Travel Arsenal - Technology for the Road

Monkey Mia and Francis Peron National Park, Western Australia

Often when I go on holiday, I look forward to getting away from technology. On this trip, it was apparent that I was needed to take technology with me. I was still organizing a move, reviewing print submissions and finishing projects on a deadline. In lieu of lugging around laptops during our holidays and on our move, Craig and I bought new mobile phones earlier this year.

From mid-July until mid-August, I knew I'd be without my computer and/or a reliable network connection for it.  My phone was going to get a heavy duty work out - blogging, photo transfers, designing and editing. I'm certain others have struggled to manage everything while on the road - traveling light, but still tackling life. I thought I'd do a short post about my technology travel arsenal and what worked for me.

Shell Beach, Shark Bay Heritage Area, Western Australia

Mobile Phone
At the core of my technology travel arsenal is my mobile phone. We went shopping earlier this year and I was hellbent on buying a large tablet before we got to the store. I was convinced that I'd need a lot of screen real-estate to accomplish what I wanted in terms of photo editing, design and drawing. I'm glad I went in a different direction.
Styluses (drawing pens) have come in and out of fashion as we march through technology, but I've always been a fan. I have tiny fingers, so you'd think I'd be great at touch screens. That's just not the case. I feel like a klutz with no control when I type on a phone or tablet. I'm not sure if it's because of my small fingers or my cold fingers - I have a very slow heart rate and my extremities are always chilly and I loathe tapping away with my index finger on touch screens. Because I wanted to use the device for design, having control was a crucial element in my buying decision.
Many brands of phones and laptops support third party styluses, but Samsung have a range with the stylus integrated into the phone and phone software. Both Craig and I had Samsung Galaxy 2's bought when they first came out and joked that these stupid phones would never die. We dropped them. We knocked them off ledges. We never put them in cases. We ran far more apps and pushed them farther than their cpu should have gone, but they kept ticking. Having both had good experiences with Samsungs and being familiar with the Android OS; we came out our purchases with a great deal of brand loyalty.
It was Craig who originally wanted a Samsung Galaxy Note 3. I went in shopping for a tablet - a rare splurge for both of us at once. We went back and forth debating what we both really needed. Did we need tablets?  Did we need new phones for other reasons?  What suited us best?  In the end I walked away with a Galaxy Note 3 and he got a different Samsung phone. I was a tiny bit concerned it wouldn't be powerful enough or that I had sacrificed screen real-estate; but two months later I am thrilled with the purchase and would make the same decision again.

DSLR Camera
The other big part of my travel equation is my camera. For years, I have travelled with 'proper' cameras. Having taken photography classes in grad school, I enjoy the control that I get from a better camera. They are big, bulky and heavy. They lack immediacy (which is no longer an issue as I'll explain later). For me though, a proper camera is a must when it comes to photo quality. I take tragically bad photos with my phone. I always have. I suspect I always will. From what I've seen on Instagram, many people have the same problem.
There's something good about holding a proper camera that's hard to put my finger on. People are more patient with you when you shoot with a DSLR. You are more patient with yourself. People engage you about what you're doing. Trips are more vibrant for me when glanced through a viewfinder.
I have long been a Canon owner and am now on my third Canon - one simply wore out due to the abuse I gave it - sand and saltwater fill our lives, the second was sold so I could upgrade models. Again, brand loyalty played a huge role in my decision. I changed camera models late last year to a camera with a smaller body. I never buy top-of-the-line or even mid-range because my small hands aren't comfortable holding a giant camera body.
Like a rotary cutter or crochet hook, I chose my camera because of how it felt in my hands and how it met my needs. I now shoot with a Canon 100D (known as a Rebel SL1 in other regions) using the stock twin lens kit. It's a very small DSLR an quite portable. In fact, at the time we bought it, it was the smallest DSLR in its class. It's lighter-weight, but still sufficient in quality. I've used a number of Canon DSLRs throughout the years and highly recommend them. I'm really happy with my setup and the other thing I'd really like to add right now is a third lens that pulls more light for the rare indoor shooting that I do.

