Rainbow Photo Tours of
"Even though the roads are rough, and a little hair-raising at times, the drivers are obviously well experienced professionals, safe, courteous and capable. "
—TripAdvisor Reviews of Rainbow Photo Tours
In the fall of 2010 I set my mission statement for 2011 - take a hard core photography trip to an exotic place. After much searching I landed on Robin's web site, and immediately knew I had found my trip. There are three reasons to choose this trip: First, the integrity of the length of the trip. Some trips will advertise 15 days but when you look it is the evening of day three before they arrive in the country and have their first get together. We got together the evening before and were in Bhutan, with our drivers and guides, by noon of day 1. Second, traveling in cars. You are driving along and see a spot you would like to stop for a photo. Merely saying, "stop here" causes the car to stop, before you can open your door the guide is out and opens it for you. They you walk around to size up the photo opportunity and request, "the camera with the long lens and a tripod". Magically they appear next to you. Third, is Robin himself. I talked with other tours and found out that the big name photographer leading the trip had never been there. This was Robin's 21st trip. I might be shooting and he would tap me on the shoulder and say, bring your camera and tripod. Sure enough he had a better vantage point in mind, or he was looking around while I was shooting and saw something else developing.
Thanks Robin for surely making this a once in a lifetime experience.
Bodies: Canon 5DII and 7D Lens: 17-40, 24-105, 100-400 (also 50 1.4 and 85 1.8)
P&S: Canon G11
"Protection" filters on all the lens
Polarizing filter for all lens
Tripod
The prime lens were used very little, they were mainly taken as back up. It was great to have two main camera bodies, rather than a main and back up. By having two main cameras it was possible to do very little lens changing, dramatically reducing the dust problem, I shot a lot of video with the 7D, with great success. Most of my pictures are taken using a tripod and this trip was no exception. Be prepared for lots of shooting in low light, sometimes 1/13 of a second, lens wide open and ISO 3,200.