Oz in '08 -- Beth and John Lucas Tour Australia, Notes on the Photos

What We Carried

Nikon SB-800 Flash Unit
Tiffen and Hoya Filters for each lens (UV and Circular Polarizer)
Lens Hood for each lens ----
30 GB of Class 6 SDHD memory cards for the D80 and 10.5 GB CompactFlash memory cards for the D70
Rechargeable batteries spares for both cameras and recharger
International voltage converter (also used for other devices)
Tabletop tripod (manufacturer unknown)
Manfrotto 676B monopod with Manfrotto 3229 head
Cable release for the D80 and remote control for the D70
Patch cables from camera to USB and video; USB readers for memory cards
Books on the cameras and flash unit

John:

D80, mostly in aperture priority mode but manual as needed, auto-focus but manual as needed, manual color balance, continuous shooting mode with +/- 0.5 f-stop exposure bracketing (three shots each time the button is pushed), time adjusted for Sydney time zone, most shots were at f8 or f11
Nikon 18-200mm f3.5-5.6G VR ED IF DX used exclusively with the Vibration Reduction on but not in active mode except in/on vehicles
Nikon SB-800 flash unit
10 megapixel Nikon raw (NEF) images 8-9 MB per image (3800+ pixels wide)
tabletop tripod extended to full size with cable release

Beth:

D70, in fully automatic exposure mode and white balance, single shot shooting mode, time not adjusted for Sydney
Nikon 18-70mm f3.5-4.5G ED IF DX (used until broken on Fraser Island)
Nikon 18-135mm f3.5-5.6G ED IF DX (thereafter)
Nikon 80-200mm f4.5-5.6D (rarely)
6 megapixel Nikon raw (NEF) images 6 MB per image
monopod

Nikon 60mm Micro-Nikkor f2.8D (didn't have the need for less than one foot focusing distance)
patch cables
some of Beth's smaller memory cards

Medium duty Vivitar full size tripod (omitted due to luggage restrictions)
A "longer" telephoto for some of the wildlife shots
Bubble level for the cameras (used to have one but lost somewhere along the way in the UK and not (yet) replaced)
More time!

Portfolio Management by Extensis Portfolio v8.5
Image Post-processing by Adobe Photoshop CS2
Except for some wildlife pictures shot in the 135-200mm focal length range, most shots were from 18-70 mm. BIG buildings, wide vistas, big rocks very close. 18mm in digital format is strong wide-angle and is prone to perspective distortions if the camera is not absolutely level. So post-processing DOES include perspective corrections in urban settings primarily to correct "keystone effects."
Generally image properties such brightness, contrast, color saturation and balance were left unaltered. It is impossible to predict how they will appear on your screen -- each monitor (CRT or LCD) has its own color balance/temperature and brightness and calibration isn't possible as it is for a specific printer.
Cropping: some pictures were straightened/rotated to produce horizontal horizons. Some cropping for compositional reasons occurred. The image size was reduced to 600 by 400 pixels for the purposes of the website -- the D80 raw images are 3872 by 2592 pixels, suitable for 11x17" at 240 pixels/inch. Images were rendered to JPG at the low end of the quality scale (3 out of 10) to reduce the load time of the pages.