camping in south of France - storing camera advice

I am going camping soon in the south of France and wanted some advice on storing my camera during the day. I have an E1 and 7-14 and 14-54 lenses and would love to take them but obviously the tent wouldnt be a secure place to leave them when not being used. I will have my car but am wary of leaving them locked in the boot (trunk) as if the car gets direct sun (and even if it doesnt) it will be still very hot indeed in it.

I wondered if I'd be better just taking my oly 5050 and not worrying!

This primarily a holiday not a photo assignment, although being a professional photographer I'm torn about leaving them at home!!

Any advice welcome

Mike

http://www.thephotographer.me.uk

mike in london said:

I am going camping soon in the south of France
...
Any advice welcome

Click to expand...

You lucky bugger. Looks like I'm not going this summer.

For years I've had the same dilema. I don't any more, now I will always take an SLR AND the digicam.

When we went to Italy in easter I took a flightcase and chained it to a secure part of the car (under the seat) with a big padlock. Most car theft is a smash and grab type of affair (unless they take the whole car of course!). If you park somewhere fairly obvious, its not likely they are going to be able to spend time removing the box.

I know what you mean about the heat, but pro stuff like the E1 should be ok.
FWIW - a compromise might be to leave the 7-14 at home and just take the 14-54.

Going anywhere nice?

Just do not go to nice places withoiut your favorite camera.

Take care of a good insurance, keep the storage apart from the rest and shoot as much as possible.
Have fun.

mike in london said:

This primarily a holiday not a photo assignment, although being a
professional photographer I'm torn about leaving them at home!!

Click to expand...

i definitly would take the cam and both lenses with me. i personally would put them in a backpack and take it with me everywhere (which is what i do at holidays). what could be useful are those backpacks with two compartments - the bottom for your camera and in the top you can put some other stuff, like a jacked, lunch, map, guide etc. an e-1 with 14-54 and 7-14 fits easy in such a bottom compartment.

i wouldn't leave the cam in your car, it indeed can get much to hot in your car.

I hope so!

Not been there before, its a recommendation from a friend. Between Biarritz and Bordeaux...

Thanks so far for the suggestions!

Mike

To keep a camera cool in a closed car several people suggest keeping it in a cooler, without ice in it of course. The cooler is thermally protected so even without ice in it will keep the inside of it cooler than the temperature of the car itself. Also, anyone seeing the cooler in the car will just think it's full of food.

mike in london said:

Not been there before, its a recommendation from a friend. Between
Biarritz and Bordeaux...

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Interesting. On a motorcycling holiday one year a friend and I called in to somewhere on the coast in the general 'between Biarritz and Bordeaux' area. may have been called something like St Girons plage.

We went there to stay for a few days with friends of my friend (!?!) who were staying in a camping site right by the sea. They went there every year as it was so wonderful and they thought our life wouldn't be complete if we didn't join them. As we drove closer to the coast I was thinking 'wow .. this is lovely' as we went through mile upon mile of green forest before coming to this HUGE campsite that was situated in the trees just before the beach and sea.

The campsite was enormous. Had every sort of amenity. Looked good. After one afternoon there, I hated it and couldn't wait to get out and back to the 'real' France :-(

Don't get me wrong, this was just one area, and you might actually enjoy the type of holiday and entertainment that is put on (I can imagine its great for keeping kids busy) - I mean ... tens of thousands of people every year flock to these coastal areas. But it wasn't for me. And it could have been anywhere in the world with a nice beach. Its not France. I certainly wouldn't bother taking an SLR and expensive lenses to somewhere like this unless it was just one stop or a base from which you'd go traveling further afield. But that's if its somewhere like this you are staying!

But of course as I'm sure you know, France is huge and generally has lovely places. The Pyrenees are but a stones throw away, I just love those mountains

For some reason I don't think of camping when I think of France. I am going camping this weekend in Wisconsin. Wonder how the two esperiences would compare?

Oh. Regarding the camera, do you absotively posolutely have to take the E-1? I usually try to take a good, but smaller camera when I'm camping. That way it can almost always be with me.

mmditter said:

For some reason I don't think of camping when I think of France. I
am going camping this weekend in Wisconsin. Wonder how the two
esperiences would compare?

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In France, camping is BIG. Apart from the thousands of smaller privately owned campsites, nearly all decent sized towns (and some not so decently sized!) even have a government/council controlled campsite (Camping municipal) that almost always are inexpensive and well kept.

