One thing that bugs me about traveling in general is the risk that when you get to your destination, something, or everything doesn’t work.

I’ve done quite a few trips armed only with an iPhone and my trusty Canon SLR,  this is a winning combination, because the two don’t need to talk to each other.

For longer trips however, I really need a combination that will perform as required, be compatible and of course be light. This poses a problem, since the SLR isn’t light, and the lenses make the whole thing rather cumbersome at the airport. How then am I to reduce the weight, if not to leave the camera and it’s accessories behind, making the entire trip useless. I am after-all going for the explicit reason of shooting multiple cities in Holland and Belgium.

My solution is to pack my camera bag into my larger carry-on, since I’m only able to take two carryons. Problem Solved.

Next up is compatibility, I HAVE to HAVE to HAVE to have a working arrangement while I’m on the road, nothing can be left to chance, or it “should” work. So what I have to do is unpack everything from their respective cases and test them.

Does the camera talk to the Macbook?

Does the Macbook play the movies from the portable Harddrive?

Is the right data on the Harddrive?

Yes, all of this is important, I don’t want to waste expensive vacation time figuring out and debugging something; I had to do that last time, and I won’t go through it again. Especially since I can more easily rectify a problem when I have all my resources at the ready. (i.e. my file servers and desktops)