The Ideal Travel Buddy

I have this very good friend Trisha who is into photography and travels rather frequently. Very often and perhaps we can say, almost predictably, that after every expedition, she can be found locked up virtually incommunicado for a day or two in her dark room, with her clothes and hair oozing with the stench of chemicals.

We found it a very welcome development of course when she has, just very recently and quite belatedly if I may add, acquired the digital bug. At first, she bought this cute digital compact camera, which she later found to be, "very handy and convenient but very unsatisfactory and quite insufficient."

And here we all thought a handy, lightweight, pocket-sized, compact digital camera was the ideal travel companion. "Are you not happy that you do not have to lug around your camera equipment while enjoying the sights?"

Her quick retort was, "Oh, you just don't get it, because you all are happy with your basic point and shoot!"

In short, compact cameras were too amateur for her taste. So, two weeks later, she set off to buy her own SLR digital camera which had her trigger happy finger clicking endlessly. "It's the ideal digital camera for travel photography!"

So off she went to Panglao Island in the province of Bohol, Philippines for her first official expedition that will be documented with her single lens reflex or SLR digital camera. And why not, the province of Bohol boasts of several tourist spots, historical sights and particularly for Panglao, the longest coastline of white sand beaches in the Philippines.

Four days later she was back, clogging my inbox with amazing photos of her photography exploits. A wide-eyed tarsier staring back at me stood out from a canopy of greens and browns. Another set of photos showcased the daytime beach front and there was another set of amazingly shot photos of the beach at night. Pictures that, according to her would be virtually impossible with my everyday digital camera.

Okay, so I concede. The last time I went night swimming and took photos of me and my friends at the beach, it was either dark or had our faces virtually glowing white from the camera's flash. It was true. Even when I had the night mode option in my handy digital camera on, I never shot photos as great or with its lighting as carefully calculated. What's the secret, I ask her.

Taking night time photos of vacation sights and travel spots can be tricky, she admits. This is especially true when you're at the beach where light sources may be limited to those, lets say, coming from the tiny fishing boats or from the colored light bulbs from your beach resort. Not exactly very bright and hardly ideal for amateur photographers.

The trick is in your camera's ISO setting or the level of its sensitivity to light and the amount of light that you allow your image to absorb as determined by your shutter speed. If your digital camera is an SLR then you would definitely have the option of slowing down the camera's shutter speed which would mean more light would be taken in. How high or how low and how fast or how slow is totally your choice.

Equipment, sights, skills. Getting the perfect combination is the key. And once you've mastered it, you get amazing night time travel photography.

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