Good grief ... when I think of France, ALL I think of is camping. When I think of Wisconsin, all I think of are death trips ;-)

I think I will do the same. My camera will be always close to my body.
Have a nice trip!
--
Zeev

at least in the summer. Actually, spring and fall can be quite beautiful for camping, too. Never tried it in the winter, but it might be interesting. We have very nice state parks and forests and national forests to camp in. Lots and lots of lakes and trees. Summers tend to be pretty comfortable, normally in the upper 70's to mid-80's. Temperatures usually hit the 90's only a few times per year. Other than mosquitoes (there aren't many this year) which can be pretty bothersome, there aren't usually too many things to worry about in the woods here. Poisonous snakes and other dangerous animals are not common in Wisconsin.

If, however, someone wanted to go backpacking through Wisconsin, I don't know how good it would be. Private campgrounds are normally located outside of urban areas. Cities and towns normally do not have camping areas within their city/town limits.

Now.

I was refering to the book by Michael Lesy. Some really haunting images in there. I don't think I'm ever going to forget the young woman on the front cover.

Can't recall if I've seen the film, but if so, its the memory of the book that's so strong in my mind that its blotted it out. Hmmm... something in that I think!

Worth checking out.

http://www.wisconsindeathtrip.com/

Cheers

G.

I guess this also depends on what camping sites you stay at. I prefer the smaller, quiet, more remote camping sites. At those places people don't just walk in an grab a camera. And then, I don't give them any chance because I am usually attached to my camera - full time

At those huge campingsites (the ones at le camargue come to mind) I wouldn't feel at ease with my camera's and lenses.

Have fun over there!

--
Daan - Pictures of insects at: http://www.kalmeijer.net

end of the 19th century Wisconsin that Charles Van Schaik had is not representative of our little corner of the world here in the 21st century (one would hope it was not like that here back then either).

Not only that, but despite what I thought when I was young reader of history books which were full of B & W pictures, the "real" world actually took place in glorious technicolor, even prior to the 1950's.

I think the c5050 would do every bit as well as the e-1 , just not as fast. In fact it would do much better in low light than the 5050 IMHO with that f1.8 lens. The main difference would be a long range lens although it would be real close.

mmditter said:

end of the 19th century Wisconsin that Charles Van Schaik had is
not representative of our little corner of the world here in the
21st century (one would hope it was not like that here back then
either).

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After reading the 'death trip' book I did a little research and you are absolutely right of course, Wisconsin does look like a very nice 'normal' place with some very lovely areas. Its fascinating to wonder what life was really like some hundred years ago and I guess that in the depression, most areas had their own 'death trip' type of stories.

In fact, thinking about it, I've been to Chicago and have driven up alongside Lake Michigan to Canada - but I can't remember whether I went up the East or West side! (pre digital days I'm afraid and I haven't scanned the pics in yet) So I may have driven through some of it. I do remember really loving the area, and we spend some timein Michigan and even considered moving out there at one point.

(BTW - Someone had mentioned to me that there was a theory that the towns water supply was contaminated or that the grain harvest somehow developed a toxin that slowly made the people a bit mad .... but I couldn't find any definitive references to it in the text - anyone know anything about this?)

mmditter said:

Not only that, but despite what I thought when I was young reader
of history books which were full of B & W pictures, the "real"
world actually took place in glorious technicolor, even prior to
the 1950's.

Click to expand...

Yup. In my part of the world, coal mining and industry was a huge part of life and its difficult to differentiate the reality of what life would have been like when all you see of that era are sombre depressing B&W images.

Mike_PEAT said:

To keep a camera cool in a closed car several people suggest
keeping it in a cooler, without ice in it of course. The cooler is
thermally protected so even without ice in it will keep the inside
of it cooler than the temperature of the car itself. Also, anyone
seeing the cooler in the car will just think it's full of food.

Click to expand...

That's what I do, except sometimes I use a couple of "blue ice" packs in a "7 day cooler". I put the 2 ridged ice packs on the bottom, cover them with a towel and put my camera bag on top. Keeps the camera cool.

? I wonder if the first shots I take when I remove the "cool" camera have less noise?

Betvingar

I'm interested in this need to keep the camera cool. While leaving the thing directly on the dashboard in the roasting sun for hours might cause some expansion that might not be particularly good, I'm struggling to think of what would be the problem with the camera getting up to the normal temp inside a car. The car electronics, GPS etc can withstand the temp ok, why wouldn't a pro camera like the E1 ?

Big Ga said:

I'm interested in this need to keep the camera cool. While leaving
the thing directly on the dashboard in the roasting sun for hours
might cause some expansion that might not be particularly good, I'm
struggling to think of what would be the problem with the camera
getting up to the normal temp inside a car. The car electronics,
GPS etc can withstand the temp ok, why wouldn't a pro camera like
the E1 ?

Click to expand...

Probably stupid, but I have a van so I need a way to hide the camera from thieves looking in windows. And I worry that keeping the camera in the vehicle all day in the hot sun may heat it up enough to cause more noise in the images. Probably not, but why take the chance.

Now that I have told camera thieves about this, I guess I will need another disguise...

Betvingar