Packing for Tahiti Trip

Shortly we  will be flying to Papeete, Tahiti for our two week trip around French Polynesia.  Our trip includes spending a few days before and after our cruise at the Intercontinental Hotel in Papeete.  That is one of the hotels that features exotic  bungalows over the water.  They are expensive...so we opted to just spend one night in that type of accommodation and the remainder in more reasonable rooms.  This is a trip that Lynn has wanted to do for at least 5 years.  And something (usually Africa!) always has gotten in the way.  Not this time though!  We heard about the trip and within 30 minutes we were booked.  Our ship is the Paul Gauguin...a small ship (Only 300+ passengers).  Highlights of the trip are snorkeling opportunities and 4 wheel drive trips on the islands.   I will be spending one day  with a local professional photographer, Renaud Sayada.  I assume that we will be taking landscape and nature photos.

We are packing light.  For camera gear this time I am abandoning my heavy Nikon DSLRs for a lighter micro 4/3 package.  I recently bought the Olympus OM-D EM-5 with two lenses a 12-50mm and a 50-150mm lens,  I think that this should be sufficient.  I also purchased the Olympus TGH point and shoot, waterproof camera for underwater shots.  I have never photographed underwater before so this will be a new and I hope fun experience.  I also will be taking my Canon G1X camera for general shooting.  I have included a photo  that I took last year in a dimly lit restaurant in New York City with the G1X in low light at ISO 3200 with this camera.  The resolution that this camera delivers is amazing.  I only wish that Canon would either upgrade the camera or come up with new firmware for this camera.  It suffers when used for macro photography..

More later...

New Gear on the way for Future Trip

We have booked an exotic trip to Tahiti and the Society Islands.  We fly from Tampa to LAX then to Papeete, Tahiti. We will spend 3 days in Tahiti before our cruise on the Paul Gaugin ship. This is a trip that Lynn has wanted to do for he past 4 or 5 years, but it always seems like when the opportunity comes up we are headed to another corner of the world.  Honestly, I didn't really have a clue about exactly where Tahiti was before booking this trip. The Society Islands are in the South Pacific south of Hawaii and west of Easter Island. We will visit Bora Bora, Moorea and other islands.  Reading the itinerary it appears that most of our activities will be in the water. That means snorkeling.  In spite of  of taking a scuba diving class in college and growing up in the Florida Keys I haven't ever scuba dived. Snorkeling calls for an underwater camera. Since I am not skilled in underwater photography I decided to search out an inexpensive  compact camera.  My choice is an Olympus compact that is good to 33 feet underwater. More later...