About

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I believe this is the 8th incarnation of this site, but the core concept has always been the same: to write about my travels as they happen, so I can enjoy them again at a later date.

It started when I was planning my first trip to Japan and was looking for inspiration. I stumbled upon two websites http://15daysinjapan.com/ and http://19daysinjapan.com/ that showed beautifull images and stories written in a daily blog style. Later on I found https://paulstamatiou.com/ that does the same, but takes it to a higher level with his design skills. I really enjoyed reading the stories and the photos and decided to the same from then on.

At the end of every day on holiday I empty my camera and quickly pick the best photos to upload them over night (Internet isn’t always the best in hotels). I write the posts every night so I don’t forget what happened that day. Especially on long trips the days start to blend together and it becomes hard to remember what you did each day.

It took a few years of convincing but my travel buddy started to do the same. Other sites I recommend in this category are https://akanekinomoto.com/ and https://mutelife.com/

What’s in my bag

My first real camera was a Nikon D50 with a kit-lens and a Nikon 70-300. It didn’t take long before it was replaced with a Nikon D90 with a Tamron 28-75 and a Nikon 10-47 which was my favourite lens combination for a very long time.

After a few years I noticed that I would miss shots, because I didn’t want to take out the “big” camera, or it took too long to take it out and set it up.

The Peak Design Capture clip helped a bit, but having a full-size DSLR on your belt or in front of your backpack all day long became cumbersome.

The D90 was one of the first camera’s with a video mode in 1080 resolution, but as with many first-time devices, it wasn’t very good. This lead me to buy a Sony RX10 when I was in Japan. It could fit in a jacket pocket for easy access.

While a great little camera that produced very nice photo’s, the lack of a viewfinder was becoming more and more annoying, especially on sunny days where you couldn’t see anything on the screen. Years of abuse started to take its toll on the camera, it was always in my bag, with keys and other metal objects.

At this point the D90 was starting to show its age, especially in night-time conditions or indoors. Someone made me an offer on the old camera with lenses and I sold the entire set, replacing it with a Sony A6000 (bought in the exact same shop in Tokyo as the RX100 a few years later).

The kit-lens was okay, but I wanted a better image quality, so I took a good look at all my photo’s in Lightroom and discovered that most of the photo’s were made in a few very specific ranges. (12-14) and (28-35), this lead me to buy the much praised Samyang 14mm f/2.8 and the Sigma 30mm F/1.4. With these two primes and the kit-lens for other occasions I have all the coverage I need for the kind of photo’s I take.

This setup has stayed the same for the last few years, for me it has the perfect combination of range and quality in a compact package. It only takes up a small portion of my Boundary Supply prima system backpack..