Hi guys,
Alright, a report of my Venezuela holiday:
As fine-tuned before leaving, the gear I brought was:
OM-4Ti, 24/2, 35-70/3.6, 100/2, extension rings (not used at all), T32,
light weight small tripod (not used at all), lots of zip lock bags and
silica gel bags. In short, this set-up was highly to my likings and only
very rarely did I have a slight desire for something which I did not bring,
most noticably so, a few times I would have liked to have brought the
300/4.5, yet these times were so little that I'm glad I didn't have to carry
that weight along with me. At the last moment, I decided to also bring my
small Hama camera bag, for using it in the safe areas. This was a wise idea,
as it better protected my gear (especially against water). So, now for a
description of where we went, and what was used:
In light of the situation in Venezuela, we decided to stay as little time as
possible in Caracas, and I also decided to take no pictures whatsoever of
protests etc. The protests would have made an excellent journalistic subject
for pictures, but I didn't want to take any risk of getting into trouble.
The only pictures I took in Caracas this time were a few simple shots of
some of the buildings in the area where we stayed, nothing of special
interest here.
Then, again due to the situation in the country and the uncertain situation
concerning the availability of gasoline caused us to not push as far as
Puerto Ayacucho to go to the Amazon. In stead, we decided to stay the
majority of the time in the city Gioconda's family lives (El Tigre), and the
only "touristic" trips we took were in the surrounding areas of El Tigre,
and to go to Ciudad Bolivar -> Canaima -> Angel Falls for 5 days.
The "El Tigre sessions" had some unexpectedly nice sights, as I had always
believed the surroundings of El Tigre to be rather dry barren lands, but
this was not completely so. We passed some nice small villages, saw some
extensive farms with Grand Canyon like red rock combinations, and we passed
some oil field installations, which are of course (normally) of crucial
importance for the country. Especially the 24/2 got a good work-out here,
but the 35-70/3.6 and the 100/2 were used for a few shots as well. Karol's
birthday party was also covered almost exclusively by the 24/2.
The "Canaima / Salto Angel session" had all the expected nice sights. A trip
to the Angel Falls (the highest waterfall in the world) is probably ranking
in the first place on the list of "must-sees" of Venezuela (yet during the
first 3 trips I made I never went there as it used to be more expensive).
The trip really is worth each and every penny we paid for it, and if anyone
is thinking about going there, by all means contact me, as I think I've
found the cheapest (and arguably so, one of the coolest) way of going there.
In brief, we were first taken by car from Ciudad Bolivar to La Paragua (a 3
hour ride through a lovely landscape) which is a small town serving as a
jump-off point for small airplanes transporting miners throughout the
region, and also for servicing some flights to and from Canaima.
Canaima resides in the middle of a thick patch of jungle, so the only way of
getting there is by air, and quite a cool flight it was. The plane was a
small 6-seater Cesna (260, I believe?), so we had a lovely bumpy ride with
great views. My enthusiasm for aviation in general, and in small airplanes
in particular, quickly had me talking to the pilot, resulting in me being
allowed to take the "co-pilot seat", right in front, cool! A thing I did not
mention to Gioconda and Karol is that the plane came very close to suffering
a bird hit with a big bird of prey, in fact, I've never been so close to an
in-flight bird of prey. Oh well, at times it's better not to know
everything, and just enjoy the marvellous views down below. ;)
So, half an hour later, we arrived at Canaima, ate lunch, and were then
directly taken by the Pemon indian guides in a big size canoe (featuring
space for some 10 passengers, 4 "crew members", and gear) on a two hours
ride up-river. December is the beginning of the dry season and consequently
the river's level was low (in fact, from January - June there are no boat
trips going there), making for some rapids in some places. That night we
stayed in one of the camps owned by the tour operators and slept in hammocks
after having enjoyed a simple yet tasty dinner. The next morning we had to
get up at 6 a.m., had breakfast and then had some 4 hours in the canoe ahead
of us. That day it became quite apparent why rain forests are called _rain_
forests, so in Dutch style we got completely soaked, and I made sure to keep
the camera stored away tightly. Upon arriving at the point from where we had
to start walking towards the falls, the rains eased up, so the 1-hour up
hill stroll through the rain forest was, fortunately, a dry one. An hour
later we arrived at the point where we were face to face with the Angel
Falls, but, oh-no, the falls were covered in mist! Hoping and praying that
the mist would go away seems to have done the trick, as indeed the mist went
completely, allowing us some gorgeous views of the falls (boy was I glad I
brought a 24!). Needless to say lots of Provia 100F was spun through the
camera here (as well as during the trip to get there). We then pushed
forward a bit to a location where one could swim below the waterfall. My
reluctance to getting completely wet again, combined with the coldness of
the water caused me to take a rain check on doing so, and had me
concentrating on taking pictures of Gioconda and Karol who were adventurous
enough to do go for a swim. Later, we returned to the same camp we stayed
the first night, and again slept there. The last day of the Angel Falls
trip, we returned to Canaima, visited Salto El Sapo (which unfortunately was
almost completely dry) and Salto El Sapito (where I did swim), as well as
the ever so lovely Saltos Hacha. After that, we returned to the Canaima base
camp and had an "R&R day" :) which we spent doing not much at all.
The lens by far most used during this part of the trip was the 24/2. The
zoom was used very little, and the 100/2 a bit more than the zoom, but not a
whole lot either.
All in all, I was very happy to have traveled lightly (phote-gear-wise), and
hardly ever found myself reaching into the camera bag for a lens that wasn't
there. Reflecting back upon the trip, I think I should have brought the
35-80/2.8, but the 35-70/3.6 worked well as well. Perhaps I would have used
the F2.8 short zoom some more than the F3.6 one, but then again, perhaps
not. This holiday was definitely a "24/2 holiday", and that lens was the
star of my trip. Film wise, I burnt 10 rolls of Provia 100F and 4 rolls of
Provia 400F, I decided to mainly use the camera's automatic metering, rather
than doing everything myself in the multi spot way (I did do this in some
difficult lighting situations though, and I should have done so in a few
situations more). I underexposed the slides by 1/3rd step for additional
colour saturation, and I must say that the colours came out lovely, really
nice.
Soooooo, now what will happen on future trips? Well, film and exposure wise,
I'll largely follow the same scheme as used during this trip. Gear wise, I
guess it depends. I'm positive that if I'm going on a city trip, some other
lenses will be brought as well (such as the 35/2.8 Shift), but I do intend
to start keeping the amount of lenses limited to some 3-4, as that works
very nicely for me. Then, the final conclusion: boy am I glad that I've got
that 24/2, I now really *love* this lens, and along with the 100/2, it's my
mainstay lens; I can highly recommend this lens to anyone looking for a fast
ultra wide.
!Saludos!
Olafo
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