsson mobile phones which could only be used to call and send text messages. For email I had to find an internetcafe and pay a few dollars for some online time so I could send the periodic updates to the homefront.

Camera wise a couple of Kodak or Fuji throw away cameras were used to cover the entire trip as I wasn't into photography at the time whereas I'm now the proud co owner of a certain Nikon forum. With the soon to be announced mirrorless Nikon cameras on the way this trip also became the perfect opportunity to start the jump back to the Nikon ecosystem, tomorrow the man with the yellow truck will deliver a D500 and a 200-500VR to cover the long stuff.

Currently preparing the trip and trying to sort things out like the USB-C accessories for power, storage and the necessary software to process the D500 images. As I will be partly mobile there's a need to stay powered while on the road, though not as powerful as the 87W Apple USB-C charger the 30W 100Wh battery pack and a 36W USB-C car charger should be able to provide the necessary juice for the MacBook Pro 15" and other devices. The Sony A7RII can also be charged by USB, a Nitecore UNK1 USB charger for EN-EL15/14 batteries is enroute and I already have a drawer full of USB/12V AA/AAA /18650 battery chargers for things like flashes and lights.

For the D500 of course an XQD card was ordered together with a Sony MRW-E90 QXD/SD card reader, besides being one of the fastest readers out there it also allowed me to replace the old skool USB 3 cable with an aftermarket USB-C cable. A Samsung T5 500GB SSD will be used to make regular bootable backups with SuperDuper.

I'll land coming Saturday evening btw and will stay in the Coogee Beach Hotel for a few days including meeting up with Mongo which I'm really looking forward to, work starts on the 13th and I'll fly back home on the 17th.

Would be very cool to also meet other NG members in the Sydney area or along the east coast while I'm there btw

[Akira]

Your trip to Australia looks like prolific, Jan!  Mongo is a nice friendly guy, just like his images tell here.  I'm not sure who else you are going to see there, but would like to expect some results of NG meet up in Australia.  Enjoy!

[Jan Anne]

Thanks Akira

Its always very exciting to meet other NG members while travelling, for me this was half the fun of the NG trips.

Skill wise I'll be a bit rusty however, the last serious photo trip was the NG Scotland trip in May 2016 and the last time I wielded a Nikon DSLR of my own was 5 years ago so I'll probably need some time to get used to an optical viewfinder again and maybe even more time to reconnect with the glass I'll bring for the a7RII.

[Frank Fremerey]

shooting little birds with Mongo would sure be the high light of a trip to the down under for me. I envy you. Do enjoy your stay an savour every moment. Congratulations!

[Erik Lund]

Enjoy your trip JA! As well as the new camera set up, looking forward to see some images from down under I wish I could go along,,,

[Fons Baerken]

Have a good one 

[Bent Hjarbo]

Enjoy, hope to see some pictures.
Pls inform on the performance of the NiteCore charger, I speculate on buying one for the D50 and Df batteries.

[will]

Enjoy the trip Jan!

I'm in Melbourne but not really too active on here these days, but I'd definitely would be up for meeting up if you happen to make your way down to here. I was actually in Amsterdam last month.

From memory, there's a few others on here who are also from Melbourne (Hugh_3170, arthurking83).

[Jakov Minić]

Bring back a kangaroo, a koala, and an emu for your ranch

[Mikes]

I'm sorry that I was not able to meet up with you on this trip, JA. A three week trip to Kenya and Tanzania has got in the way. We can trade images upon our return!

You will escape Europe's heat for a while as it is cool but sunny here - 21ºC max. Bring your sun block and surfboard.

Hope you can make it here again at the end of the year.

[armando_m]

Looking forward to see some of your images

[Jan Anne]

Enjoy your trip JA! As well as the new camera set up, looking forward to see some images from down under I wish I could go along,,,

Thanks amigo, and if you can make it you are always welcome to join.

But lets plan a new NG trip for 2019 coming September when the crew is at my place for the Photokina visit, I'm really eager for an epic photo trip again like an NG safari and think a lot of others are as well 

[Jan Anne]

Enjoy, hope to see some pictures.
Pls inform on the performance of the NiteCore charger, I speculate on buying one for the D50 and Df batteries.

So far I’m impressed with the litle Nitecore UNK1 charger, besides the ability to charge the EN-EL15 with any USB A charger its half the size of the Nikon wall charger while it can charge two batteries instead of just one. As I've been using Nitecore AA/AAA/18650 chargers for years now without any issues I'm also pretty confident it will serve me for years to come but time will tell.

It also provides a lot more info about the charging progress, both in bars for dummies as well as in Voltage for those familiar with li-ion charging (8.4V is full, if it doesnt reach this voltage anymore its time for the bin). It also shows the temperature and the amount of amps the battery is being charged.

Though not applicable for me (yet) the UNK1 can also charge EN-EL14 batteries on the backside simultaniously with the EN-EL15, should be very handy for those with both a D500 or D8x0 in combination with for example a Df. The recently announced UNK2 can charge two EN-EL15 batteries btw but I couldnt find it in the shops yet.

The attached USB A cable is a double etched sword, yes it can never be lost but it can also never be replaced with an USB-C cable for future use with USB-C chargers (without adapters).

Below some snapshots of the UNK1 together the Nikon charger for size reference.

[Bent Hjarbo]

Thanks for the information, very good.

[Jan Anne]

Bring back a kangaroo, a koala, and an emu for your ranch

There's a nest of buzzards in one of my trees since a few months, no kangaroo, koala or emu can trump that amigo