[Leica] A trip

["Henning J. Wulff" <henningw@archiphoto.com>]

Well, I'm back from my trip. One month in total, with 3 weeks in Nepal, one
month in Malaysia and a number of days in Singapore inbetween, and a total
of about 54 hours flying time (no, I didn't take a DC-3, but a 747 flight
had headwinds of 300km/h for nearly 20 hours).

Nepal was amazing. Kathmandu is a visual mass that is hard to deal with as
a photographer. Separating visual elements to compose a photograph would
take a lot more acclimatization time than I had, so I just shot. The trek
we were on on the side trails south of the Annapurna massif was one of the
most satisfying trips I have ever been on, and my wife agreed with me, even
though it is usally a struggle to get her to go camping, and she hates not
having a shower or bath every day - here she didn't have one for over 2
weeks. We were hot and sweating on the many uphill sections (and in Nepal,
if it isn't downhill, it _is_ uphill), and some nights it got down to -20
degrees Celsius, and it snowed some. I got sick during the trek (no fault
of the water or other cleanliness issue - the trek was handled very
professionally, it was a pre-existing condition), so I had a number of days
of real struggling what with a high fever and rather severe pain, and my
shooting was rather reduced. Now I'm wondering when I can go back again.

Malaysia was intended to be a sort of veg-out-at-the-tropical-beach
interlude before returning home, but we both enjoyed it too much to just
sit around, so we wound up driving aver 2500km in the rental car.

We met with two LUGgers, one in Singapore (Lee Yan Zhan) and one in
Kathmandu (Ian Stanley), and I must say that if these two are
representative of the LUG I will use every opportunity to meet the rest of
you!

I took 2 - M6's, 21 asph, 35 Summicron, 90 Summicron and 135 Tele-Elmar.
For cities I also had the Noctilux, but not on the trek. I also had the
'other' M6 - the Mamiya, and a 120 Noblex. In the 120 cameras I had color
neg material, and Velvia and Sensia in the Leica's. The Mamiya and Leicas I
had in a camera bag clipped to the shoulder straps of my backpack during
the trek, but on the front, so I could get at the stuff easily. The Noblex
was in a fanny pack, but often travelled inside the backpack during the
trek. I also had a Gitzo Mountaineer with me, but didn't carry it during
the day much as I had access to it mornings and evenings from the pack that
the porters carried during the day.

As I have a variety of equipment, it was a bit of a struggle to decide what
to take. On a lot of trips I have taken Nikon outfits, with 3 bodies and 10
lenses, but that would have been too hard to handle, especially since I
also wanted to take MF. I did miss some things, from the 15mm through the
PC lenses to macro and serious tele, but I worked with what I had. The last
time I took _only_ Leica stuff on a trip with me for slides was in the
60's, and then I had a Viso. In spite of the limitations, I still managed
to get some decent pictures of lammergeier in flight, which is a bit
marginal with a 135 on a Leica RF! But then, the picture I have on my site
of the blue heron is with the same combination. You just shoot a bit
differently.

I'm starting to sort the images, and a couple of them will make it to my
web site (probably over the holidays). Meanwhile I'm trying to sort out a
slide presentation and get a couple of large pictures printed, especially
from the Noblex negs.


   *            Henning J. Wulff
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