Eye-Fi and Image Transfer
I mentioned above that DSLRs can lack 'immediacy.'  The delay getting images off your DSLR often sucks. Instagram's popularity has much to do with the immediacy of mobile phone cameras. In the past, you needed a barrage of cables or card readers and it was painfully slow to get images off your digital camera - usually not until the end of the trip unless you toted around a heavy laptop. Phones lacked the space, processing power and applications to deal with high quality images, so the top quality photos you shot on your DSLR usually had to wait until you were home. A few years back that started to change.
Many professional-grade cameras these days have built-in wireless capability, and the good news is that consumer-grade users can enjoy the same luxury. After consulting with a few friends on Facebook, I sprung out for a 16Gb Eye-Fi Pro Wi-Fi memory card. If you aren't familiar with Eye-Fi, they are one of a few makers of memory cards that have built in wireless network functionality that allows you to beam your images directly to your computer or mobile device from your DSLR as you shoot them. In Australia, they set you back about $135 for the Pro model.
The cards can be used with local networks or they can be configured to create a one-on-one network with the device you are transferring the images to. The cards function just like normal memory cards except at the same time they store your photo, they beam it to you on another device. Immediacy problem solved. For the Pro model, you do need a computer to configure the card. Make sure you buy it before you pack your laptop away for a move - a mistake I made, but thankfully was able to fix.
The Eye-Fi card worked really well for me. I was able to blog, share, and send high quality images to press straight away while on holidays. I had pushed one project for a friend's fabric release right down to the wire. Frankly, the Eye-Fi card saved me.
At home I've been able to take snapshots around the house and have them go straight to the computer without fussing for cables or card readers. For the Instagram contributors who want to up their game quickly with high quality shots while out and about, I'd say this is a must have gizmo... from camera to photo to social media quickly.

Autodesk Pixlr Express
As I mentioned, using a high quality camera with proper lenses meant that there wasn't a need for a great deal of photo editing on my mobile phone. When you start with good photos, you don't need to throw a thousand filters on them to make them better. My biggest problem was that the images were too big and too slow to upload to my blog and Facebook. I need tools to reduce them quickly, crop them or tidy up tiny artifacts. On my laptop, I use an older version of Adobe Lightroom which catalogues my images and gives me lots of photo editing control. I expected very little from my phone, so I was pleasantly surprised with Autodesk Pixlr Express. It became my goto app for cropping, rotation and color correction. Like many photo editing apps, it offers lots of options for adding filters, overlaps and creating collages. It has easy built-in funcitons to help manage filesize and give you a fair bit of control over your images. While Pixlr Express does not have all the bells and whistles of Lightroom, it's a good substitute and it is a free download.

Design Tools
After trialling a few applications, Infinite Design has become my vector-based design tool of choice on my mobile phone. It definitely has quirks (well bugs, if I must be honest), but it is a fairly powerful tool for vector-based design. Among its features are layers, a customizable shape gallery, multiple grid layouts and a mostly intuitive interface. I paid about $5.60AUD to get the full version which allowed me to expert to multiple formats. In combination with the stylus, it worked well for me and helped me stay on track with my Quilt Design a Day habit while on the road.

a sampling of the Infinite Design toolset

Designs created on my Samsung Galaxy Note 3

Camera Bag
The last key element in my technology travel arsenal is my camera bag. I hunted for a couple of years for the right bag before settling on an Incase sling camera bag.  They no longer make the model I have, but the bag is so fantastic that I feel confident recommending their other models. First, it looks good. I don't look like an idiot wearing the bag while galavanting around town and secondly it's comfortable. The weight is evenly distributed across my body and well balanced. It has an adjustable main compartment that holds my camera body, lenses and filters. Because the Canon 100D is small, I also have room for a crochet project and a couple of balls of wool. When I'm really keen, I can even load it up with all of my cables for travel. It flips around quickly to pull my camera out - if I'm hiking and we stumble on a kangaroo, I can get the camera out before she hops off. I highly recommend Incase bags, if you are in the market for a travel camera bag.

That's the bulk my toolkit. How about you?  Do you have any favorite goto tools for the road?