Off to Venice

[amipal]

Hi,

At the end of the month I'm travelling to the beautiful city of Venice. I've never been before, so welcome any advice on technique and placement to achieve some great shots.

Equipment-wise, I'm taking my Lumix GH1 plus a tripod, but have no other equipment (not even a spare battery). My backup camera will be my trusty Lumix FZ50.

Thanks,
amipal

[Dagwood]

When you think of the cost of getting there and bearing in mind ,as you say ,it is a most beautiful city and, casting my mind back to the 3 days I spent there and the 700 plus pics I took (including a lot of rubbish shots! - Ed) I would not want to visit without spare batteries even if I had a backup camera. Unless you can use AA's I'd suggest you reconsider your decision. Travelling light is one thing ,running out of power another.
Hope the trip is as great as mine was !
Dagwood

[ianpinion]

Spare batteries are essential and a few spare memory cards too. Take several 2GB or 4GB cards rather than one large capacity card. At least if you're unfortunate enough to experience a problem with a card you won't lose all your photographs. Hope you have a wonderful time and take some inspired photos.

[amipal]

Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately I don't own a spare battery - something I've got to get around to buying at some point. I'll check out the airport, but expect a bit of a price hike there.

Got an 8 GB card winging its way to me through the post, plus I have 2 x 2 GB cards already.

I do have a spare battery for my FZ50 though!

[chris-p]

Try 7 Day Shop for third party batteries. There should still be enough time for them to arrive. A spare is really worth having.

[aRitsos]

When I visited Venice I was 21 years old, before 23 years. I had an OM10, 2 rolls of film, a flash and 2 lenses in my jacket. We were a group of 3 couples visiting the city, eating pizza and having cafe at the central places. We were relaxing enjoying our company, telling jokes, singing and after some time more people were in our group. There I made about 20 pictures. 2 of them are still in a poster at my home. That's it. Be relaxed and enjoy your visit and 100% a big photo will be in front of you. αR

[Richhirschhorn]

I agree that you take a few memory cards with you. Walk all around the city especially the out of the way streets. As you may not be going back any to soon, shoot everything you can.

If your camera takes special batteries, take a converter with you also, so that you can convert 120 to 220v. Plug the battery in every night just to be on the safe side. Some of the most memorable shots I got were of the different bridges and the narrow canals. Have fun most of all.