Tour d'Afrique - and then some

[GB]

Outstanding ride, report and pics! Thanks for the detailed updates and excellent pics and videos

[bikeboer]

oh my! this is the best ride report i have ever read. I must know; what do you do? what camera equipment do you carry with you?

Your photos are truly brilliant. And your videos are so well shot.

This sofar has kept me glued to every word and picture you are sharing. good luck, I hope I can meet you in SA. Im from South Africa

[savickij]

good stuff, keep it coming

[header]

Amazing pictures!

[yamalama]

Wow.
Thank you for taking the time to present this fantastic road report.

[grox]

This RR is awesome! Keep it coming!

As bikeboer asked, what camera/lens do you use? From some EXIF data I see an EOS 5D Mark II...

[GiSpot]

Hello Laurent...thank you for taking the time to post, it's been a real pleasure to read and view the pics and videos on this RR...I am, like many others, looking forward to the next updates on the progress...keep them coming!!!

Be well and keep safe...

[nkms]

Cool report this far ! Waiting for the rest

ν.

[yamman35]

great report, keep us posted

[Asianrider]

Hi all,
thanks for the nice comments. No update yet as I'm still stuck in Yemen, 5 days into waiting for a boat to Djibouti, and counting... Everyday is "tomorrow" if God's willing. And the only internet cafe here sucks, Windows 2000 in Arabic on 256 colors graphics. Beer? you must be kidding.. Qat is you friend.. ;-)

I can answer about the pics: by far the most important factor is to find the right subject and have good light. Then the material can matter.

In fact, some of the pics have been taken with a point-and-shoot, a Sony TX-5, which is
1. Flat and easily pocketable
2. Fast to autofocus and to shoot, unlike most pocket cameras
3. Waterproof (and hence even more importantly here sandproof!)
4. Oh yeah, and the image quality is quite acceptable

I carry it in my jacket while riding, I can stop, take it out and shoot in a matter of seconds. I've taken great pics with a point-and-shoot that I wouldn't have taken at all with an SLR, because by the time I had it ready the subject (or the light) would have been gone.

My other camera is, indeed, a 5DmkII. Truly awesome camera, I love it, it's got everything I want, or will ever want. But it's big and heavy, and it's stored in my pannier. So when a photo opportunity shows up on the road, I hesitate to stop, get out of the bike, open the panier, etc.. But when I've checked in a hotel, or pulled out for a while, I enjoy shooting with it a lot. Yet I don't take it everywhere, it's too heavy to lug around. The small Sony on the other hand is always in my pocket, I hardly notice it.

I carry a 24-105/f4, a 70-200/f4 IS and a 50/f1.4, plus a 1.4x. I used to have a fisheye and a 17mm but I sent them back home, too much stuff, not used often enough.

Can you find out for sure which camera took which picture ? the 5D has more "mega-pixels", but the pics on the web are down-res'd to 1600 pixels, so you wouldn't know. One give away is the low-light capability, the canon is quite amazing at it.. and the ability to control depth of field of course.

Both these cameras can do video. The 5d of course has amazing quality, but needs quite a bit of time to set up. And there are not that many places on the road where you can upload 1080p video... but it allows to shoot with very shallow DOF, unlike the TX5. The point and shoot is very easy to shoot video with, and at 720p quite detailed.

Finally (! yeah, I know) I have a bullet cam but it hasn't seen much action. I've put it discretely on the side of the tank bag when I've been pulled over by the tribe in Yemen, but it didn't turn out very interesting. And the quality is mediocre.

Finally, the pics need editing, so I carry a MacBook for this purpose, using Lightroom. Fantastic software, highly recommended.

All this gear still works perfectly, no failure yet, no loss, no theft. I'll keep you posted on that also.

Laurent

[bikeboer]

Hey Laurent!

Thanks for the info! I also carry a Canon SLR around with me when on my bike, but like you say, the small compact is so much easier. And that helps in taking more photos.

Your videos are amazing, the 5D is a really nice camera! I was looking at buying one, now i think the 7D is my man, but you never know!hehe

Do you charge your MacBook on your bike? Or do you charge when you get a chance to plug in?

Cant wait for your next posts! This is so inspiring, you cant imagine.

What do you do for a living? I can guess many things... :-)

Herman

[KL__07]

HI Laurent

fantastic pics and writing

safe ride bud.

KL

[the darth peach]

Pretty amazing thread and pictures.
I love them all, but really like this one..
nice work.

[Frederic_Shiffer]

Excellent!

Très bon d'avoir tes photos et vidéos du Yemen,
continue comme ça Laurent, j'adore ton RR!

Fred.

[Bluebull2007]

Hmm, I wonder where our intrepid Explorer might be...