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Overseas travel, what lenses, transporting film.


Forget your longer lenses. I have rarely used a long lens in Europe. I strongly recommend that you take the 45mm, the 75mm (shift), and the 90mm as well as lots of film.

Enjoy!
 
markbau said:
... am wondering if I could take some metol and sulphite and a developing tank with me to make D23 and maybe buy some fixer when I buy the film. (What to use for wetting agent?)
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Whatever you do, please do not take photo chemicals overseas with you. This is a sure-fire recipe for disaster. A few photographers I've known have been undone when doing this, some countries routinely do luggage checks (Bali in Indonesia being one) and anything that looks even remotely like chemistry is often auto-branded as Drugs. Even pharmaceuticals like diazepam are banned in some countries (again in Asia).

The points raised by the posters in #24 and #25 also rate considering. They wrote what I see as sensible assessments of how to plan your trip. When one is travelling overseas, less is most definitely better.

Trying to plan for processing your own films while travel is overthinking this. It's also putting too much strain on what should be an enjoyable vacation with a lot of time to do good photography. Go and shoot, find a good local lab, and get your films processed. No need for scans or prints. Do all that when you return home.
 
You travelled in the right direction to avoid CT...TSA complies with such requests particularly where the newer CT security scanners for carry-on luggage have been put into use.
If your sequence of travel had been to Europe with return to US, not so sure that you would necessarily have gotten compliance with request for carryon to be hand inspected outside the US...certainly in 40 years of repeated travel thru London Heathrow, they never paid any attention to polite requests from me, to avoid exceessive number of trips thru X-ray on a continuing journey.
 
I'm not always a pessimist but when I travel overseas I always take TWO cameras in case one develops a fault. Last time I took a Fuji GSW680, the one with the 65mm wide angle lens, and a Seagull TLR with a 75mm normal lens. Half way through the trip the Seagull TLR had a film wind failure but the Fuji finished the job beautifully. And the film used was Ilford Delta 3200 to maximise hand holding opportunities ... no tripod. Delta 3200 is supposed to be grainy but in roll film formats it looks smooth enough.
 

I too travel with two cameras:
  • Hasselblad 503 CX with the 50mm and 80mm lenses and the Hasselblad 903 SWC or
  • Nikon N75 for C-41 color negatives and Nikon F100 for black & white negatives
 
Like others have recommended, I'd take the 45mm as wide angles are really needed if you are shooting in cities. I usually shoot with lenses ranging from 20mm-50mm (35mm) in cities, 50mm usually works as my "tele" lens since the spaces are so tight. Unless you have a specific need or want for your longer lenses, you may want to consider leaving them at home.

As for film - will your flight be direct to Europe, or will you have one or more stops along the way? Even in transit, carryon bags often have to go through airport screenings again. If they are the old x-ray machines at every airport, you'll be fine, but one CT scanner along the way will not be. Since film is so expensive in Oz, I'd suggest buying it all once you arrive in Europe. Ordering it from Fotoimpex or Maco or Silverpint, etc and having it delivered to your hotel would probably be the easiest. Paris does have some good photo stores/labs (or at least did when I used to live in France) so you can definitely pick some up in person as well. In Paris I often used Prophot to buy film and Negatif+ to develop it, maybe others will have other recommendations. If you don't want to pay a lab to develop your film, bring a tank and some reels and do the developing yourself a few nights a week. It's easy to find developing chemicals, and this is something that I've done on longer trips/stays in other countries. When I can't find distilled water I just used bottled water instead (seems less variable than tap water) and have had no problems. I bought film sleeves while in the country I was in, and a cheap underwear laundry hanger bought from the dollar store worked well for hanging film strips when wet.
 

Sirius Glass said:
I too travel with two cameras:
  • Hasselblad 503 CX with the 50mm and 80mm lenses and the Hasselblad 903 SWC or
  • Nikon N75 for C-41 color negatives and Nikon F100 for black & white negatives
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I do the same as well - always two cameras, plus my Holga, since it's so lightweight as to be negligible. I've had cameras fail on me or were damaged while travelling, and it can be difficult to find a replacement in time. The last time I was in Paris I dropped my Nikon FE and looked to find ANY comparable model to replace it, but most of the so-called camera stores had old dusty cameras sitting in sunny windows for way too much money (4-5x times the regular used price). Ordering online was not an option since I couldn't get the camera in time before moving to my next location. I only go out with one camera (the other stays behind in the hotel room), but I like knowing that I've got a backup just in case.
 
Arthurwg said:
My advice: Buy film and process it on location. In Europe that should not be difficult. In France it would be easy.
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This seems a good option.

Buying film at Photostock would be a cost effective option. https://www.photostock.fr/

Several processing options are available in Paris but I never used them
 
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