Vacation thoughts and partial eclipse photo

I just came back from vacation to a seaside place frequented by a lot of foreign tourists and wanted to share some thoughts.

I brought the whole kit, NX1000 and NX500, 10, 30, 45, 16-50pz, 20-50, 50-200, flashes, mini travel tripod, etc. In the end I used the following combination almost exclusively: NX1000+10mm for ultra-wide and fun shots, NX500+30 for everything (I just love that lens) and my smartphone for family snapshots and selfies. It worked out like magic, no lens swapping in sea water and sand infested wind, all cameras ready to be used when needed. I might continue using such combo for travel from now on.

As it happens, there was a partial Moon eclipse I forgot about, but still wanted to try to photograph it. Mini tripod was useless due to moderate winds so I resorted to using a rolled up beach towel as a cradle to point the camera up. Looked silly, but worked like a charm as the Moon was fairly low in the sky

Lessons learned - This is tricky to do without a proper tripod and tracking (preparation, preparation, preparation). Longer lens is also very much needed (I only had 200mm). Dynamic range is massive so I merged two photographs - ISO200 f/8 1/25s and 1s (a bit too long, so motion blur is visible). Had to push 1s one too much (~6 stops) in the post in order to see the red features. Merging was also problematic as only about half the Moon was in the shadow so the exposed part was very bright and combined with some moisture in the air produced a hard to eliminate glow. Probably should have gone for multiple exposures and bracket 6 shots with 1 stop difference, but hey, I have to leave something for the next time Also, prepare for the shot by reading about photographing partial eclipses

Not terrible, but not great. Planning is 90% of the work and I skipped planning

Now, the part where I was curios about what cameras other people (tourists) use (other than phones). Sooo, it was a bit like a safari/detective game where you have to spot a camera and then recognize it. Thanks to ridiculously bright straps, some cameras are hard to miss, thank you Nikon

Findings:

1. There was a surprisingly small number of lower end DSLRs (Canon Rebels, Nikon D3x00 and the like). IIRC there were far more few years back. Almost all with kit zooms.
2. A lot of people use MILCs. Mostly Sony a6x00 (hard to tell exact models apart) and, again to my surprise, Olympus EM5/10 (various versions). Not a single Panasonic or PEN to be seen (weird). Saw a few Fuji X users and two Leicas.
3. People using cameras seem to be mostly in two camps: large with 2.8 zooms (D750/D850 or 5D/6D), but also venerable Canon 50/1.8, or smaller MILC kits (mostly with kit and all-in-one zooms, barely a prime to be seen).
4. Barely a bridge super-zoom to be seen (and by older men). Few rugged cameras.
5. GoPros have fallen off the face of the Earth, only a couple seen (half on gimbals).
6. People still use small P&S cameras - and for night shots. They fire off flash and wonder why the fortress 200m back is dark in the shot. Most likely would have  much better luck with any decent smartphone.
7. Speaking of smartphones - less selfie sticks! And the ones that use them never remove the phone from one so they have to squint and try to frame the shot from afar when taking a non-selfie
8. Saw a Pentax user with a set of green ringed lenses - proud of that catch!
9. A number of younger people were using film cameras. Mostly various old SLRs with nifty-fifties, maybe a rangefinder here or there (pretty sure I saw two Kievs and one Rollei).
10. Saw a Samsung NX user with two cameras! - it was just my reflection in the mirror...

Not a nice thing - my Gear 360 died. Apparently when your battery depletes totally it will not charge due to protection circuit cutting the battery off so the charger thinks there is nothing to charge and ... Bad luck. Revived it back home by using a super-dumb charger that does not care if it overcharges the device. Thank you cheap trash charger manufacturers, you came through for me!

Hahaha excellent summary Pity there were no other NX users and surprised you found a Pentax user.

Did you make much use of the gear360 before it died? I kind of regret selling mine a few years ago but at the time I wasn't overly enamoured with the 4k footage in 360, although I'm not sure what I was expecting really..

Not on the vacation as it was dead, apparently, before I went on vacation. Fix is simple so it's not a biggie for me.

Regarding videos, I hardly used it as 4k is barely enough (IMHO) since it produces at best a 720p equivalent for very wide angle headset (~110 degrees) so like SD videos in normal angle. Every little bit helps so even 6k is visibly better, but I would prefer 8k to be honest. We're still a bit away from that. In the meantime I love 4k videos from 10mm on NX500.

I do use it for the photos, either funny family ones or static scenes where I use multi-frame approach as it yields very nice photos.

otto k wrote:

Not on the vacation as it was dead, apparently, before I went on vacation. Fix is simple so it's not a biggie for me.

Regarding videos, I hardly used it as 4k is barely enough (IMHO) since it produces at best a 720p equivalent for very wide angle headset (~110 degrees) so like SD videos in normal angle. Every little bit helps so even 6k is visibly better, but I would prefer 8k to be honest. We're still a bit away from that. In the meantime I love 4k videos from 10mm on NX500.

I do use it for the photos, either funny family ones or static scenes where I use multi-frame approach as it yields very nice photos.

You're right, I'll need to be patient for the next generation of 360 cameras.

I also love 10mm 4k on the nx500 - the crop makes it just perfect.